Privacy Policy Generator Comparison: FreeTOS vs Termly vs TermsFeed (2026)

Here's the thing. You're not trying to become a privacy lawyer. You just launched a website, or a Shopify store, or a little SaaS product, and someone told you that you need a privacy policy. Fair enough. You need one. So you search "free privacy policy generator" and up come five tools, all claiming to be free, all looking pretty polished.

You pick one. You answer the questions. You feel good about it. Then, right before you can copy or download anything, a modal pops up. "Start your free trial." Or "Enter your card to continue." Or my personal favorite: "Your policy is ready! Upgrade to Professional to download it."

That's not free. That's a free preview.

This article is a real comparison of the four tools most people end up looking at: FreeTOS.org, Termly, TermsFeed, and iubenda. We'll cover what each tool actually costs, what you actually get without paying, and who each tool actually makes sense for. No fluff, no affiliate disclaimers to hide, just an honest breakdown.

The Four Tools: A Quick Introduction

FreeTOS.org

FreeTOS is a free AI-powered legal document generator. You answer a short questionnaire about your website or app, the AI generates a document tailored to your specific situation, and you download it in HTML, PDF, or plain text. No account required, no credit card, no watermarks. It covers 22 different document types including privacy policies, GDPR policies, CCPA policies, terms of service, refund policies, and more. The whole thing takes about 60 seconds.

Termly

Termly is a well-funded compliance platform that's been around since 2018. They offer privacy policies, cookie consent banners, terms of service, and more. Their free tier exists, but it's pretty deliberately limited to encourage you toward their paid plans. They've built a solid product but the pricing model is subscription-based, and the free version has some real strings attached that we'll get into.

TermsFeed

TermsFeed takes a different approach: instead of a subscription, they offer one-time purchase options for individual documents. You pay once per document, download it, and you own it. The starting price sounds reasonable ($14 for a basic policy) but the costs add up quickly if you need multiple documents or if your needs are more complex. There's also a subscription option if you need regular updates.

iubenda

Honestly, iubenda is a bit confusing to navigate at first. It's a European-focused compliance platform built primarily around GDPR requirements, and it's very good at what it's designed for. The pricing is annual and per-site, ranging from €27 to €129 per year depending on the plan. It's genuinely overkill for a US-only Shopify store, but if you're a European business with serious GDPR obligations, it's worth considering.

The Full Comparison

Let's put the key factors side by side so you can see what you're actually working with.

Termly: What You Get, What's Locked, and the Hosted Widget Problem

Termly is one of the most popular tools in this space, and honestly it's not hard to see why. The interface is clean, the questionnaire flow is smooth, and the resulting documents look professional. But let's talk about what "free" actually means here.

On Termly's free tier, you can create a privacy policy. But here's the thing: you don't get a file to download. What you get is a URL that looks like app.termly.io/document/privacy-policy/your-uuid-here. That's the page your users get sent to when they click your "Privacy Policy" link. You're not hosting it. Termly is hosting it on their servers.

Termly's paid plans run from $10/month (Starter) up to $30/month (Professional) depending on how many sites you're managing and what features you need. The Starter plan removes the "Powered by Termly" watermark and gives you more customization. The Professional plan adds cookie consent banners, user consent records, and more compliance features.

For some businesses, that's a fair trade. If you need the full cookie consent management suite, centralized policy hosting, and automatic policy update notifications, Termly's paid plans deliver real value. But if you just need a privacy policy and a terms of service for your blog or small online store, paying $10–30/month feels like a lot for what you actually need.

Termly is fine for teams that want a managed compliance platform. It's overkill and overpriced for solo operators who just need a document.

TermsFeed: The One-Time Purchase Model and Where It Gets Confusing

TermsFeed's pitch is appealing: pay once, get your document, own it forever. No subscriptions. The starting price is around $14 for a basic policy, and for some people that's the end of the conversation.

But here's the problem. The $14 option gets you a fairly basic template with your information filled in. If you want a more comprehensive document covering GDPR, CCPA, third-party integrations, and more, you're looking at their higher tiers. And if you need multiple documents , say a privacy policy, terms of service, refund policy, and cookie policy , you're buying each one separately or looking at their $119/year subscription for unlimited documents.

The other thing that trips people up is figuring out which plan they actually need. TermsFeed's pricing page has a lot of options, and it's not always obvious whether the $14 policy will actually cover your use case. There's some genuine confusion baked into the experience, and it feels like that confusion sometimes nudges people toward more expensive tiers than they'd need with clearer information.

