Best Free Cookie Policy Generators 2026 — We Tested All of Them

Why You Need This Comparison

If you've ever searched "free cookie policy generator" you already know the problem. Every result leads to a tool that describes itself as free. Some are. Most are not. The word "free" is doing a lot of heavy lifting across this product category, covering everything from genuinely no-cost tools to trials, freemium tiers that lock the actual useful parts, and products where the policy is technically generated for free but hosted on their servers so you can't actually use it without their ongoing subscription.

We tested six of the most widely-used cookie policy generators in 2026. We created accounts, went through the full generation flow, hit every paywall, and documented exactly what each tool gives you on the free tier versus what you need to pay for. This article tells you what we found — the pricing reality, what the free tiers actually include, and what makes FreeTOS genuinely different from the rest.

What Makes a Good Cookie Policy Generator?

Before getting into the tools, here's the benchmark we used. A good cookie policy generator needs to produce a document that actually holds up legally and is practically usable. That means:

• Covers all required cookie categories — necessary, analytics, advertising, and functional cookies each need to be addressed separately with clear descriptions
• GDPR-compliant language — must reflect the ePrivacy Directive requirements and GDPR Article 13 disclosure obligations (legal basis, data controller identity, user rights)
• CCPA-compliant language — for sites with California users, the policy needs to address the right to opt out of the sale of personal information via cookie data
• Specific cookie listings with names, providers, and durations — a generic "we use analytics cookies" statement isn't sufficient; regulators expect a table of actual cookies
• Consent mechanism explanation — the policy should explain how consent is collected, how users can withdraw it, and where to find the consent settings
• Exportable — you need to be able to download your document. A policy you can only view on the tool's platform is not a policy you own or control
• Actually free — no hidden paywalls, no branding on your document unless you choose it, no subscription required to access what you generated

That last point is where most tools fall down. Let's look at each one.

The Tools We Tested

We tested six tools that consistently appear in search results for cookie policy generators: FreeTOS, Termly, CookieYes, Cookiebot, iubenda, and Privacy Bee. Here's what we found with each.

1. FreeTOS.org — Our Pick for Small Businesses

FreeTOS is the tool we built, so you should weight this accordingly. But the facts are the facts: the FreeTOS cookie policy generator is the only tool on this list where "free" means exactly what it says with no qualifications.

You don't need an account. You don't go through a registration flow. You answer questions about your site — what cookies you use, which analytics and advertising platforms you've connected, your jurisdiction — and the AI generates a complete, structured cookie policy using Google's Gemini model. The output covers all required categories: necessary cookies, analytics cookies, advertising and targeting cookies, and functional cookies. It includes specific cookie names, provider information, and retention durations for common platforms like Google Analytics, Meta Pixel, Hotjar, Intercom, and others.

The generated document is fully GDPR-compliant, covering ePrivacy Directive requirements and GDPR Article 13 disclosures. It's also CCPA-compliant for California users. Once generated, you can download in three formats: HTML (ready to paste into your site), PDF (for records), and plain text. There's no FreeTOS branding added to your document. You get the policy, you take it, you use it. That's it.

FreeTOS is part of a suite of 26 document generators. If you need a GDPR privacy policy alongside your cookie policy, or you want to add a consent banner to your site, all of that is available in the same place at no cost. The generator also outputs a bonus JavaScript cookie consent banner snippet you can drop directly into your site's HTML — something no other free-tier tool includes.

Best for: bloggers, sole traders, small businesses, Shopify store owners, startups, and anyone who needs a clean, legally sound cookie policy without paying $10–$30/month for the privilege.

2. Termly — Good Product, Frustrating Pricing

Termly is a well-established compliance platform that's been in the market for years. The product is genuinely good. The pricing model is the problem.

Termly does have a free tier, and it generates a legitimate cookie policy. The document is reasonably thorough and the interface is polished. But the free plan comes with a significant catch: you cannot download your policy. The document is hosted on Termly's servers and embedded into your site via a script tag. If you stop using Termly, your policy page disappears. You don't own the document — you're licensing access to it.

To actually download your policy and host it yourself, you need the Basic plan at $12/month per site (billed annually, otherwise $16/month). That's $144/year minimum for a single site. For a solo blogger or a startup running five sites, the cost adds up fast.

The free tier also includes Termly branding on your consent banner — the "Powered by Termly" badge. Removing it requires a paid plan. Auto-scanning (where Termly crawls your site and automatically identifies cookies) is also a paid feature. The free plan requires you to manually declare your cookies, which is fine but means the free tier is doing less work than it appears.

Consent logging — the records proving a specific user consented on a specific date, which some GDPR enforcement actions require — is also gated behind paid plans. If you're managing GDPR compliance seriously, that's a meaningful limitation. See the full Termly alternative comparison for a detailed breakdown.

Best for: teams that need auto-scanning, consent logging, and don't mind the monthly subscription. Not suitable if budget is a constraint or if you need to own your documents outright.

3. CookieYes — Free With Branding

CookieYes is one of the most-installed cookie consent plugins on WordPress, with several million active installations. The free tier is more generous than Termly's in some ways, but it comes with its own set of limitations.

The free plan generates a cookie policy and provides a consent banner. But every interaction your visitors have with the banner includes "Powered by CookieYes" branding. For a professional site, that's a problem. Removing the branding costs $15/month (Basic plan). The free plan also caps at 25,000 page views per month — modest traffic for most small businesses but a hard ceiling that will catch sites that grow.

