A consent management platform shows the cookie banner, blocks trackers until a visitor agrees and keeps proof of the choice.
Vendors count the bill in pageviews, sessions, subpages or sites, which makes quotes hard to compare. This guide ranks twelve products on setup effort, the invoice after growth, data exit and independence.
Vendors can pay for visibility on this page. It never changes what an entry
says about a product, including the criticism, and we earn nothing when you click through to a
vendor. How that works.
In short
What consent management platforms do
A consent management platform shows visitors a cookie and tracking notice, records their choices as evidence, and passes those choices to tags and advertising systems so scripts run only with permission.
In this order: setup effort, what it really costs, how your data comes back out, whether
you can leave, and who each consent management platform is built for. One rule sits on top of those tests:
Places 1 to 3 go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category, wherever the category has them; the established names follow from place 4 in their ranked order. Why those five, and why there is no
score out of ten, is on the how we work page.
Packaged and quoted per organisation; demo on request
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Suite-scale consent product sold through quoted packages
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Country is where the vendor is headquartered or contracts from, which is a
different question from where your data is hosted. Where the two tell different stories, the
entry says so.
Complianz BV, a Dutch company in Groningen, prices by site count rather than visitors: one licence for a single site, one for five, one for 25, renewed yearly with a 30-day refund window.
Each plan lists records of consent, Google Consent Mode v2, region-specific banners and documents, and an IAB TCF CMP ID. There are no lifetime licences and no discounts, so budget for renewal every year.
What stands out
WordPress plugin
Yearly licence
No pageview limits
Where it costs you
It is built for WordPress, with a Shopify app, so a site on another platform has nothing to install.
If a licence is not renewed, the banner keeps running but edits to documents and settings stop, and TCF updates stop working.
Right for
WordPress site owners who want one yearly licence instead of traffic-based banner billing
Wrong for
Sites built on anything other than WordPress or Shopify
NetherlandsPublished yearly licences by site count; free plan as a WordPress plugin; 30-day refund
UK-run banner tool with a free plan and pageview-based tiers
Ranked #2 of 12 in Best Consent Management Platforms in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingEurope
CookieYes Limited, registered in Milton Keynes, offers a free plan, then Basic, Pro and Ultimate tiers per domain, each with a larger scan size and pageview allowance. Geo-targeting arrives at Pro and branding removal at Ultimate.
Paid plans start with a 14-day trial and can be cancelled at any time. Agencies can apply to a partner programme with discounts of up to half instead of the standard list.
What stands out
Per-domain pricing
Pageview tiers
Platform apps
Where it costs you
Each extra domain needs its own paid plan, and an account gets only one free plan.
Basic and Pro bill additional pageviews per thousand above the limit, so a traffic spike raises the invoice.
Right for
Small sites wanting a free starting plan and a clear per-domain upgrade path
Wrong for
Owners of many domains wanting a single flat fee
United KingdomPublished per domain per month; free plan; 14-day trial on paid plans
French banner tool with a visitor-capped free plan and pageview tiers
Ranked #3 of 12 in Best Consent Management Platforms in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingEurope
Axeptio counts pageviews per month: Extra Small up to 2,500, Small up to 5,000, Medium up to 100,000 and Large up to 500,000, each for one domain.
The scanner appears from Small, analytics connectors and a contextual consent wall from Medium, and subdomains and Standard statistics at Large. The company lists Google CMP partner status and TCF support, and sells separate publisher and agency offers.
What stands out
Pageview tiers
Branded banner design
Google CMP partner
Where it costs you
Each tier covers one domain, so several sites push you toward the quoted Enterprise plan.
The free plan caps at 200 visitors a month, which a live commercial site passes quickly.
Right for
Brands that want a designed, on-brand consent banner for one or two sites
Wrong for
Publishers needing many domains on published, predictable pricing
FrancePublished monthly tiers by pageviews; free plan; Enterprise quoted
Policy generator plus banner, licensed per website with view caps
Ranked #4 of 12 in Best Consent Management Platforms in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
Termly Inc. combines a policy generator with a consent banner. The free tier gives one basic policy, a cookie script blocker and quarterly scans; Starter adds monthly scans and regulation monitoring; Pro+ adds weekly scans, Google Consent Mode v2, IAB TCF 2.3, regional rules and logo removal.
Banner views are capped at 10,000 and 50,000 monthly on the lower two. Annual billing is cheaper than monthly.
What stands out
Policies included
Per-website licence
Banner view caps
Where it costs you
Every additional website needs its own licence unless you negotiate the custom Agency plan.
Starter allows two legal policies and ten policy edits, so a changing business hits the limit.
