Termly vs Usercentrics: Comparing Features and Services

I compared compliance solutions from Termly and Usercentrics to help you choose the best service for your business.

Below, find out if Termly or Usercentrics is right for you!

Quick Comparison

See the table I compiled below for a quick comparison of Usercentrics and Termly.

Deeper Dive Into Features and Solutions

Now, I’ll look closer at the features and solutions offered by Termly and Usercentrics.

Free Services

In my opinion, Termly offers more extensive free services to users than Usercentrics’ 30-day free trial period.

What Termly Gives Free Users

Free users who sign up for Termly get access to all the following solutions:

• Access to one policy generator of your choice
• Cookie policy and cookie banner
• Cookie script auto-blocker
• HTML embeddable policies
• Quarterly cookie scans

Termly also has nine free templates on the website that anyone can use with clauses and legal considerations similar to the generators.

These free resources can help businesses more easily achieve privacy compliance independently without hurting their budget.

What Usercentrics Gives Free Users

Based on the Usercentrics pricing page, it appears that this company has a Free Plan available through their Cookiebot CMP, which has limited features.

For example, it’s available for websites with up to 50 sub-pages and offers functionalities such as pre-built banner templates, automatic cookie categorization, and a cookie declaration option.

Usercentrics also offers a 30-day free trial of their services.

The free trial period gives users access to all features available in the Advanced Plan.

• Up to 50,000 sessions
• Unlimited configurations and domains
• Daily website scanner
• Privacy policy embeddings
• IAB TCF v2.2 support
• Google Consent Mode support
• Proof of consent
• User interaction analytics
• 60 supported languages
• Smart Data Protector
• Geolocation rules
• Cross-domain consent sharing

According to a few FAQs on their pricing page, after the period ends, you need to upgrade to a Premium or Advanced plan depending on the size of your website, and they provide a 30-day grace period for you to do this.

According to a support article from 2023, during this grace period, you cannot access the Usercentrics Account interface to see consent data or make any changes to the ways you’ve configured your CMP.

You must upgrade your account to regain access to all your settings and data.

Paid Services

Termly and Usercentircs take slightly different approaches to their paid plans, and I find both to be acceptable, but Termly’s pricing overall is more affordable.

Termly offers monthly or annual billing plans whereas Usercentrics charges based on how many monthly sessions a website experiences.

Termly’s Paid Plans

Termly has two paid plans available for businesses:

• Starter Plan: $14/month when billed monthly, $10/month when billed annually
• Pro+ Plan: $20/month when billed monthly, $15/month when billed annually

With the Starter Plan, users can access two policy generators and the Consent Management Platform with up to 50,000 banner views.

The Pro+ Plan provides users with access to all the policy generators and the CMP with unlimited banner views, and it unlocks the following additional features:

• Multi-language supports
• Weekly cookie scans
• Auto-updated policies
• Remove the Termly logo
• IAB TCF v2.2 compatibility
• Google Consent Mode v2 compatibility
• Regional consent rules
• Scan subdomains
• Consent logs

View Termly’s Pricing Page

Usercentrics’ Paid Option

Usercentrics offers the following payment plans for their various CMPs, all of which are billed on an annual basis:

• Web CMP Advanced: $60 per month / $720 annually
• Web CMP Advanced Plus: $175 – $1,150 per month  /$2,100 – $13,800 annually
• App CMP Advanced Plus: $60 – $1,150 per month / $720 – $13,800 annually
• CTV CMP TV Premium: Custom pricing

They appear to charge companies accordingly depending on how many monthly sessions they experience.

For example, their pricing page says the Web CMP Advanced Plus plan is for websites with 50,000 or more monthly sessions. They get access to Usercentric’s ‘400+ support partners’, but it otherwise appears to be the same as the Advanced plan.

Premium Plans are also available on both the Web and App CMP, but you must contact their sales team for pricing information.

Policy Generators

Termly’s website appears to advertise having more policy generators, and I find them easier to access than Usercentrics.

Termly offers the following eight policy generators and nine free templates to users:

All of Termly’s policy generators are backed by their legal team and data privacy experts. The team updates the generators regularly to accommodate for when new laws enter into force that impact businesses.

Usercentrics does not offer any policy generators to its customers on its website.

