A consent management platform costs $0 on a real free tier at most vendors. Typical small business plans run $5 to $60 a month. Enterprise needs a custom quote, and third-party estimates put that between $200 and $8,000 or more a month. The price climbs mainly with domain count and monthly traffic.
Below: how CMPs are priced, a 10-vendor 2026 comparison table, and what each tier includes. Also covered: what drives the cost up, the hidden fees vendors do not list, and how much to budget by team size.
How much does a consent management platform cost?
A consent management platform costs between $0 and $500 or more per month for most businesses. Real free tiers exist at 9 of the 10 vendors compared below. Typical paid plans run $5 to $60 a month. Enterprise pricing is custom and quote-only. Third-party estimates put it between $200 and $8,000-plus a month.
Two variables move you along that range: domain count and monthly traffic. A single low-traffic site usually clears the free tier or the cheapest paid plan. Five domains, or a few hundred thousand monthly pageviews, push most tools into their $15 to $60 mid-tier. "Free" almost always means feature-limited, not fully compliant. Free plans commonly cap traffic, block IAB TCF support, and disable weekly rescans until you upgrade.
Google's own AI Overview for this category converges on a similar three-tier shape. Small business runs around $9 to $55 a month. Mid-market runs around $100 to $500 a month for multi-domain, higher-traffic accounts. Enterprise starts around $2,000 a month. That confirms the range is not a marketing spread; it reflects real cost drivers, covered next.
How consent management platforms are priced
Consent management platforms are priced mainly two ways: by domain or by usage. Domain-based pricing often adds a second axis, subpages scanned per domain. Usage-based pricing meters pageviews, sessions, or consent actions. A smaller group prices flat per account regardless of domain count, and a few offer a genuinely free, self-hosted option.
Per-domain pricing (the cost that multiplies)
Per-domain pricing charges a separate fee for each website you connect. Several vendors add a second axis: subpages scanned per domain. Cookiebot, CookieYes, Cookie Script, CookieHub, and consentmanager all price this way. A five-site agency on a $10-a-month-per-domain tool pays $50 a month, not $10, the moment it adds the second site.
Cookiebot compounds this further by tiering on subpage count within each domain. Its Lite plan covers up to 50 subpages per domain. Larger sites automatically move to a higher-priced tier as the scanner finds more subpages. One WordPress site owner described the effect directly:
CookieBot keeps going crazy with pricing. I really don't like how they charge for domains, subdomains, and even based on site size.
Subdomains typically bill as separate domains under this model. A marketing site plus a blog subdomain can count as two domain slots.
Per-account and flat-rate pricing
Flat-rate pricing charges one fee for the account and bundles a set number of domains into every tier. Adding a second or fifth site does not multiply the bill. Consently uses this model. Its Premium plan bundles 5 domains for $199 a year, versus paying a per-domain vendor five separate domain fees for the same coverage. Complianz, a WordPress-native tool, also uses a flat annual fee (around $59 a year) for a single site rather than metering by traffic.
Usage-metered pricing (pageviews, sessions, consent actions)
Usage-metered pricing charges by traffic volume instead of, or in addition to, domain count. CookieYes, iubenda, and consentmanager meter by pageviews. Usercentrics and CookieHub meter by sessions. Termly meters by banner views. Under this model, a traffic spike from a marketing campaign or a viral post can push you past your plan's cap mid-cycle. That triggers an overage charge or a forced upgrade.
Freemium and free tiers
Nine of the ten vendors compared below offer a real, permanently free plan, not just a trial. Free tiers cap traffic tightly, often 1,000 to 10,000 monthly pageviews, sessions, or visitors on one domain. They typically gate IAB TCF support, weekly rescans, and custom branding removal behind a paid upgrade. Osano's free Solo tier, for example, covers 5,000 monthly visitors on one domain. Consently is the only tool in this set without an indefinite free plan. It offers a 14-day free trial instead.
Open-source and self-hosted options
A small number of tools, such as the open-source osano/cookieconsent script, are free to download and self-host indefinitely. "Free" here shifts the cost from a subscription to your own time. You host the consent logs and maintain the integration as frameworks like Google Consent Mode v2 evolve. You also lose the vendor's scanning, categorization, and audit-log automation. Storing consent records is a GDPR proof-of-consent requirement in many jurisdictions, and local, unmanaged storage does not automatically satisfy it.
For a banner-focused shortlist rather than a full pricing breakdown, compare the best cookie consent tools by feature fit first.