Right for
Small businesses wanting policies and a banner from one vendor per site
Wrong for
Single buyers running many websites without negotiating an agency plan
United StatesPublished per website per month; free plan; annual billing discount
Consent tool with published small-site plans and a fine guarantee
Ranked #5 of 12 in Best Consent Management Platforms in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
Osano, Inc. is an Austin-based public benefit corporation with a Dublin office, and offers to act as a GDPR representative. The Plus plan adds two users, three domains, privacy and legal templates and 30,000 monthly visitors.
Basic Privacy and above add unlimited users and domains, scheduled compliance checks, basic subject-rights handling and onboarding. The site lists CSV export for audits under its wider platform.
What stands out
Public benefit corporation
Fine guarantee
Dublin office
Where it costs you
Anything above the Plus plan needs a demo and a custom quote, so growth cannot be budgeted from the site.
The fine guarantee has a stated ceiling and covers fines caused by the platform, not any penalty.
Right for
US-facing small teams that want a free start and a documented escalation path
Wrong for
Buyers who need published prices for more than three domains
United StatesFree plan for one domain; Plus tier published; larger plans quoted
Italian policy and consent suite sold per site with pageview tiers
Ranked #6 of 12 in Best Consent Management Platforms in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingEurope
iubenda S.r.l. of Milan publishes per-site tiers in euro or dollars with a discount for yearly billing. The Essentials tier covers 25,000 pageviews, Advanced 50,000 and Ultimate 150,000. Document libraries hold over 2,400 done-for-you clauses.
Geo-targeting starts at Advanced, while detailed analytics and the mobile SDK are Ultimate-only. Any plan can be tried for 14 days, and an agency programme and enterprise route sit alongside.
What stands out
Policies included
Per-site tiers
team.blue group
Where it costs you
The entry tier allows one language and monthly scans, so international sites need the middle tier.
Pageviews beyond each tier's allowance are billed per thousand, and plans are priced per site.
Right for
European small businesses wanting policy documents and a banner from one supplier
Wrong for
Agencies and groups wanting one contract across many sites
ItalyPublished per site per month by pageview tier; free plan; 14-day trial
Danish banner service billed per domain by subpage count
Ranked #7 of 12 in Best Consent Management Platforms in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingEurope
Cookiebot, run by Usercentrics A/S in Denmark, offers a 14-day trial of every feature, then a free tier or the Premium Lite, Small, Medium, Large and XL steps.
The feature list covers a branded banner, multiple-domain handling, automated reporting, 47-plus languages, regional banners and CSV export of all consents with categories. The page states that it never charges on page views or usage.
What stands out
Subpage-based pricing
CSV consent export
Usercentrics-owned
Where it costs you
Pricing by subpage count punishes large content or shop sites, which move into higher tiers quickly.
Each domain is evaluated and billed on its own, so multi-site setups multiply the invoice.
Right for
Small sites that want banner pricing independent of traffic
Wrong for
Large catalogue sites with thousands of unique URLs per domain
DenmarkPublished monthly per domain by subpage count; 14-day trial; free tier for one small domain
Munich consent platform with session-based tiers from one domain up
Ranked #8 of 12 in Best Consent Management Platforms in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingEurope
Usercentrics GmbH structures four published tiers by sessions: 1,500, 3,000, 15,000 and 50,000 per month, with one, one, three and ten domains.
The smallest tier allows one regulation and two banner languages; Plus adds unlimited regulations, geolocation rules and five languages; Pro adds branding and detailed analytics; Business adds custom CSS and a premium SLA. Cookiebot and the app and connected-TV products sit in the same group.
What stands out
Session-based tiers
Cookiebot sister product
Auto-upgrade on overage
Where it costs you
Automatic upgrades when session limits are exceeded can raise the monthly bill without warning.
A/B testing and no-branding sit in the Corporate plan or as add-ons, not in the entry tiers.
Right for
Growing sites wanting session-based tiers and easy moves between regulations
Wrong for
Teams that need consent only for a few static pages
GermanyPublished monthly tiers by sessions; free plan under 1,000 sessions; 14-day trial; Corporate quoted
Paris consent platform scoped by monthly visitors, quoted per organisation
Ranked #9 of 12 in Best Consent Management Platforms in 2026.
Pricing on requestEurope
Didomi SAS lists three offers, Essential, Advanced and Premium, with unlimited domains counted by monthly unique visitors.
Included features on the page cover multi-regulation support, notice personalisation in 45-plus languages, consent analytics, consent proofs, cross-domain consent and A/B testing, with white labelling and analytics exports in higher offers. Connected-TV and mobile app consent are sold as separate products.
What stands out
Quote-only
Preference management
Connected TV consent
Where it costs you
No price appears on the offers page, so a budget needs a sales conversation first.
Pricing is scoped by monthly unique visitors, which can rise with traffic across all your domains.
