Choosing a cookie consent plan sounds straightforward until you start comparing providers. Some charge by pageviews. Some charge by subpage count. Some auto-upgrade you to a higher tier without warning.
The most reliable way to find the right plan is to start with your website’s actual size — specifically, the number of unique subpages it contains. This article explains why subpage count matters for cookie consent, how the three most common pricing models work, and which plan tier makes sense for different sizes of website.
What subpages are and why they matter
A subpage is any unique URL path on your website that can be crawled by a cookie scanner. Your homepage is one subpage. Your about page is another. Each blog post, product page, category page, and landing page counts as a separate subpage.
For example, a small business website with a homepage, about page, services page, contact page, and ten blog posts has roughly 14 subpages. An e-commerce store with 200 product listings, 15 category pages, and a handful of informational pages might have 250 subpages. A media site with years of archived content could easily have 5,000 or more.
Subpage count matters for cookie consent because the consent scanner needs to visit each page to detect which cookies, trackers, and third-party scripts are active. More subpages mean more scanning work, more potential cookie variations across pages, and more complexity in building an accurate cookie declaration.
A five-page brochure site might set 8 cookies, all from the same analytics and chat tools. A 3,000-page e-commerce site might set 40+ different cookies across product pages, checkout flows, and marketing landing pages — each needing accurate categorization.
Three pricing models compared
Cookie consent tools generally use one of three approaches to determine what you pay.
Subpage-based pricing (CookieBoss)
CookieBoss prices plans by the number of subpages the scanner crawls on your domain. You pick a tier that matches your site’s size, and the scanner crawls up to that many pages. If your site grows beyond the limit, you upgrade to the next tier.
This model is predictable. Your subpage count changes slowly — it only increases when you publish new content, not when traffic spikes. A blog post that goes viral doesn’t push you into a higher tier. A seasonal traffic surge doesn’t affect your bill.
Pageview-based pricing (CookieYes)
CookieYes ties pricing to monthly pageviews — the total number of times visitors load pages on your site. This means your bill fluctuates with traffic. A successful marketing campaign, a Reddit mention, or a seasonal peak can push you into the next pricing bracket even though your site hasn’t changed.
For low-traffic sites, this model can be affordable. For sites with variable or growing traffic, it introduces uncertainty.
Subpage-triggered auto-upgrade (Cookiebot)
Cookiebot uses subpage count, but with a twist: if your site exceeds the subpage limit of your current plan, Cookiebot automatically upgrades you to the next tier and charges accordingly. This can catch site owners off guard, especially if a plugin generates pages dynamically or if a content migration adds pages they didn’t account for.
The upgrade is automatic with no approval step, which means your monthly bill can increase without you taking any action.
CookieBoss pricing tiers
CookieBoss offers five tiers, each covering one domain. All plans include automated cookie scanning, consent collection, and a cookie declaration.
| Plan | Price | Subpages | Scan frequency | Key extras |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | EUR 0/mo | 50 | Monthly | 14-day Pro trial included |
| Basic | EUR 9/mo | 500 | Weekly | Remove badge, multi-language, consent log export |
| Pro | EUR 19/mo | 3,500 | Daily | Geo rules, advanced styling, GCM v2 verified |
| Business | EUR 39/mo | 7,000 | Daily + on-demand | Multi-user roles, audit trail, compliance report |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | SLA, SSO, custom retention |
Every new account starts with a 14-day Pro trial. During the trial, you get access to all Pro features — daily scanning, geo-targeting rules, advanced styling, and Google Consent Mode v2 integration — regardless of which plan you intend to use. This gives you time to evaluate the full feature set before committing.
Single-domain pricing comparison
Here’s what a single domain costs across the three platforms at different site sizes. Prices reflect published rates at the time of writing.
| Site size (subpages) | CookieBoss | Cookiebot | CookieYes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Up to 50 | EUR 0/mo (Free) | EUR 0/mo (free up to 50 subpages) | USD 0/mo (free up to 100 pages) |
| Up to 500 | EUR 9/mo (Basic) | EUR 21/mo (Standard) | USD 10/mo (Basic, 100k pageviews) |
| Up to 3,500 | EUR 19/mo (Pro) | EUR 40/mo (Premium) | USD 32/mo (Pro, 1M pageviews) |
| Up to 7,000 | EUR 39/mo (Business) | EUR 40+/mo (Premium) | USD 49/mo (Business, 10M pageviews) |
| 7,000+ | Custom (Enterprise) | Custom | USD 49+/mo |
CookieYes prices in the table above assume traffic levels typical for sites of that size. Actual costs vary based on pageviews, not page count.
Note: Cookiebot’s free tier is limited to 50 subpages and displays their branding. Exceeding 50 subpages triggers an automatic upgrade to a paid tier.
Which plan fits your site
Small business site (under 50 subpages)
A typical small business website — homepage, about, services, contact, a handful of blog posts — fits comfortably in the Free tier. You get automated monthly scanning, a consent banner, and a cookie declaration at no cost.
The 14-day Pro trial lets you test advanced features like geo-targeting and custom styling. If you don’t need those features, the Free plan continues working after the trial ends.
