You don't pay for class 2 certs from startssl. You pay for class 2 validation. After validation you can generate an unlimited number of class 2 certs at no cost including wildcard certs. Validation is cheaper than a single premium cert from getssl.

Startssl does charge per cert for EV certs. The first cert is $199.90 and subsequent are $49.90. A bargain compared to most ssl cert providers.

StartSSL also lets you use subjectAltName to have multiple domains on one cert so that you can host multiple domains off of a single IP.