Right for
Publishers and multi-brand groups needing consent plus preference management
Wrong for
Small sites wanting a self-service plan with prices on the page
FranceQuoted per organisation; demo on request; Essential, Advanced and Premium offers
Consent module bundled into an analytics suite, EU-operated hosting
Ranked #10 of 12 in Best Consent Management Platforms in 2026.
Published pricingEurope
Piwik PRO answers the procurement question first: the data can live in EU data centres or a private cloud, consent is handled as a first-class concept, and the analytics, tag manager, consent and Data Activation modules share one collection layer.
For public bodies, banks and healthcare that is often decisive. Judged purely as a customer data platform it is modest, with simpler profile unification and a Business plan that caps Data Activation at 300 profiles a month, and you will be paying for analytics you may already have elsewhere.
What stands out
Suite bundle
EU-operated cloud
Cookie Information group
Where it costs you
Many destinations run through webhooks and automation tools
Identity resolution is lighter than the enterprise products
Right for
European organisations where consent and hosting location drive the decision
Wrong for
Consumer brands needing deep identity matching and many destinations
PolandPublished Business tier from a monthly fee; 30-day trial; Enterprise tiers quoted
Enterprise cookie consent manager with demo-led, quoted pricing
Ranked #11 of 12 in Best Consent Management Platforms in 2026.
Pricing on requestNorth America
TrustArc, in Walnut Creek, California, describes automated tracker scans, centralised categorisation, cookie blocking, consent records and reporting across domains.
The page names more than 100 jurisdictions, GPC signals, IAB TCF 2.2, GPP and Google Consent Mode, and consistent choices across devices. It also sells an individual rights manager and a consent and preference manager, and no pricing appears anywhere on the pages we checked.
What stands out
Quote-only
100+ jurisdictions
Privacy-team product
Where it costs you
No price is shown and enquiries go to a demo, so cost cannot be checked before talking to sales.
The product page leaves policy configuration and compliance judgment with the customer's privacy team.
Right for
Privacy teams running many jurisdictions and domains who want the consent tool inside a platform
Wrong for
Small sites wanting to start with a published plan
United StatesQuoted per organisation; demo on request
Suite-scale consent product sold through quoted packages
Ranked #12 of 12 in Best Consent Management Platforms in 2026.
Pricing on requestNorth America
OneTrust, with an Atlanta, Georgia address, scans cookies against a database of over 45 million pre-categorised entries, covers 250-plus languages, geolocation rules, A/B tests and mobile and connected-TV consent, and says more than 750,000 websites use it.
Price is a custom quote after a call, and the module sits beside AI governance and risk products, so a banner-only team buys a platform it must configure.
What stands out
Quote-only
Suite packaging
Mobile and CTV consent
United StatesPackaged and quoted per organisation; demo on request
A consent management platform shows visitors a cookie and tracking notice, records their choices as evidence, and passes those choices to tags and advertising systems so scripts run only with permission. The differences that matter are rarely in the feature list, so this is
the order we would work through them.
01
Decide whether you need a published price
9 of the 12 tools here publish what they cost; the other 3 quote per organisation. The ones you can compare without a sales call: Complianz, CookieYes, Axeptio, Termly, Osano, iubenda, Cookiebot, Usercentrics, Piwik PRO.
02
Decide how much the jurisdiction matters
These 12 vendors are established in 8 countries across 2 regions (Europe 8, North America 4). That decides whose disclosure law applies to what the vendor holds, wherever the servers are.
03
Consider whether you want the source
1 of these are open source: Complianz. Hosting one yourself trades a subscription for maintenance.
Consent management platform pricing is counted five different ways
Before comparing invoices, find out what each vendor counts. Complianz charges by WordPress installation and states no pageview or session limits. Cookiebot counts subpages per domain and says it charges nothing for traffic. Usercentrics counts sessions, CookieYes and iubenda count pageviews, and Axeptio counts pageviews or monthly visitors.
These units grow differently: a shop with thousands of product URLs climbs through Cookiebot tiers, while a blog with heavy traffic climbs through CookieYes and Usercentrics tiers. Pull twelve months of analytics, translate your site into each unit, then price the tier it lands in plus any per-thousand overage.
Export last year's sessions, pageviews and unique URLs from your analytics.
Ask whether extra domains, subdomains and staging sites are billed separately.
Find the overage rule: automatic upgrade or a per-thousand charge.
What the free plans on a consent management platform actually cap
Free plans are marketing for the first tier, and their caps are narrow. Axeptio stops at 200 visitors a month, Usercentrics at fewer than 1,000 monthly sessions, CookieYes at 5,000 pageviews, Osano at 5,000 visitors on one domain, and Termly at 10,000 banner views with a single basic policy.
Cookiebot caps its free tier at 50 subpages. Any live commercial site passes these limits quickly. Treat a free plan as a test of the banner and the scanner. Check what you lose at the next step: some tools lock geolocation rules, additional languages or branding removal behind the first paid tier.
