Every WordPress site that uses cookies needs a way to ask visitors for permission. Privacy laws like GDPR in Europe and CCPA in California require it. Skip this step, and you’re looking at fines and broken trust with your audience.
A WordPress cookie consent plugin handles the heavy lifting. It adds a cookie banner, blocks tracking scripts until visitors say “yes,” and keeps records of who agreed to what. That’s compliance without the headache. This guide covers the best cookie consent for WordPress options available right now – both free and premium.
Why Your WordPress Site Needs a Cookie Consent Plugin
Here’s the short version: if your site gets traffic from the EU, California, Brazil, or any of the growing list of regulated regions, you need consent before dropping non-essential cookies. Full stop.
Trying to handle that manually means coding your own script-blocking logic, building a preferences panel from scratch, keeping consent records, and staying on top of every regulation change. Nobody has time for that.
A good WordPress cookie consent plugin handles all of it:
- Displays a cookie banner visitors actually understand, with clear Accept and Decline buttons
- Holds back tracking scripts – Analytics, Facebook Pixel, ad tags – until someone says “yes”
- Gives visitors granular control, so they can allow analytics but block marketing cookies
- Matches your site’s branding so the banner doesn’t look like it wandered in from another website
- Adapts behavior by region – strict opt-in for EU visitors, simpler notice for everyone else
- Keeps a consent log you can pull up if you ever need to prove compliance
- Syncs with frameworks like Google Consent Mode and IAB TCF so your ad platforms know what’s allowed
Bottom line? A plugin handles the legal stuff while you focus on running your business. Let’s look at the best options.
Top 10 WordPress Cookie Consent Plugins (Free & Premium)
1. Consentik CMP – GDPR/CCPA Cookie Consent Banner
Consentik CMP showed up recently and immediately made an impression. It’s IAB TCF v2.3 certified and Google Consent Mode v2 ready – which matters a lot if you run ads or rely on analytics data for business decisions.
Coverage-wise, it handles GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, APPI, PDPA, and other major privacy frameworks. The scanner finds cookies on its own, blocks non-essential ones by default, and presents visitors with a straightforward banner: Accept, Decline, or dig into Preferences for a category-by-category breakdown.
Here’s what really sets it apart: the free tier has no pageview limits. Most cloud-based CMPs cap you at a few thousand views before asking for money. Consentik doesn’t, which is a big deal for sites that are growing fast but watching every dollar.
What you get:
- Automatic scanning, categorization, and blocking
- Google Consent Mode v2 and Microsoft UET support
- Real-time consent analytics dashboard
- Full support for IAB TCF v2.3
- Lightweight scripts optimized for Core Web Vitals
Pricing: Free. This plugin is available at no cost, with unrestricted access to all features. There are no usage limits or additional fees associated with the plugin.
2. CookieYes – GDPR/CCPA Cookie Consent & Compliance
CookieYes has earned its spot as one of the go-to choices, and once you try it, you’ll see why. It scans your entire site with one click, finds every cookie lurking in the background, and sorts them into neat categories. No digging through code or guessing which plugin dropped what.
The banner is yours to shape however you want – colors, fonts, text, position. Header bar, footer bar, centered popup – whatever fits your design. California visitors automatically see a “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” link for CCPA compliance, and since CookieYes is a Google-certified CMP, your Analytics and Ads scripts adapt on their own based on what visitors choose.
What you get:
- One-click cookie scanning and auto-categorization
- Google Consent Mode v2 built in
- Preference center for granular category control
- Consent logging with export for audits
- 40+ language auto-translation
Pricing: Free up to 5,000 pageviews/month. Paid plans from ~$10/month for unlimited pageviews, geo-targeting, IAB TCF, and branding removal.
3. Complianz – GDPR/CCPA Cookie Consent
Complianz isn’t just a banner – it’s basically a privacy toolkit that happens to live in WordPress. Over 300,000 sites trust it, and the setup wizard is one of the friendliest you’ll find. It scans your site, asks plain-English questions about what services you use, and configures itself based on your answers.