Recommended plan: Free (EUR 0/mo)
Growing site (50 to 500 subpages)
A business blog with regular content, a small e-commerce store, or a professional services firm with detailed service pages typically falls in this range. Weekly scanning catches new cookies more quickly than monthly, and at this size you’ll likely want to remove the consent badge from your banner and support multiple languages if you serve international visitors.
Consent log export becomes relevant here too — if a regulator or auditor asks for proof that you collected consent, you need a downloadable record.
Recommended plan: Basic (EUR 9/mo)
Large site (500 to 3,500 subpages)
Medium-sized e-commerce stores, content-heavy marketing sites, and SaaS platforms with documentation and blog content typically land here. Daily scanning is important because sites of this size change frequently — new products, updated content, revised tracking setups.
Geo-targeting rules let you show different consent experiences to visitors from different regions, which matters if your site serves both EU and non-EU traffic. Google Consent Mode v2 verified integration ensures your analytics data remains accurate while respecting consent.
Recommended plan: Pro (EUR 19/mo)
Enterprise site (3,500+ subpages)
Large e-commerce catalogs, media sites, and multi-department corporate websites with thousands of pages need the Business tier or above. On-demand scanning lets you trigger a full scan after major site changes rather than waiting for the next scheduled scan.
Multi-user roles and audit trails become essential when multiple people manage compliance across the organization. The compliance report provides documentation ready for regulatory review.
Recommended plan: Business (EUR 39/mo) or Enterprise (custom)
How the 14-day Pro trial works
Every CookieBoss account starts with a 14-day Pro trial, regardless of which plan you select. During the trial, you have access to:
- Daily scanning instead of monthly or weekly
- Geo-targeting rules to show region-specific consent banners
- Advanced styling options for the consent banner
- Google Consent Mode v2 verified integration
When the trial ends, your account moves to the plan you selected during signup. If you chose the Free plan, features revert to Free-tier limits (monthly scanning, standard styling, no geo rules). Your consent banner and cookie declaration continue working — you don’t lose compliance coverage.
This approach means you can evaluate whether features like daily scanning and geo rules are worth upgrading for, using your own site data rather than relying on a feature comparison table.
How to count your subpages
Before choosing a plan, it helps to know roughly how many subpages your site has. There are several ways to check:
Use your sitemap. If your site has an XML sitemap (usually at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml), count the URLs listed. This is the fastest method and covers the pages search engines know about.
Check Google Search Console. The Pages report shows how many URLs Google has indexed. This is a reasonable proxy for your subpage count.
Use a free crawler. Tools like Screaming Frog (free for up to 500 URLs) will crawl your site and report the total number of unique pages found.
Estimate by content type. Count your blog posts, product pages, category pages, and static pages. Add them up. Most sites have fewer subpages than their owners expect.
What happens when you exceed your subpage limit
If your site grows beyond your plan’s subpage limit, CookieBoss does not auto-upgrade your plan or charge you more without notice. The scanner will crawl pages up to your plan limit. Pages beyond the limit are not scanned, which means any cookies set only on those pages won’t appear in your cookie declaration.
You’ll see a notification in your dashboard indicating that your site has more pages than your plan covers. You can then decide whether to upgrade to a higher tier or keep your current plan if the unscanned pages don’t set unique cookies.
This approach avoids billing surprises. You stay in control of when and whether to upgrade.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as a subpage?
Any unique URL path that the cookie scanner can crawl. For example, yoursite.com/about and yoursite.com/blog/my-post are two separate subpages. URL parameters (like ?utm_source=email) are typically deduplicated, so the same page with different query strings counts as one subpage.
Do subdomains count as separate domains?
Yes. blog.yoursite.com and shop.yoursite.com are separate domains and each require their own plan. Only pages under the same domain and subdomain share a subpage count.
What happens when my Pro trial ends?
Your account moves to whatever plan you selected at signup. If you chose Free, you keep the Free-tier features. If you chose Basic, you get Basic features. Your consent banner keeps working — there’s no interruption in compliance coverage.
Can I upgrade or downgrade at any time?
Yes. Plan changes take effect immediately. If you upgrade, you get access to the higher tier’s features and scanning limits right away. If you downgrade, the change applies at the start of your next billing cycle.
Do I need a separate plan for each website?
Yes, each domain requires its own plan. If you operate multiple websites, each one needs its own CookieBoss subscription. This is consistent with how Cookiebot and CookieYes price their plans.
How often should my site be scanned?
It depends on how frequently your site changes. A brochure site that’s updated monthly is fine with monthly scanning (Free tier). A blog publishing weekly benefits from weekly scanning (Basic). An e-commerce site with frequent product updates should use daily scanning (Pro or Business).
Is CookieBoss GDPR and ePrivacy compliant?
Yes. All plans — including Free — include the core compliance features: prior consent collection, cookie categorization, consent storage, and a cookie declaration. Higher tiers add features that make compliance easier to manage (geo rules, audit trails, compliance reports), but the baseline compliance functionality is the same.
CookieBoss plans start at EUR 0/mo for sites with up to 50 subpages. Every account includes a 14-day Pro trial with daily scanning, geo rules, and Google Consent Mode v2 verified integration. See pricing.