Compare your monthly traffic against the exact free-plan ceiling.
List the features that start only on the first paid tier.
Confirm how long the banner keeps working if you hit the cap.
Policy documents bundled with a consent management platform
Termly and iubenda sell privacy and cookie policy generators together with the banner, while Complianz generates legal documents inside WordPress. That saves a second subscription for a small business, but it limits how much you can edit: Termly Starter caps policy edits at ten, and iubenda's entry tier covers a standard policy with up to 20 services. Didomi, TrustArc and OneTrust sell consent as part of broader privacy platforms instead.
If your lawyer already writes your policies, pay for the consent layer alone and skip the bundle. If you rely on generated documents, check that they cover every jurisdiction you sell into, and read what the plan says about updates when the law changes, because a cookie policy that drifts out of date while the banner keeps running is the failure regulators actually find.
Check how many policies and edits the plan allows.
Ask who updates the document when a law changes.
Decide whether you want one vendor or the cheapest banner.
Quoted consent platforms and what to ask before the demo
OneTrust, TrustArc and Didomi publish no prices, so the quote is your first data point. Ask for the unit being counted, the renewal uplift, and what happens when traffic grows. Ask how consent evidence leaves: Cookiebot lists CSV export of all consents, Termly lists consent logs you can export, Didomi lists consent proofs.
Note group ownership too: Cookiebot and Usercentrics sit in one group, iubenda answers to team.blue NV, and Piwik PRO belongs to Cookie Information. Two quotes from one group are not independent quotes. Finally, ask for the contract term and notice period in writing: a quote-only vendor sets those in the order form, not on a public page, and a three-year commitment changes the real price far more than a discount on the first year does.
Ask for a written price covering all domains and expected traffic.
Ask for a sample consent-record export in a readable format.
Ask which company owns the contract and any parent.
What goes wrong most often when buying consent management platforms
Comparing the headline monthly price without converting your traffic into each vendor's unit of billing.
Collecting trial quotes from Cookiebot and Usercentrics as two independent options when they share an owner.
Treating a free plan as a long-term setup and discovering the visitor, pageview or subpage ceiling after launch.
Signing with a quote-only platform before checking how consent records are exported if you leave.
07
Frequently asked questions
8 answers
What are the best consent management platforms in 2026?
Complianz leads our ranking of 12. Complianz BV of Groningen sells a WordPress plugin and a Shopify app. The plugin is self-hosted, the free version is open source under GPL2, and paid licences are counted per WordPress installation (1, 5 or 25 sites).
Neither free nor paid plans carry pageview or session limits, so traffic does not move the price. Scope is the catch: outside WordPress and Shopify there is nothing to install.
Which consent management platforms publish their pricing?
9 of the 12, with the pricing model each one publishes:
Complianz: Published yearly licences by site count; free plan as a WordPress plugin; 30-day refund.
CookieYes: Published per domain per month; free plan; 14-day trial on paid plans.
Axeptio: Published monthly tiers by pageviews; free plan; Enterprise quoted.
Termly: Published per website per month; free plan; annual billing discount.
Osano: Free plan for one domain; Plus tier published; larger plans quoted.
iubenda: Published per site per month by pageview tier; free plan; 14-day trial.
Cookiebot: Published monthly per domain by subpage count; 14-day trial; free tier for one small domain.
Usercentrics: Published monthly tiers by sessions; free plan under 1,000 sessions; 14-day trial; Corporate quoted.
Piwik PRO: Published Business tier from a monthly fee; 30-day trial; Enterprise tiers quoted.
The other 3 quote per organisation.
Is there a free consent management platform?
Complianz, CookieYes, Axeptio, Termly, Osano, iubenda, Cookiebot, Usercentrics offer a free tier or a free self-hosted edition.
Where are these consent management platform vendors established?
In 8 countries across 2 regions: Europe 8, North America 4.
Complianz: Netherlands.
CookieYes: United Kingdom.
Axeptio: France.
Termly: United States.
Osano: United States.
iubenda: Italy.
Cookiebot: Denmark.
Usercentrics: Germany.
Didomi: France.
Piwik PRO: Poland.
TrustArc: United States.
OneTrust: United States.
Which consent management platforms are open source?
Complianz.
Which consent management platforms can you host yourself?
Complianz. The other 11 are hosted by the vendor only.
What should you use instead of Complianz?
CookieYes and Axeptio are the next two on this page. CookieYes is for small sites wanting a free starting plan and a clear per-domain upgrade path; Axeptio is for Brands that want a designed, on-brand consent banner for one or two sites.
Who should not buy Complianz?
Sites built on anything other than WordPress or Shopify. It is built for WordPress, with a Shopify app, so a site on another platform has nothing to install..
If your consent management platforms product belongs among these 12, tell us what it does and who it is for. Inclusion is an editorial call; what a listing is and is not is set out under software advice.
