Verified Free / Business & Marketing Tools

Is Qualys SSL Labs actually free?

Truly Free
How free98/100
Value7/10
How these scores work
Free Score (0–100) follows a fixed rubric: cards up front, auto-billing, hard time cutoffs, withheld core features, and paying with your data or attention all deduct points. 90–100 truly free · 70–89 free forever · 45–69 squeezed · 15–44 trial mechanics · under 15 fake or gone. Value (0–10) is editorial: real-world worth of the free offering measured against its paid equivalent. Full rubric on the methodology page.

Yes — the industry-standard free test of a website's HTTPS setup: paste a domain, wait a couple of minutes, get a letter grade with a full breakdown of certificate, protocol, and configuration issues.

What it’s worth

This exact analysis inside a paid security assessment bills at consulting rates; here it's the free sample.

What you get free

  • A full TLS/SSL configuration analysis with a letter grade
  • Certificate, protocol, and cipher detail
  • Known-vulnerability checks
  • No account, no fee

In practice: the definitive free answer to 'is our HTTPS actually configured right' — the grade your IT provider should be able to explain.

Drawbacks

  • Takes a few minutes per scan
  • Deeply technical output past the letter grade
  • Results can appear on a public recent-scans board unless you tick the hide option

Free facts

VerdictTruly Free
Card requiredNo
Auto-bills
AccountNone needed
LimitsOne domain per scan; a few minutes per test
The real costNothing. It's a security company's calling card — the honest kind.

The catch

It's the same species as the DreamSite checkup: a security firm demonstrating competence by giving the diagnosis away. The scan is slow and deeply technical — and the letter grade is the lingua franca of TLS quality.

The smart play

  • Tick 'Do not show results on the boards' before scanning if the domain is sensitive
  • Anything below an A is a to-do for whoever runs your server
  • Re-test after certificate renewals — that's when configurations quietly regress

More info — tap to expand

Why Qualys gives this away
SSL Labs made Qualys the name enterprises think of for security posture — a lead magnet so good it became the industry's shared measuring stick. The free tool IS the marketing budget, spent on being useful.
Reading the grade honestly
The grade measures your HTTPS configuration, not your overall security. An A+ site can still have a hacked contact form. Treat it as one gauge on the dashboard — necessary, nowhere near sufficient.

Last checked: July 2026 · Verdict: Truly Free — no card, no account wall, no meaningful catch. use it and go.

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