CookiePal, cheap but hard to pin down
Let's be fair to CookiePal first. It is one of the cheapest consent tools you can buy — the published paid tiers are around €5 and €10 a month, which is less than most teams spend on coffee for a morning. It references IAB TCF v2.2 in its public material, documents Google Consent Mode, and its free plan is pitched at real sites rather than being a two-week trial. For a personal blog or a single small business site, the price is hard to argue with.
Where it gets uncomfortable is due diligence. Ask a simple question — what does the free plan include? — and you get three published answers. CookiePal's own pricing page says 10,000 pageviews a month. A Google-hosted product profile document says 25,000 a month. Its AppSumo question-and-answer page says the free allowance is a one-time 10,000 pageviews that does not reset each month, which is a completely different product. The paid tiers have the same problem in miniature: €5 and €10 in the Google-hosted document, $5 and $10 in third-party listings. And on CookiePal's own comparison page, Google Advanced Consent Mode is listed as a Pro-plan feature rather than something every customer gets. None of this makes CookiePal a bad tool. It does mean you cannot budget or complete a vendor review from the public pages alone.
Conzent vs CookiePal at a glance
| Conzent | CookiePal | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per site, not per view — the price drops as you add sites, and traffic never changes it. See current tiers | Per pageview, with a traffic selector running from 10,000 up past 1 million. A Google-hosted product profile lists Starter at €5/mo to 100,000 views and Pro at €10/mo to 300,000; third-party listings show the same figures in dollars |
| What happens when you grow | Nothing — no allowance to exceed, no overage rate, no surprise line item | You climb the pageview ladder — and on CookiePal's own comparison page, Advanced Consent Mode arrives with the Pro tier rather than with the product |
| GDPR / IAB TCF / Consent Mode v2 | ✓ GDPR, CCPA & 25+ regional laws ✓ IAB TCF v2.4 ✓ Consent Mode v2 (Basic & Advanced) — all included, every plan | IAB TCF v2.2 referenced in its public content · Consent Mode supported, with Advanced listed as a Pro-plan feature |
| CMS & platform integrations | 6 native integrations: WordPress, Wix, Joomla, Drupal, TYPO3, Umbraco — plus a universal script tag for anything else | No definitive official CMS integration list is published; the free plan is described as covering unlimited subpages on a site |
| Self-hosted / open source | ✓ Yes — OCI, Apache 2.0, one-line installer, unlimited sites and pageviews | ✗ Not published — no self-hosted or open-source edition appears in CookiePal's public material |
| EU data residency | ✓ Yes — managed cloud data hosted in Germany; self-host it and it never leaves your own server | No hosting region or residency option published |
| Free tier | ✓ Free forever if self-hosted; free trial on managed cloud | Yes, but three different published limits: 10,000 pageviews/month on the pricing page, 25,000/month in a Google-hosted profile, and a one-time 10,000 that never resets in its AppSumo Q&A |
CookiePal figures are taken from its public pricing page, a Google-hosted product profile document, its own comparison pages and its AppSumo Q&A, all current in 2026. These sources disagree with each other, and pricing changes — confirm the numbers with CookiePal before you switch. See Conzent's current plans.
Switching from CookiePal? Here's what to expect
Moving CMPs follows the same shape whichever vendor you leave: install the new script alongside the old one for a short test window, run a fresh scan to rebuild your cookie categories, configure and preview the banner, then switch the live script and remove the old one. Historical consent records stay with the vendor that collected them and don't transfer — that's normal for any CMP migration rather than anything specific to CookiePal, so plan to start your consent log fresh. One thing to check before you start: CookiePal has been sold through lifetime deals, where the number of domains you're entitled to is fixed by the deal tier and extra domains are billed separately. If you bought that way, confirm which domains you actually hold before you count what you're replacing.
Why teams switch from CookiePal to Conzent
One published answer, not three
You shouldn't have to cross-reference a pricing page, a profile document and a deals-site Q&A to work out what you're paying for. Conzent publishes a single per-site model on one page: the price drops as you add sites, and your traffic never changes it.
Advanced isn't a tier
Consent Mode v2 comes in Basic and Advanced, and which one you need depends on how you measure — not on what you can afford. Conzent includes both on every plan, along with IAB TCF v2.4 and coverage for GDPR, CCPA and 25+ regional laws.
An exit that doesn't cost anything
Conzent's core is open source under the Apache 2.0 licence. If the commercial relationship ever stops working for you, you can run the same platform on your own server for free instead of starting another vendor search.
Frequently asked questions
How much does CookiePal cost?
A Google-hosted product profile document lists Starter at €5 a month for up to 100,000 pageviews and Pro at €10 a month for up to 300,000. Third-party listings show the same figures as $5 and $10. CookiePal's own pricing page presents a traffic selector with steps at 10,000, 50,000, 100,000, 300,000, 600,000 and 1 million pageviews. Because the currency and the tiers differ between sources, get your quote in writing before you budget.
What is CookiePal's free plan, exactly?
That depends which page you read. The pricing page says 10,000 pageviews a month. A Google-hosted profile document says 25,000 a month. The AppSumo Q&A says the 10,000 pageviews are a one-time allowance that does not reset monthly. Those are three materially different offers, so ask CookiePal directly which one applies to a new account.
Which IAB TCF version does CookiePal support?
Its public content references IAB TCF v2.2. Conzent runs IAB TCF v2.4, on every plan including self-hosted.
Is Advanced Consent Mode included with CookiePal?
On CookiePal's own comparison page, Google Advanced Consent Mode is listed as part of the Pro plan. Conzent includes Consent Mode v2 in both Basic and Advanced on every plan. Consent Mode is a technical signal to Google's tags, not a legal position — but which mode you can send shouldn't depend on your price tier.
What's the best alternative to CookiePal?
If the price suits you but the ambiguity doesn't, look for a CMP that publishes one pricing model, one TCF version and one hosting region. Conzent prices per site, includes TCF v2.4 and Consent Mode v2 on every plan, hosts managed cloud data in Germany, and can be self-hosted for free if you'd rather own the whole thing.