Cookiebot review

Cookiebot began in Copenhagen in 2012 as a product of Cybot, which merged with the German Usercentrics in 2021. The Cookiebot entity, Usercentrics A/S, is registered in Denmark. The product does one job in depth: finding everything a website stores or sends about its visitors and putting it behind a consent banner.

The scanner simulates visitors, follows links and buttons, plays media and monitors network traffic on up to 10,000 subpages. Besides HTTP and JavaScript cookies it detects HTML5 local storage, IndexedDB, Flash and Silverlight storage, pixel tags and ultrasound beacons. From the results Cookiebot builds a cookie declaration listing each item's type, duration, provider and purpose, and its banner blocks the scripts until consent. Consents are logged with an anonymised IP address, timestamp and consent state, can be downloaded or read via API and are kept for one year. Cookiebot is a Gold Tier Google-certified CMP and is registered with the IAB; the banner is available in 47+ languages. The company states ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 certification.

The free Cookie checker on the website runs a one-off scan of a URL and e-mails the report. Cookiebot does not check the content of a privacy policy, the imprint, e-shop duties or accessibility; a privacy policy generator exists as a separate Usercentrics tool in four languages.

Prices are in euro, excl. VAT, per domain and month. Free covers one domain and 50 subpages, without automated monthly scans. Premium Lite costs €7 (up to 50 subpages), Premium Small €15 (350), Medium €30 (3,500), Large €50 (7,000) and XLarge €90 (above 7,000). The tier is assigned automatically from the highest subpage count found, and www and non-www versions count as separate domains. Monthly scans are included in paid plans; daily scans cost €99 per month extra. A 14-day trial needs no credit card.