The real magic is automatic script blocking. YouTube embeds, Google Maps, Facebook widgets, social feeds – Complianz knows about all of them and holds them back until consent comes through. Where blocked content would normally show, visitors see a clean placeholder instead (like a static thumbnail for a YouTube video).
On top of that, it generates a Cookie Policy page with actual legal language. And geo-targeting means EU visitors get the full GDPR opt-in experience while US visitors see a lighter notice or CCPA opt-out link – no one-size-fits-all compromise.
What stands out:
- Automatic blocking for dozens of common services and embeds
- Cookie Policy generated with legal language
- Region-specific banners via geo-targeting
- WCAG Level AA accessible banners
- No jQuery dependency for better performance
Pricing: Free and fully functional for one region. Premium at $59/year adds multi-region support, A/B testing, and consent analytics.
4. GDPR Cookie Compliance (by Moove)
Moove’s plugin takes a different approach – everything lives inside WordPress, no external accounts needed. It supports GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, PIPEDA, and a long list of other regulations, all managed from your own dashboard.
The banner gives visitors four clear options: Accept, Reject, Close, and Settings. That Settings button opens a polished preferences modal where they can toggle each cookie category. Colors, fonts, button labels, expiration timing – it’s all adjustable.
One heads-up: the free version doesn’t auto-detect or auto-block cookies. You’ll need to paste each tracking script into the right category field yourself. It takes a few extra minutes during setup, but you get exact control over what fires and when.
Pricing: Free forever for the core plugin. Premium add-on at ~$60 (one-time) unlocks geo-targeting, cookie wall layout, accept-on-scroll, and iframe blocking.
5. Cookie Notice & Compliance (by Hu-manity.co)
If you want the simplest possible setup, Cookie Notice is hard to beat. It adds a clean, minimal notification bar – a short message, an Accept button, and a link to your privacy policy. That’s pretty much it, and for a lot of sites, that’s enough.
With over a million downloads, it’s one of the most widely used cookie consent for WordPress plugins. It’s lightweight, SEO-friendly, and plays nicely with WPML and Polylang for multilingual sites.
Here’s the honest trade-off: Cookie Notice doesn’t block cookies on its own. It tells visitors about cookies, but you’ll need custom code or a separate tool to actually prevent scripts from firing before consent. For strict GDPR compliance in the EU, that’s a gap you’d need to fill. But for simpler use cases – a US-based blog that just wants to be upfront about cookies – it does the job cleanly.
Pricing: Completely free. An optional cloud-based CMP upgrade from Hu-manity.co adds automatic blocking, granular consent, and Google Consent Mode – pricing varies by traffic.
6. Cookiebot (by Usercentrics)
Cookiebot is one of the veterans in this space, and it’s built around automation. Every month, it scans your entire site, finds every cookie and tracker, catalogs them with names, durations, and purposes, and generates a dynamic cookie declaration you can drop into your policy page. That list stays current without you lifting a finger.
The banner supports 45+ languages with auto-detection, and it blocks all non-essential cookies until consent is given. It also integrates with IAB TCF for programmatic ad compliance – a must for publishers.
Pricing: Free for sites up to 100 subpages. Paid plans from €7/month for larger sites.
7. Real Cookie Banner (by devowl.io)
Real Cookie Banner keeps everything local – no cloud servers, no external dependencies. It’s especially popular across Germany and the EU, and for good reason. The plugin walks you through the setup with a wizard and checklist, and it comes loaded with pre-built templates for over 150 services.
That template library is the real time-saver. Need to add Google Analytics? Import the template and it fills in the script, cookie names, descriptions, and blocking rules automatically. Same for YouTube, Facebook Pixel, Hotjar, and dozens more. It also includes 120+ content blocker templates – so embedded videos, maps, and social feeds show a placeholder message until visitors consent.