Consent management platform pricing comparison (2026)
Prices across the 10 platforms below span free to enterprise-custom. The cheapest disclosed paid tier is iubenda at EUR4.99, about $5 to $6 a month. The least transparent is Osano, which requires a sales conversation for anything past its self-serve Plus plan.
| Product | Pricing model | Free plan | Starting price | Mid-tier | Business/higher | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| iubenda | Per-site + pageviews | Yes (limited) | EUR4.99/mo (Essentials, 25k pv) | EUR19.99/mo (Advanced, 50k pv) | EUR79.99/mo (Ultimate, 150k pv) | Custom |
| CookieHub | Per-domain + sessions | Yes (up to 1,000 sessions) | EUR6/mo (Starter, 5k sessions) | EUR10/mo (Basic, 30k) | EUR30/mo (Business, 120k) | Custom (from 1M sessions) |
| Cookiebot | Per-domain + per-subpage | Yes (up to 50 subpages, 1 domain) | EUR7/mo per domain (Lite) | EUR15/mo (Small); EUR30/mo (Medium) | Around EUR90/mo (over 7,000 subpages) | Custom (Advanced tier) |
| Consently | Per-account flat, all features | No (14-day trial) | $8.25/mo ($99/yr Basic, 1 domain, 100k pv) | $16.50/mo ($199/yr Premium, 5 domains, 1M pv) | $41.50/mo ($499/yr Enterprise, 10 domains, 3M pv) | $499/yr tier (disclosed, not custom) |
| Usercentrics | Per-account + domain caps + sessions | Yes (up to 1,000 sessions, 1 domain) | $8/mo (Essential, 1,500 sessions) | $16/mo (Plus); $34/mo (Pro, 3 domains) | $56/mo (Business, 10 domains) | Custom (Corporate) |
| Cookie Script | Per-domain + pages scanned | Yes (10k pv, 2 domains) | EUR8/mo (Lite) | EUR15/mo (Standard) | EUR19/mo (Plus) | Custom (Ultimate) |
| CookieYes | Per-domain + pageviews | Yes (5k pv, 1 domain) | $10/mo per domain (Basic, 100k pv) | $25/mo (Pro, 300k pv) | $55/mo (Ultimate, unlimited pv) | Self-serve only, no custom tier |
| Termly | Per-site + banner views | Yes ($0, 10k banner views) | $10/mo (Starter, annual, 50k views) | $15/mo (Pro+, annual, unlimited) | Not offered | Custom (Agency) |
| consentmanager | Per-domain + views | Yes (EUR0, 3k views) | EUR23/mo (Starter, 100k views) | EUR59/mo (Essential, 1M, 3 sites) | EUR219/mo (Professional, 10M, 20 sites) | Custom (Ultimate) |
| Osano | Per-account, visitor-tiered | Yes (5k visitors, 1 domain) | $199/mo (self-serve Plus, 3 domains, 30k visitors) | Custom | Custom | Custom (third-party estimates $200 to $8,000+/mo) |
Prices verified July 2026, billed annually where offered. Visit each vendor's pricing page for current rates. Enterprise means custom or contact sales except where noted otherwise.
The gap between the cheapest disclosed plan and the priciest reflects real differences in scanning depth and subpage limits. It also reflects how many domains a tier bundles, not just tier inflation. See how we score every CMP for how these platforms compare beyond price.
What each pricing tier includes
Free plans cover the legal minimum: a banner and basic cookie blocking on one low-traffic domain. Entry paid tiers add higher traffic caps and weekly scanning. Mid-tier plans add multi-domain support and full framework coverage. Enterprise adds negotiated volume pricing and dedicated support.
Free plans and what they leave out
A real free tier gets you a functioning banner, a limited scan, and basic cookie blocking. It is capped at roughly 1,000 to 10,000 monthly pageviews or sessions on a single domain. What free plans commonly leave out: IAB TCF support, automatic weekly rescans (often manual-only), custom branding removal, and multi-domain management. One user described a free-tier CookieYes plan bluntly:
It's free for up to 15k views. Then $10/m. It's not expensive if you think you need it.
The current CookieYes free cap sits at 5,000 pageviews, not the 15,000 the quote describes.
Entry-level paid plans ($5 to $15 per month)
Entry tiers suit a single small-to-medium-traffic site. At this price you typically get one domain and tens of thousands of monthly pageviews or sessions. The core scanning and blocking feature set is included. IAB TCF support ships at the entry tier for some vendors (Consently, Usercentrics) and is gated to a higher tier at others.
Mid-tier plans ($15 to $60 per month)
Mid-tier plans are where most small businesses and small agencies land. They add multi-domain support, typically 3 to 10 domains depending on the vendor, and meaningfully higher traffic caps. Full framework coverage arrives here too: GDPR, CCPA, IAB TCF, and Google Consent Mode v2 together. This is also the tier where per-domain and flat-rate pricing diverge most sharply in total cost for a multi-site account.
