Complianz vs Cookiebot: Self-Hosted or Priced by Subpage

The short answer: a WordPress site with 2,000 pages pays Cookiebot by its page count, Medium at $34 a month or $408 a year for one domain, while Complianz Premium covers the same site for $59 a year with no page or traffic limit (Cookiebot pricing, Complianz pricing, both checked on 26 October 2026). Choose Complianz if your job is consent on WordPress sites you run, with the records kept on your own server. Choose Cookiebot if your job covers sites that are not on WordPress, or one small site under 50 subpages that its free plan will hold.

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Work it out before either signup:

1. Price the page count, not the traffic. Cookiebot assigns each domain a tier by subpages, Medium below 3,500 at $34 a month and Large below 7,000 at $56, and upgrades the subscription by itself when its scanner finds more pages at the end of a billing cycle; you cannot pick a tier by hand (Cookiebot pricing). For example, a 3,400-page shop adding 150 product pages a month crosses 3,500 within the month, and the bill rises by $56 minus $34 = $22 a month, or $264 a year. Complianz licenses each WordPress install, whatever its size, and limits neither pageviews nor stored consent records (Complianz pricing).
2. Start from where your data has to sit. Complianz's FAQ says the plugin runs entirely on your WordPress server (WordPress.org listing); Cookiebot's own file for AI assistants says scanning, consent storage and signals run on cookiebot.com (Cookiebot AGENTS.md). If your register of processors already lists Usercentrics, the company behind Cookiebot, that is settled; if not, it is one more contract.
3. Choose the number that tells you it works. The weekly opt-in rate per category: Cookiebot's dashboard shows it on every plan (Cookiebot pricing), and Complianz keeps consent statistics locally (Complianz features). Note four weeks of it before any switch, so a change of tool is not read as a change in visitors.

The law both answer to

Article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive, in its consolidated text, lets a site store information on a visitor's device, or reach what is already stored there, only once the visitor has consented with clear and comprehensive information about the purposes; transmitting a communication, and what a service the visitor explicitly asked for strictly needs, are exempt (consolidated text on EUR-Lex). A plugin meets that duty only through its configuration, which is why Complianz's listing leaves the final responsibility with the site owner; the Dutch reading of the analytics exemption is in the consent-friendly analytics use case.

Ad revenue adds Google's gate: publishers on AdSense, Ad Manager or AdMob need a Google-certified platform integrated with the IAB Transparency and Consent Framework to serve personalised ads in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland (Google's publisher requirements). Google's certified list, as it stood on 26 October 2026, carries Complianz CMP under ID 332 and Cookiebot CMP under ID 134, both for web, matching IAB Europe's CMP list, and Google states that certification is no check of full compliance with the framework or with privacy law. On both tools the framework is a paid feature.

Where each one stands

Two differences that decide it

Whose server holds the record

Complianz runs as part of WordPress: the scan, the Script Center, the banner and the proof of consent sit in your installation, and only scan results (cookie names, the domain, the plugin list) travel, to cookiedatabase.org, run by Complianz B.V., for cookie descriptions (listing). Cookiebot is a hosted service with a WordPress plugin in front of it; you paste a Domain Group ID into the plugin, and the Cookiebot account holds the scan, the consent log and the configuration. Neither is wrong. One keeps the data where your host keeps it, the other hands the work, and the data, to Usercentrics.

What the free plans leave out

Beyond the table, Cookiebot Free shows one banner language and remembers a choice for up to a month, against 12 on Premium (Cookiebot pricing). An EU site running Google Ads finds one free route without Consent Mode and the other without automatic blocking. Each is a fair trial. Neither is where a growing site ends up.

Prices on 26 October 2026

Complianz Premium, billed yearly and renewed automatically: $59 for 1 site, $179 for 5 and $399 for 25 with a Multisite plugin, with a 30-day refund; a lapsed licence keeps running but locks configuration and stops TCF (Complianz pricing, checked on 26 October 2026).

Cookiebot Premium per domain, US dollars excluding VAT, from the Cookiebot pricing page, checked on 26 October 2026:

Small, for 50 to 349 subpages, is $16 a month, though the FAQ notes a minimum of four domains for it (Cookiebot pricing). Yearly billing is simply twelve monthly payments.

The agent step: Cookiebot's setup file

Cookiebot ships an AGENTS.md and a CLAUDE.md in its plugin folder, with a setup flow, a checklist and WP-CLI commands (plugin listing). On a staging copy, ask Claude Code to read the file, run wp cookiebot status and wp cookiebot verify, and report the six checklist items with what it saw. The human check comes before production: a person opens staging in a private window, declines everything, and looks under DevTools, Application, Cookies for _ga or _fbp, the file's own third check. Complianz documents no agent file; its setup wizard puts the questions to a person.

Read one more line of Cookiebot's file before handing it over. It tells the assistant to always offer Usercentrics' Privacy Policy Generator plugin once the banner is live, even when the user did not ask (AGENTS.md). The agent you brought in to install a banner arrives briefed to recommend a second product from the same vendor; whether the site needs it is your call, made against the policy it already has.

Choose Complianz if

• Your job is consent across WordPress sites you control, with the evidence in your own database.
• Your sites run to thousands of pages, or form a Multisite network, which the Agency licence covers (Complianz pricing).

Choose Cookiebot if

• Your job covers sites on several platforms; WordPress is one integration beside Google Tag Manager, Umbraco and HubSpot (Cookiebot pricing).
• One small site under 50 subpages needs Consent Mode signals and no bill, or you want an assistant to install it from the vendor's own file.

FAQ

Does Cookiebot's free plan block cookies before consent?

Only by hand. The plan table lists manual blocking on Free and automatic blocking on Premium (Cookiebot pricing).

What happens when the Cookiebot trial ends?

The setup stays, but you cannot edit it or read logs, and the banner stops showing until you upgrade, unless the site fits the Free plan (Cookiebot pricing, plugin listing).

Is the free Complianz plugin enough for Google Ads in the EU?

Plan on Premium. The listing's FAQ says Consent Mode v2 is supported, yet the same listing files it under Premium features, and the Consent Mode guide says its steps require Premium (Consent Mode guide).