TermsFeed is good for simple sites where you need one document and want to pay once and be done. For anything more complex, the costs add up fast.

iubenda: Built for Europe, Priced Accordingly

Honestly, iubenda is confusing to navigate if you're coming in cold. The interface feels like it was designed by lawyers for lawyers, and the pricing model (per site, per year, in euros) adds another layer of friction for non-European users.

That said, iubenda is genuinely excellent for what it's built for. If you're running a business that serves European customers and you have serious GDPR obligations, iubenda's GDPR-specific features are deeper and more thorough than most competitors. Their modular approach (you pick the clauses you need) means the resulting document is actually tailored to your data practices.

Pricing runs from €27/year for the basic Starter plan up to €129/year for the Advanced plan. Each plan covers one site. If you're running multiple sites, you're multiplying that cost accordingly.

For a US-based Shopify store that sells domestic products and has no meaningful European customer base, iubenda is absolute overkill. For a SaaS product with European enterprise customers that need to see a Data Processing Agreement before signing, iubenda is a reasonable investment.

FreeTOS: The Actually Free Option

FreeTOS works like this: you go to the site, you pick the document type you need, you answer a short series of questions about your business, and you get a complete AI-generated document in about 60 seconds. Then you download it as HTML, PDF, or plain text. No account. No payment. No watermark. No hosted URL that someone else controls.

The key difference between FreeTOS and the template-based tools is what the AI actually does. When you tell FreeTOS that you run a Shopify store selling physical products to US and EU customers, that you use Shopify Payments and Google Analytics, and that you're based in California, the AI writes a privacy policy that reflects those specific facts. It's not a generic template with your company name swapped in. The document actually describes how your specific business handles data.

FreeTOS covers 22 document types. Privacy policy, GDPR policy, CCPA policy, terms of service, cookie policy, refund policy, shipping policy, EULA, SaaS terms, DMCA policy, data processing agreements, and more. All free, all AI-generated, all downloadable without an account.

The "Hosted Widget" Problem: Why It Matters More Than You Think

This is worth its own section because most people don't think about it until something goes wrong.

When Termly (on the free tier) or iubenda (on most tiers) hosts your privacy policy, what they're actually giving you is an embed or a redirect URL on their servers. Your website's "Privacy Policy" link doesn't point to a page you control. It points to a page on their platform.

Here's why that's a problem. What happens if you cancel your Termly account? Your privacy policy link breaks. Every visitor who clicks it gets an error page or a redirect to Termly's homepage. That's a compliance problem. If a regulator or a user asks to see your privacy policy and the link is dead, that's a bad situation to be in.

What happens if Termly has downtime? Your privacy policy is unavailable. What happens if Termly changes the URL structure? Same problem.

With FreeTOS, you download the document file and host it on your own website. Your privacy policy lives at yoursite.com/privacy-policy under a URL you control, on a server you (or your hosting provider) run. It doesn't depend on FreeTOS staying in business, staying affordable, or staying the same platform it is today.

You own it. That's not a small thing.

Who Should Use Which Tool

Solo Blogger or Content Creator

Use FreeTOS. You need a privacy policy (especially if you run ads or collect emails) and you don't need to spend money on it. Generate, download, paste into your site. Done in under two minutes.

Shopify or WooCommerce Store

Use FreeTOS. You need a privacy policy, a refund policy, a shipping policy, and probably terms of service. FreeTOS generates all four for free in separate documents you can host on your store. If you're selling to European customers, use the GDPR-specific generator as well.

Early-Stage SaaS Startup

Use FreeTOS for your initial documents. Get launched, get users, get revenue. Once you're at a stage where enterprise customers are asking for reviewed legal agreements or you have meaningful EU user data to protect, then evaluate whether Termly's paid tier or iubenda makes sense for your compliance stack.

Established SaaS with Enterprise Customers

You should probably have a lawyer involved at this point. That said, Termly's Professional plan makes sense if you want centralized cookie consent management and compliance tracking. iubenda is worth considering if you have significant European operations and need thorough GDPR documentation. But the base documents can still start from FreeTOS and get reviewed by counsel.

Large Enterprise or Regulated Industry

Work with a lawyer. Seriously. Legal document generators, including FreeTOS, are for businesses where the cost of a lawyer-drafted document isn't proportionate to the stakes. If you're processing health data, running a financial services product, or operating in a heavily regulated industry, the stakes are high enough to warrant proper legal counsel.

Frequently Asked Questions