Cookiebot vs iubenda
iubenda vs Cookiebot, both with free plans: iubenda writes your privacy policy and terms; Cookiebot scans your site and prices by page count.
iubenda vs Cookiebot comes down to what you need besides a cookie banner. Cookiebot is a dedicated consent management platform (CMP), now marketed as Cookiebot by Usercentrics after Usercentrics and its maker, Cybot, merged in 2021. iubenda is an all-in-one legal compliance suite that combines privacy policy and terms generators, a cookie solution and a consent database.
The biggest difference is where each product saves you work. iubenda's strength is the documents: it generates the privacy policy, cookie policy and terms your banner links to, and updates them as rules change. Cookiebot's strength is the scan. Its documentation describes a crawler that runs on a monthly cycle and sorts the cookies it finds into categories, and the result feeds both the banner and an embeddable cookie declaration. Our Cookiebot record lists no policy or terms generator.
Ad tech does not separate them. iubenda's documentation lists it as a registered IAB TCF CMP (ID 123), our dataset records TCF support for Cookiebot, and both support Google Consent Mode v2 and multiple domains. Pricing is where they diverge as you grow. Both have free plans, and the first paid tiers cost €5.99 per site per month for iubenda Essentials on monthly billing and €7 per month for Cookiebot Premium Lite, but Cookiebot prices by subpage count, so a large content site can climb tiers quickly. Confirm current plans on each vendor's pricing page.
Cookiebot
Market-leading consent management platform with automated cookie scanning and Google Consent Mode v2 support.
Best for
- E-commerce sites using Google Ads
- Publishers needing IAB TCF compliance
- Multi-domain organizations
iubenda
All-in-one privacy and legal compliance solution with policy generators and cookie consent management.
Best for
- Small to medium businesses
- E-commerce sites
- Companies needing both policies and consent
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Cookiebot | iubenda |
|---|---|---|
| Google Consent Mode v2 | ||
| IAB TCF 2.2 Support | ||
| A/B Testing | ||
| Multi-Domain Support | ||
| API Access | ||
| Auto Cookie Scanning | ||
| Privacy Policy Generator | — | |
| Terms Generator | — | |
| Multi-Language |
Pricing Comparison
| Cookiebot | iubenda | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | €0/mo | €0/mo |
| Pricing model | subscription | subscription |
Cookiebot — Pros
- Automated cookie scanning and categorization
- Built-in Google Consent Mode v2 support
- IAB TCF certified
- Extensive language support (40+ languages)
- Detailed consent analytics
Cookiebot — Cons
- Can be expensive for high-traffic sites
- Limited customization on lower tiers
- Scanner may miss some edge-case cookies
iubenda — Pros
- Includes policy and terms generators
- Simple setup process
- Good value for small businesses
- Multi-site management
- Regular legal updates
iubenda — Cons
- Limited A/B testing features
- Basic analytics compared to competitors
Choose Cookiebot if…
- You add marketing tags often and want a scanner that finds and categorises new cookies without a manual inventory.
- Your privacy policy and terms already come from a lawyer, and you only need the consent layer.
- Your visitors span many languages: our Cookiebot record lists banner support for more than 40 languages.
- You want to A/B test banner variants to improve consent rates, which our iubenda record lists as limited.
Choose iubenda if…
- You need a privacy policy, cookie policy and terms of service and nobody is drafting them for you.
- You want one vendor and one invoice for both your legal documents and your consent banner.
- Your site has thousands of pages and Cookiebot's per-subpage pricing would push you into a higher tier; compare iubenda's plan limits for your size.
- You collect consent through newsletter or contact forms and want a consent database that shows when and how each person agreed.
The bottom line
Our take: if you are starting from zero, with no privacy policy and no cookie policy, iubenda is the more practical first purchase because it produces those documents and the banner together at a similar entry price. If your legal documents already exist and your site changes often, choose Cookiebot: its monthly scan catches new tags that small teams forget to declare. The choice flips back to iubenda once Cookiebot's per-subpage pricing outgrows what a documents-plus-banner subscription would cost you.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Is Cookiebot owned by Usercentrics?
- Yes. Usercentrics and Cybot, the company behind Cookiebot, merged in 2021 under the Usercentrics name, and the product is now marketed as Cookiebot by Usercentrics. It is still sold as its own CMP with its own plans. iubenda is a separate company, so choosing between Cookiebot and iubenda means choosing between two different vendors, not two tiers of the same one.
- Does Cookiebot or iubenda generate a privacy policy?
- iubenda does. Its policy and terms generators are the core of the product, and the cookie banner links to the documents it produces. Our Cookiebot record does not list a privacy policy or terms generator, so if you choose Cookiebot, plan to get those documents from a lawyer or a separate generator.
- Which is cheaper, Cookiebot or iubenda?
- Entry prices are close: iubenda's pricing page lists Essentials at €5.99 per site per month on monthly billing, and Cookiebot's lists Premium Lite at €7 per month, so the difference shows up as you grow. Cookiebot prices by subpage count and has a free tier for a single small domain. iubenda bundles documents with consent, which can replace a separate policy generator. Check both pricing pages against your page count and domain count.
- Is iubenda a real CMP or just a policy generator?
- Both. iubenda's cookie solution collects and records consent, keeps a consent database and supports Google Consent Mode v2. For publishers, iubenda's documentation lists it as a registered IAB TCF CMP with ID 123, so it can pass TCF consent signals to ad partners. Check IAB Europe's public CMP list for its current status before relying on it for programmatic revenue.
This comparison follows our published methodology. No paid placements. Links marked with * are affiliate links — see our disclosure policy.