Pricing: Limited free version (up to 25 services). Pro from €59/year for one site – annual, not monthly.
8. iubenda – Cookie Consent + Legal Policies
iubenda bundles cookie consent with legal document generation, which is a huge time-saver if you also need a Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, or Terms of Service. Built by lawyers and technologists together, it creates professional-grade legal pages and keeps them updated as laws change.
The cookie consent module scans your site, auto-blocks non-essential scripts, and offers granular category consent. For California visitors, it handles the “Do Not Sell” requirement. For EU visitors, it enforces strict opt-in. And the legal documents it generates are detailed, accurate, and embeddable on your WordPress pages.
Pricing: Limited free plan. Full functionality from €4,99/month. Advanced and Ultimate plans run roughly €19–$79/month for cookies + legal documents.
9. Termly – Cookie Consent Manager
Termly keeps things simple on the surface while handling complexity behind the scenes. It scans your site, builds a cookie inventory, and generates legal documents – cookie policies, privacy policies, disclaimers – all from one dashboard.
The banner comes with some nice design touches, like a corner widget that expands on hover instead of a full-width bar. Geo-targeting, category consent, auto-blocking, and consent analytics are all included.
Pricing: Free tier for low-traffic sites. Pro from ~$10/month with unlimited pageviews and full features.
Quick Comparison Table
| Plugin | Free Version | Auto Scan | Auto Block | Cloud-Based | Starting Price |
| Consentik CMP | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Free |
| CookieYes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | $10/month |
| Complianz | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | $59/year |
| Moove GDPR | Yes | No | Manual | No | ~£59/year |
| Cookie Notice | Yes | No | No | Optional | Free |
| Cookiebot | Yes (100 pages) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Free (up to 50 subpages) |
| Real Cookie Banner | Limited | Yes (v3) | Yes | No | €59/year |
| iubenda | Limited | Yes | Yes | Yes | €4,99/mo |
| Termly | Limited | Yes | Yes | Yes | Free |
How to Pick the Right WordPress Cookie Plugin
Ten options is a lot to sort through, so here’s a quick way to narrow it down based on what matters most to you.
Budget is tight? Consentik CMP is the clear winner here. Unlike most plugins that lock key features behind a paywall, Consentik gives you everything – auto-scanning, cookie blocking, banner customization, and consent logging – completely free with no visitor limits. It covers all the compliance essentials right out of the box.
Want someone else to manage it? Cloud-based tools like Consentik, Cookiebot, iubenda, or Termly do the heavy lifting through an external dashboard. Scanning, legal docs, multi-regulation support – it’s all handled for you. The trade-off is a subscription, but the time you save is worth it if you’re juggling ads, analytics, and visitors from multiple countries.
Prefer to own everything? Real Cookie Banner and Consentik CMP run entirely inside WordPress. No external servers, no monthly bills, no third-party dependencies. They take a bit more setup – you’ll add services from template libraries – but once configured, they’re rock solid. Your consent data stays in your own database, which some site owners strongly prefer.
Serving a global audience? Look for geo-targeting. Plugins like Complianz, Consentik, and Cookiebot can show different banners to different regions – strict opt-in for the EU, lighter notice for the US, nothing for unregulated areas. That keeps the experience clean for everyone.
Wrapping Up
Cookie consent used to feel like an afterthought – a small bar at the bottom of the page that everyone clicked through without thinking. Those days are over. Regulators are paying attention, fines are real, and visitors actually care about how sites handle their data.
The good news? You don’t need to become a privacy lawyer to get this right. A solid WordPress cookie consent plugin does the hard work for you. Whether you go with a free option like Consentik CMP or CookieYes, a cloud platform like Consentik or Cookiebot, every option on this list makes compliance straightforward. Pick the one that fits how you work, follow the setup steps, and your site will be compliant, transparent, and worthy of the trust your visitors put in it.
Read More: GDPR Compliance WordPress: Everything You Need To Know
