Whats the difference? Nothing but the warm fuzzy feeling you get by shelling out more $$$

Technology - As stated they both are issued using a 128bit encrypted cypher and are just as hard to crack. These days if you look at the certificate closely in your browser you will find that 128bit is the minimum depending on the server architecture it may be 256bit or even higher.

Warranty - Most give you $10000 warranty as a base cover, I have NEVER heard of a certificate being cracked and anyone EVER make a claim. 40bit sure they can be cracked but 128bit I'm sure a determined cracker with 3 or 4 months and a mega server cluster would be able to bypass the system but by then they would find all these armed men waiting outside their front door.

Trust - This is the only difference when you pay the $$$ to the big boys you get a nice seal for your website stating that your website is secured by a certificate issued by them. For the really expensive ones you also have to prove who you are before you get issued with the certificate and this is another level of TRUST. You have proved who you are.


So what do you need?
You just need a certificate to secure access to a site for yourself as you want to protect some passwords that you are entering and do not want the information to be sent in the clear. Use a self signed or CACert freebee and put up with the warning notices.

You need to secure a site for a shopping cart, customers are making small purchases, $20 - $200 then they may not even know what SSL is. Get a cheap one that works without a popup warning and you are fine. Some even give you a site seal anyway.

If on the other hand the information being entered is of a very secure nature and Trust is a big issue then get one of the Pro level with a nice site seal that proclaims who you bought it from and should have a link back to their site so they can verify you. The job should pay enough to cover the extra cost and you can sell the extra cost to them by quoting all the trust issue stuff.