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Termly Review 2026: Free Tier, Setup Friction & Real Cost

📅 Updated June 27, 2026 ⏱ 11 min read ⭐ 4.0 / 5
Bottom line: Termly is the right first compliance tool for a US-focused small business that needs legal documents fast — privacy policy, cookie policy, T&C, EULA, disclaimer all in one dashboard. The free tier is genuinely usable (not a trial teaser), and Google Consent Mode v2 works out of the box. The catch: Termly asks the user to make compliance decisions without explaining why those decisions matter. If you want a platform that walks you through the choices, iubenda is better suited. Rating: 4.0 / 5.
Affiliate disclosure: We may earn a commission if you sign up to Termly via links in this article. Ordering is independent of commission size. See our full affiliate disclosure and scoring methodology.
How we assessed Termly: Unlike some tools we cover, Termly is deployed first-hand on a sister site — a Webflow-based travel guide running the Free tier with the cookie banner, privacy policy generator, and cookie policy generator. This review is based on (1) that live deployment, (2) vendor documentation and the current pricing page, and (3) verified-user reviews on G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, and Reddit. Where a claim depends on first-hand deployment, we say so.

What is Termly?

Termly is a US-based legal compliance SaaS founded in 2017 in Spokane, Washington, and acquired by Swedish hosting group group.one in January 2024. As of 2026, Termly serves over 2 million businesses across 150+ countries and processes around 1.7 billion banner views per month, per its own pricing page.

The product splits into two halves: a library of ten attorney-drafted policy generators (privacy policy, cookie policy, T&C, EULA, disclaimer, return policy, shipping policy, acceptable use, impressum, accessibility statement) and a consent management platform (cookie banner, automated cookie scanner, script auto-blocker, consent preference center, Google Consent Mode v2 integration). For US-focused small businesses this is the broadest document suite at the price point — no direct competitor at the $0–$20/month tier offers ten generators.

Pricing — the real numbers

Verified from termly.io/pricing as of June 2026:

The multi-site math: Termly charges per domain. A six-site portfolio on Pro+ runs roughly $90/month annual — $1,080/year. Compare with Complianz Pro at €99/year for unlimited WordPress sites, or with iubenda's tier-based licensing. For multi-domain operators below the Agency tier, Termly is one of the more expensive options on the market, per Consent Mode HQ's 2026 review.

What we actually deployed

We run Termly's Free tier on a sister Webflow site — a travel guide with mixed US/EU traffic and Google Analytics 4 as the only paid tracker. The deployment uses:

The banner appears as a fixed bottom bar with three buttons — Preferences, Decline, Accept — and a "Cookie Consent Manager by Termly" attribution in the top-left corner. Six cookie categories are exposed in the preferences modal (Essential, Performance & Functionality, Analytics & Customization, Advertising, Social networking, Unclassified), with categories the site has not configured greyed out.

First-hand observation: The banner works. The granular preferences modal works. The footer link to "Consent Preferences" correctly reopens the modal. The cookie policy is well-formatted, with proper heading hierarchy and readable body text. None of that is the problem. The problem is the path that got us there — see "Setup friction" below.

Regulatory coverage

Termly claims support for 30+ regulations and 80+ regions, per its own comparison page. Coverage is deep for US state laws and competent for GDPR/UK GDPR; thinner for non-Western jurisdictions:

For EU programmatic publishers, the practical reality is more nuanced than the marketing suggests. Without full IAB TCF 2.3 (Pro+ only), Consent Mode HQ documented in May 2026 that Google Ad Manager withholds personalized ad serving for EU users when only Basic GCM is in place — collapsing CPMs in the process. If you monetize EU traffic with programmatic ads, Pro+ is the minimum viable tier, not a nice-to-have.

Google Consent Mode v2

Termly achieved Google CMP Partner Gold status in February 2026 (CMP ID 412 on Google's CMP list) — the top tier of Google's certification program. In practice:

Microsoft UET Consent Mode was added in April 2025, which is genuinely useful for B2B sites running Microsoft Ads.

Why the Free/Starter → Pro+ jump matters more than it looks. Under Basic Consent Mode (Free, Starter), Google tags stay fully blocked until consent is granted — a declined visitor produces no measurement data at all. Under Advanced Consent Mode (Pro+), tags fire on page load and send stateless, cookieless pings; when consent is denied, Google's conversion modeling uses machine learning to reconstruct a meaningful share of the missing signal. For sites running Google Ads, that's the difference between flying blind on opted-out traffic and keeping attribution intact — and it's the strongest single reason to take the Pro+ upgrade for a US-focused ad-spending site.

Integrations

Termly is cloud-hosted and platform-agnostic. Quality varies:

Setup friction — where Termly actually loses points

This is the central critique and the reason Termly does not score higher in this review.

Termly's marketing claims policies can be created in "as little as ten minutes." That's technically true for someone who already knows which regulations apply to their site, what cookie categories mean, and how to interpret a scanner result. For the average solo operator, it's not.