Enterprise and custom pricing
"Contact sales" on a CMP's enterprise tier usually means the vendor negotiates by traffic volume, domain count, and support level. It rarely means a published flat rate. Osano is the clearest example in this set: its enterprise tier is fully sales-led. Third-party estimates put mid-market contracts at $500 to $2,000 a month. Larger enterprise deals run $2,000 to $8,000-plus a month. Ask for pricing in writing before signing. Confirm the minimum seat or domain commitment, and ask directly about multi-year discount structures. No vendor in this comparison discloses a public enterprise number; treat any figure you see cited as a third-party estimate, not a rate card.
What affects the cost of a consent management platform?
Three factors drive most of the price difference between a $10-a-month plan and a $500-a-month plan: domain count, traffic volume, and compliance scope.
Number of domains and subdomains
Domain count is the most direct lever on per-domain pricing plans. A single domain stays in the cheapest tier at every vendor. Add a second, and per-domain tools double the bill. Flat-rate tools like Consently do not, up to the tier's bundled limit. Subdomains often bill as separate domains. Cookiebot's per-domain, per-subpage structure treats a blog.example.com subdomain as its own billable unit in many configurations. A marketing site and its blog subdomain can occupy two domain slots instead of one.
Traffic (pageviews, sessions, and consent actions)
Usage-metered plans charge more as your traffic grows. Some meter by pageviews (CookieYes, iubenda, consentmanager), others by sessions (Usercentrics, CookieHub), and Termly by banner views. A traffic spike from a marketing push or a viral moment can exceed your plan's cap mid-cycle. That usually triggers either an overage fee or an automatic tier upgrade.
Compliance scope and frameworks
Covering more privacy laws costs more. A tool that only needs GDPR is simpler to price. One juggling GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, IAB TCF 2.3, and Google Consent Mode v2 together costs more. Vendors commonly gate IAB TCF support and advanced geotargeting to mid-tier or higher. Publishers and ad-tech-heavy sites are the buyers who need them.
Site size and pages scanned
Vendors that price by subpage count, like Cookiebot, charge more as a site grows past a subpage threshold, independent of traffic. Cookie Script similarly scales by pages scanned. A large content site can move up a tier on page count alone, even if its traffic stays flat.
Hidden costs of a consent management platform
The listed monthly price is rarely the full cost. Five costs regularly surprise buyers after signup: per-domain multiplication, automatic tier upgrades, traffic overage fees, add-on charges, and features gated behind an unplanned upgrade.
Per-domain and per-subdomain multiplication
A five-site agency on a $10-a-month-per-domain tool pays $50 a month for coverage a flat-rate plan bundles for a single fee. Add subdomains that bill separately, and the multiplier grows further. This is the single largest hidden cost for anyone managing more than one site. It is also why per-domain and flat-rate pricing produce dramatically different total bills at the same nominal starting price.
Automatic tier upgrades and surprise bills
Some vendors auto-upgrade an account when a scan detects growth, such as more subpages on a domain, without a manual confirmation step. One long-time Cookiebot user described the effect:
Signed up at one tier and then got a much bigger bill each month and didn't even realize it till a year later.
An independent comparison corroborates the pattern. It notes that a fixed-price competitor avoids the automatic tier migration problem plaguing Cookiebot. Ask any vendor directly whether tier changes are automatic or require your approval before you sign up.
Traffic overage fees
Usage-metered vendors charge for traffic beyond your plan's cap. CookieYes bills roughly $0.30 per 1,000 extra pageviews past your tier's limit. iubenda bills around EUR0.05 per 1,000. These fees are usually small individually. They compound for a site with unpredictable traffic spikes, and they rarely appear in the headline pricing page copy.
Add-ons, scans, and premium support
Some core-sounding capabilities cost extra. Cookiebot charges an additional EUR99 a month for daily, rather than weekly, automated scans. Other vendors in the broader market charge separately for extra pageview blocks once you exceed a plan's included volume. Read the fine print on scan frequency and support tier before assuming a quoted price is the full monthly cost.
Feature gating on free and low tiers
Free and entry tiers commonly withhold IAB TCF support, automatic weekly rescans (often manual-only at the free level), custom branding removal, and multi-domain dashboards. A buyer who needs any one of these discovers the real starting price is one tier higher than the headline number.
The costs the price tag does not show
Beyond the vendor's own fee structure, cookie banners carry costs that never appear on a pricing page. Consent banners commonly see opt-in rates below 35%. That shrinks the retargeting audience available to ad platforms like Meta and Google Ads. It is a real cost, even though it never shows up on an invoice. Installing a CMP is rarely plug-and-play. A developer typically spends hours configuring script-blocking correctly and keeping the integration current as frameworks like Google Consent Mode v2 change. A poorly configured or non-compliant banner also carries legal exposure a cheap tool does not price in. Burying the reject option behind extra clicks is a common example.
How much should your team budget for a CMP?