The bigger issue is the same as Termly: your policy is hosted on CookieYes's servers, not yours. You're not getting a document you download and deploy. You're getting a hosted service that embeds into your site. Discontinuing CookieYes means your cookie policy and consent banner both stop working simultaneously.

CookieYes does include automatic cookie scanning on even the free tier for smaller sites, which is more than Termly offers at no cost. The scan identifies cookies set by your site and pre-populates the policy categories, which saves time. But the 25K page view cap and the persistent branding make the free tier impractical for anything beyond a very small hobby site.

For a direct feature-by-feature breakdown, see the CookieYes alternative page.

Best for: WordPress sites willing to pay for branding removal or businesses that can operate within the 25K page view cap on the free tier.

4. Cookiebot — Enterprise-Focused Pricing

Cookiebot is the most technically sophisticated tool on this list. Its automatic cookie scanning is genuinely excellent — it crawls your entire site, identifies every cookie being set, and maps them to categories and third-party providers automatically. For a complex site with dozens of third-party integrations, that automated scanning saves hours of manual work.

The problem is the free tier is borderline useless for most real websites. It caps at 100 subpages. A site with 101 pages gets cut off. A Shopify store with a product catalog, collection pages, and blog posts will hit that ceiling almost immediately. The 100-page limit isn't a minor restriction — it effectively makes the free tier a demo rather than a viable option for any established site.

The Essential plan starts at €9/month (approximately $10/month) and removes the page cap. The Business plan at €19/month adds consent logging and statistics. For genuine enterprise usage with custom domains and SSO, pricing goes much higher.

Cookiebot also uses a hosted-policy model. Your cookie policy is generated and served from their infrastructure. Exporting a standalone document requires a paid plan. Like Termly and CookieYes, there's no free-tier download.

See the Cookiebot alternative comparison for more detail on where the two tools differ.

Best for: larger sites and enterprises that need genuinely automatic cookie scanning, consent logging, and don't have budget constraints. The free tier is not viable for production use on sites with more than a handful of pages.

5. iubenda — European Compliance Focus

iubenda is a European tool built primarily for GDPR compliance, and it shows. The platform's understanding of EU privacy law is deeper than most US-focused competitors. It handles not just cookie policies but full privacy policy generation, consent solutions, and internal record-keeping. For a European business with complex GDPR obligations, iubenda is genuinely strong.

There is no real free tier. iubenda offers a limited trial, but meaningful usage starts at €27/year for the Starter plan. The Advanced plan is €129/year per site. For businesses needing the full compliance suite across multiple properties, total cost can reach several hundred euros annually.

The technical model is interesting but creates dependency: iubenda generates your policy "dynamically" from a database of pre-vetted clauses and third-party service descriptions. This means the policy stays updated automatically when providers change their data practices — a real advantage. But it also means your policy lives entirely on iubenda's servers. If iubenda goes away or you stop paying, your policy disappears.

The consent solution (banner + logging) is a separate product from the policy generator, requiring an additional subscription. For full GDPR compliance, most European businesses need both, which pushes the annual cost up significantly.

Best for: European businesses with serious GDPR obligations and budget for a compliance platform. Not suitable if you want a free solution or need to own your documents outright.

6. Privacy Bee — Newer Entrant

Privacy Bee is a newer entrant to the cookie compliance space, primarily targeting US businesses focused on CCPA compliance. The product is less mature than the others on this list and has a more limited feature set. The free offering is minimal — basic policy templates without the depth of cookie-category coverage, specific listings, or GDPR language you'd get from more established tools.

Privacy Bee's main strength is its US regulatory focus: it's a reasonable option for businesses that exclusively need CCPA coverage and aren't concerned about GDPR. For businesses serving European users or aiming for international compliance, the gaps in EU law coverage make it a weak choice compared to the other tools here. The company is still establishing its market position, and the product reflects that — expect more features over time, but as of 2026 it's not competitive with the established players on depth or reliability.

Best for: US-only businesses needing basic CCPA documentation, as a supplementary option rather than a primary compliance tool.

Full Comparison Table

Our Verdict

The right tool depends on what you actually need. Here's the direct version:

For most people — bloggers, freelancers, Shopify owners, early-stage startups — FreeTOS is the answer. You get a complete, exportable, GDPR and CCPA-compliant cookie policy in minutes, with zero cost and no account. The document is yours to host, edit, and use however you want. No dependency on a third-party platform. No subscription to maintain. No branding you didn't put there yourself. Use the FreeTOS cookie policy generator and you're done in five minutes.

If you're a European business with serious GDPR obligations — complex tech stack, multiple jurisdictions, large user base, DPA relationships — iubenda or Cookiebot are worth the cost. The dynamic policy updates and deep EU law coverage justify the subscription for compliance-critical operations.

If you need automatic cookie scanning and don't want to manually declare every cookie, Cookiebot is the best technical option at the Essential tier. CookieYes is a reasonable free alternative for smaller sites that can tolerate the branding.

If you need consent logging — timestamped proof of when each user consented, required for some GDPR enforcement contexts — Termly or Cookiebot are your options. That feature simply doesn't exist on free-tier tools.

The honest summary: the paid tools have real advantages for complex use cases. But for the majority of small websites that just need a clean, legally sound cookie policy they can actually own and deploy — FreeTOS wins. Not because we built it. Because it does exactly what it says it does, and nothing else on this list does that for free.

If you're comparing tools for other types of legal documents, see the privacy policy generator comparison for a similar breakdown of privacy policy tools.

Frequently Asked Questions