However, their pricing page says they give users access to “2,200+ legal templates for Data Processing Services (DPS) which will help explain the consent management lifecycle.”

The Usercentrics’ pricing page states that these consent texts can be directly embedded to an existing privacy policy.

Consent Management

I find the Web CMP from Usercentrics similar in quality and scope to Termly’s CMP.

Both provide users with multi-language support, customizable banner designs, and privacy law compliance, and they are compatible with the IAB TCV v2.2 and Google Consent Mode.

However, Usercentrics is more expensive than Termly despite the similarities in the Web CMP features, scope, and scale.

The Usercentrics App CMP is likely beneficial for app or game developers as it includes offline capabilities and other strong features. Their CTV CMP is another unique feature.

From what I can tell, all of their Premium CMP plans seem to be built to accommodate enterprise-level consent management.

Privacy Law Compliance

It appears that Termly’s compliance solutions can accommodate more privacy laws and legal requirements than Usercentrics.

The Usercentrics website says their CMP services comply with the following:

• Digital Markets Act (DMA)
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
• California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
• Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA)
• Brazil’s General Data Protection Law (LGDP)
• South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA)
• Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP)

Termly’s CMP is configurable to meet the opt-in and opt-out requirements of laws in over 70 regions around the world.

Their privacy policy generator accommodates 26 privacy laws from around the world, including all laws in the list above, and they add additional laws quarterly.

These laws get added to the ‘What laws does Termly cover’ resource article.

Customer Support

I find Termly’s customer support team and channels for users to be more comprehensive than Usercentrics.

Usercentrics has a standard support center available online that leads to website forms where users can submit questions or search for articles with answers to their questions.

Termly also has an online form and a support center on its website.

Plus, they have a live chat and phone line that connects users with a customer support team of real people available Monday through Friday, 9 am to 6 pm EST.

Customer Reviews + Business Accolades

Termly has better overall customer reviews than Usercentrics on Trustpilot.

• Termly earned a 4.7 ‘excellent’ out of 5 stars on Trustpilot based on 418 reviews.
• Usercentrics earned a 3.4 ‘average’ out of 5 stars on Trustpilot based on 5 reviews.

From what I gathered, Termly users are happier overall because of their access to a customer support team made up of real people.

They also appreciate the ongoing updates to Termly’s policy generators and CMP, which help their users continue to comply with evolving privacy laws.

However, both Termly and Usercentrics have similar business accolades. Both companies are Google CMP Partners with Gold status and are compatible with the IAB TCF v2.2.

But Termly is also registered with the BBB and has an A+ rating.

Additional Features

Both companies have additional features that make them unique.

For example, both companies have consent preference centers available for businesses to present to users. These help businesses respect user consent choices, comply with privacy laws without sacrificing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

The Usercentrics App CMP is helpful for app developers, especially in the gaming space, because of its dedicated Unity SDK for mobile games and other similar features.

Termly, on the other hand, has essential website policies necessary for ecommerce websites to function efficiently, such as their Shipping Policy Generator or Return Policy Generator.

The generators also have tips and answers to common questions as written by their legal team included throughout to help users more easily create their policies,

You can see an example of one of these tips in the screenshot below.

Which One Is Right for You?

Both Termly and Usercentrics are respected organizations in the data privacy compliance industry. Termly offers high quality levels of support with strong reviews from users.

All products are backed by their legal team and data privacy experts, who help ensure the generators and consent management features remain accurate.

Termly’s policy generators help businesses succeed online, like the comprehensive terms and conditions generator, which includes clauses that address requirements outlined by consumer protection groups like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

Termly offers privacy compliance for all businesses of any size, and it’s all in one place.

But, at the end of the day, you get to decide which solution is right for your business.

DISCLAIMER: The information in this article represents the details that were available on Termly and Usercentrics websites as of November 14, 2024. Both Termly and Usercentrics product offerings, details, and information are subject to change at any time. This article is for informational purposes only and does not claim to be a significant representation of Usercentrics or Termly.

More about the author

Written by Ali Talip Pınarbaşı, CIPP/E, & LLM

Ali is a London-based Data Privacy Law Consultant with a Master of Laws Degree in EU Privacy law at King's College London. He has three years of experience in advising businesses on how to comply data protection laws. More about the author