A solo site can often run on a free tier or $5 to $10 a month. A small business with up to five sites should budget $15 to $60 a month, or a flat multi-domain bundle. Agencies managing many sites and enterprises negotiating custom contracts sit well above both.
Solo sites and freelancers
A single low-traffic site fits comfortably on a free tier. CookieHub, CookieYes, Cookie Script, iubenda, Termly, consentmanager, Usercentrics, Cookiebot, and Osano all offer one. Once a free tier's traffic cap is outgrown, the cheapest paid tier starts around EUR6 to $10 a month. CookieHub runs EUR6, Cookie Script EUR8, and CookieYes $10.
Small business (1 to 5 sites)
At one to five domains, the math starts to separate per-domain from flat-rate pricing. Five sites on a $10-a-month-per-domain tool cost $50 a month. Consently's Premium plan bundles 5 domains and 1,000,000 monthly pageviews for $199 a year, or $16.50 a month. That is less than a single domain on several per-domain competitors' mid-tier plans.
Agencies and multi-site owners
Per-domain pricing multiplies fast at agency scale. Ten client sites at $10 a month per domain runs $100 a month, before counting subdomains or overage fees. A flat or bundled plan changes that math directly. Compare the full bundled-domain economics in the best consent management platforms roundup before committing to a per-domain vendor at scale.
Enterprises and high-traffic publishers
Enterprise buyers should expect a custom, negotiated contract rather than a published rate. Third-party estimates put Osano's enterprise range at $2,000 to $8,000-plus a month. Usercentrics' Corporate tier and similar enterprise plans from other vendors follow the same sales-led model. Budget in the low thousands per month for a high-traffic, multi-domain enterprise deployment, and negotiate against that range rather than accepting a first quote.
Consently pricing: flat plans with every feature included
Consently prices from $99 to $499 a year. Every feature (IAB TCF, Google Consent Mode v2, scanning, auto-blocking, 35-language banners) is included on every plan, with no per-domain multiplication.
Basic runs $99 a year ($8.25 a month) for 1 domain and 100,000 monthly pageviews. Premium runs $199 a year ($16.50 a month) for 5 domains, 1,000,000 monthly pageviews, a multi-site dashboard, and priority support. Enterprise runs $499 a year ($41.50 a month) for 10 domains and 3,000,000 monthly pageviews. Every plan includes a 14-day free trial. Consently does not offer a permanent free plan.
Every feature ships on every tier, so nothing you need is paywalled behind an unplanned upgrade. Domains are bundled into the tier rather than billed per site. A five-site owner pays one $199 annual bill instead of stacking five separate per-domain fees on a metered competitor.
See Consently's full pricing or read the Consently review for the full hands-on scorecard.
FAQs
Is there a free consent management platform?
Yes. CookieYes, Cookiebot, Termly, iubenda, Usercentrics, consentmanager, Cookie Script, CookieHub, and Osano all offer a real, permanently free plan. Each is capped at a low traffic threshold on a single domain. Free plans typically leave out IAB TCF support and weekly automated rescans. Free does not always mean fully compliant for a site with ad-tech or multi-domain needs.
What is the cheapest consent management platform?
Among disclosed paid tiers, iubenda starts cheapest at EUR4.99 a month, about $5 to $6. CookieHub follows at EUR6, then Cookiebot's Lite plan at EUR7 per domain. Per-domain pricing means the "cheapest" entry price can still cost more than a flat-rate plan once you add a second site.
How much does a CMP cost for a team with 5 websites?
On a per-domain tool charging around $10 a month per domain, five sites run about $50 a month. A flat-rate plan changes that math. Consently's Premium tier bundles 5 domains and 1,000,000 monthly pageviews into one $199-a-year bill, or $16.50 a month total, not per site.
Is a consent management platform worth the cost?
Yes, for any site collecting cookies or tracking data under GDPR, CCPA, or a similar law. The subscription pays for hosted, audit-ready consent logs and automated scanning you would otherwise build yourself. It also covers ongoing framework updates as regulations and IAB TCF versions change.
Why do CMPs charge monthly for a cookie banner?
The banner itself is simple. The subscription pays for hosting audit-ready consent records and running scheduled cookie and tracker scans. It also covers maintaining compliance as frameworks like Google Consent Mode v2 evolve and keeping the tool current as privacy laws change. Storing consent proof is a legal requirement in many jurisdictions, and unmanaged local storage does not reliably satisfy it.
Do CMP prices change as my site grows?
Yes. Traffic overages, subpage-count auto-upgrades, and added domains all raise the bill on usage-metered and per-domain plans. Cookiebot, for example, auto-upgrades an account's tier as its scanner detects more subpages on a domain. This sometimes happens without a manual approval step, so a growing site's bill can climb without an active upgrade decision.