The setup wizard asks questions like jurisdiction and data types, but does not explain why a certain regulation applies or what the consequences of a wrong answer would be. As G2 reviewer Trevor G. put it in September 2024: "Sometimes it would be good to know why you should select a certain policy requirement."

The automated cookie scanner frequently produces "Unclassified" cookies requiring manual review. Capterra reviewer MA Moustafa A. (January 2025): "Although the cookies scanner is effective overall, it occasionally misses certain cookies or categorizes them incorrectly, requiring manual adjustments." For single-page applications built in React, Vue, or Next.js, Consent Mode HQ confirmed in May 2026 that "Termly's crawler frequently misses late-firing tags."

Compare with iubenda, which offers a personalized installation call available on request on every plan and describes its setup as a guided walkthrough. Termly's training and onboarding are reserved for the Agency plan. Below Agency, you get a help center, knowledge base articles, and live chat during business hours — and as of June 2026 the pricing page lists support hours as Mon–Fri, 9AM–1PM EST. That's four hours a day.

First-hand observation: On our Webflow deployment, the friction wasn't installing the script — that took 5 minutes. It was the policy questionnaire. Termly asks about data collection practices, third-party processors, and child-data handling without context on what each answer means legally. We knew enough to answer correctly. A non-technical site owner without compliance background would not. This is the "less guidance than iubenda" gap.

What real users say

Aggregate ratings as of June 2026:

What positive reviews consistently praise:

What negative reviews consistently flag:

Trust signals

The absence of public SOC 2 and ISO 27001 documentation is a real gap for enterprise buyers and for EU operators assessing Article 28 GDPR processor obligations. For a solopreneur on the Free tier this doesn't matter. For a SaaS handling sensitive data, it does.

Termly vs the alternatives

Compared head-to-head with the tools we cover:

Who should buy Termly in 2026

Good fit

Bad fit

The verdict

Termly is a legitimate, well-funded compliance tool that does its core job — generating legally defensible policy documents and deploying a functional cookie consent banner — without requiring a lawyer. For a site like the one we run it on, the Free tier delivers real compliance value at zero cost, and the "Powered by Termly" watermark is a reasonable trade for that.

The critique that Termly offers less guidance than iubenda is accurate and well-supported. The platform expects users to know which regulations apply to them, what cookie categories mean, and how to interpret scanner results — assumptions that hold for tech-savvy operators but fail the average small business owner. The Free tier is genuinely useful, not just a trial teaser, but its visible watermark, 10K-view cap, and lack of regional consent rules mean it's a starting point, not a permanent solution.

The 4.0/5 rating reflects: strong policy generator breadth, a usable free tier, Google CMP Gold status, and a competent CMP — offset by structural setup friction, narrow support hours (4 hours/day), per-domain pricing that scales poorly, and confirmed gaps in EU legal depth and enterprise security documentation.

Final recommendation

Termly — start free, upgrade to Pro+ when it actually matters

If you're US-focused and document-hungry, the Free tier is a legitimate starting point. Plan to budget for Pro+ (~$15/month annual) before your traffic, EU ad revenue, or watermark visibility justifies the upgrade.

Try Termly Free

FAQ

Is Termly really free?

Yes. The Free tier includes one legal policy, the cookie banner with up to 10,000 banner views per month, quarterly cookie scans, and basic Google Consent Mode v2. The catch is a visible "Powered by Termly" watermark link in the banner. Removing it requires Pro+ ($20/month or ~$15/month annual).

Does Termly support Google Consent Mode v2?

Yes — Termly is a Google CMP Partner with Gold status as of February 2026. Basic GCM v2 is available on Free and Starter; Advanced GCM v2 with full signal integration requires Pro+. The UI does not expose granular control over ads_data_redaction or url_passthrough, so advanced teams add custom GTM code on top.

How does Termly compare with iubenda?

Termly wins on policy breadth (10 generators vs 3), US state law coverage, and phone support. iubenda wins on EU legal depth, multi-language (27 languages), and guided onboarding (personalized installation calls on every plan). For US-focused small businesses, Termly is usually the better first pick; for EU publishers or multi-language sites, iubenda is more defensible. Full comparison here.

Will Termly work on Shopify?

Technically yes, via custom HTML embed — but Termly has no native Shopify app and no Shopify API integration, a gap flagged by Enzuzo's 2026 comparison. For Shopify merchants, CookieYes or Pandectes are stronger choices.

Is Termly's free tier GDPR-compliant?

Yes — the Free tier banner, with appropriate configuration, can satisfy GDPR consent requirements for a small site. The structural caveats: regional consent rules require Pro+ (so EU visitors see the same banner as US visitors on Free), IAB TCF 2.3 requires Pro+, and consent logs require Pro+. For a low-traffic non-monetized site, Free is genuinely adequate. For an EU programmatic publisher, it isn't.

What happens if I downgrade from Pro+ to Free?

Multiple verified reviewers report losing banner configuration and settings when downgrading. Plan to take screenshots of your configuration before any plan change, and assume downgrades are not lossless.

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