Our picks:
• iubenda — best overall. Lawyer-vetted text, maintained as laws change, broadest jurisdiction coverage.
• Termly — best free tier. Genuinely usable at no cost, strongest on CCPA and US state laws.
• Enzuzo — best for e-commerce, particularly Shopify stores.
• CookieYes — best if you mainly need the cookie banner and want a policy included.
The thing most buyers get wrong: they compare the one-time document quality. What actually matters is whether the policy is maintained — a document written once is out of date within a year.
Do you need a privacy policy?
Almost certainly yes. A privacy policy is required if you collect any personal data — which includes an email signup form, an analytics cookie, an order, or a contact form — under GDPR, the CCPA, and a long list of other laws. It is also a condition of using Google Analytics, Google Ads, the Meta Pixel, Apple's App Store and Google Play.
You need one whether or not you sell anything, and whether or not you are a company. A personal blog with an analytics script is collecting personal data.
What we tested
- Legal review. Is the underlying text written and maintained by qualified lawyers, or assembled from templates?
- Automatic updates. When a law changes, does your live policy change, or do you have to regenerate it?
- Jurisdiction coverage. GDPR, UK GDPR, CCPA and the other US state laws, PIPEDA, LGPD, plus the sector rules relevant to normal businesses.
- Cookie policy and scanning. Does it scan your actual site and keep the disclosed cookie list accurate?
- Free tier honesty. Is the free version usable, or is it a demo with the essentials removed?
- Integration. Does the policy connect to the consent banner, so what you disclose matches what you do?
Full methodology is on our how we test page.
The comparison table
| Tool | Lawyer-vetted | Auto-updates | Jurisdictions | Cookie scan | From | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| iubenda | Yes | Yes | Broadest — EU, UK, US, BR, CA | Yes | €4.99/mo | 4.6 / 5 |
| Termly | Yes | Yes | Strong on US state laws | Yes | Free | 4.0 / 5 |
| Enzuzo | Yes | Yes | EU, UK, US, CA | Yes | Free / $7/mo | 4.5 / 5 |
| CookieYes | Template-based | Partial | EU, UK, US | Yes | Free | 4.8 / 5* |
| Free one-off generators | No | No | Usually one | No | Free | — |
* CookieYes scores 4.8 as a consent tool, which is what it is built for. Its policy generator is a competent bonus, not its strength.
The picks in detail
iubenda — best overall
iubenda's policies are drafted and maintained by an in-house legal team, and the key architectural decision is that your policy is hosted and embedded rather than pasted into your site as static text. When the law changes or a service you declared changes its terms, the live document updates without you touching anything.
You build the policy by declaring the services you use from a library of well over a thousand — Google Analytics, Stripe, Mailchimp, and so on — and iubenda assembles the correct clauses for each. The jurisdiction coverage is the broadest we tested.
The trade-offs are real: per-site pricing adds up across a portfolio, the embedded policy loads from iubenda's servers, and the interface has more configuration than a first-time buyer expects.
iubenda
Lawyer-maintained, auto-updating, broadest jurisdiction coverage, and the cookie banner is in the same subscription. The default choice if the policy is the thing you actually care about.
Termly — best free tier
Termly's free tier is the most usable of any generator we tested. You get a real, lawyer-reviewed policy with genuine CCPA and US state law coverage, not a stripped demo. The catch is a "Powered by Termly" line and limits on the number of documents and monthly banner sessions.
Termly is also the strongest on the American side. If your primary exposure is CCPA and the growing set of state laws rather than GDPR, its disclosures and its Do Not Sell or Share handling are better aligned than the European-first tools.
Our score of 4.0 reflects a support experience and an upgrade-prompt density that are noticeably below iubenda's. The document quality is not the problem.
Termly
A genuinely usable free policy with the strongest CCPA and US state law coverage of the tools we tested. The obvious starting point for a US-focused site.
Enzuzo — best for e-commerce
Enzuzo was built with online stores in mind, and it shows in the parts other generators treat as afterthoughts: order data, shipping providers, payment processors and abandoned cart flows are handled as first-class concerns rather than generic "third parties".
The Shopify integration is the strongest of any tool here — installation is a genuine few minutes, and the policy picks up the apps you have installed. If you run a store, start here.
Enzuzo
Purpose-built for e-commerce, with the best Shopify integration we tested and sensible handling of order, payment and shipping data.
CookieYes — best if consent is the real need
CookieYes is a consent tool that includes a policy generator, and that ordering matters. If your actual problem is a cookie banner that does not block scripts, CookieYes solves it better than anything else at its price, and the bundled policy generator saves you a second subscription.
If the policy is the main deliverable, the template-based text is a step below iubenda's lawyer-maintained documents.
CookieYes
The strongest cookie banner at this price, with auto-blocking and Consent Mode v2, plus a competent policy generator so you only need one subscription.
When free is genuinely enough
We are not going to pretend everyone needs a subscription.
| Your situation | Recommendation |
|---|---|
| Personal blog, analytics only, no email list, no ads | Free tier is fine |
| Portfolio site with a contact form | Free tier is fine |
| Newsletter with subscribers | Free tier, upgrade when you monetise |
| Any site running advertising pixels | Paid — you need maintained accuracy |
| E-commerce taking payments | Paid |
| SaaS with user accounts | Paid |
| Health, finance, children's data, or EU B2C at scale | A lawyer, not a generator |
Red flags in a generated policy
- It describes services you do not use. A generator that adds boilerplate for tools you never declared is padding the document, and every inaccurate clause is a statement you cannot support.
- No legal basis section. GDPR requires you to state the lawful basis for each processing purpose. Many US-built generators omit this entirely.
- No retention periods. "We keep data as long as necessary" is not a retention policy. Regulators have said so repeatedly.
- No international transfer section. If you are EU-facing and use any US service, transfers must be addressed.
- Silence on data subject rights. The policy must list the rights and explain how to exercise them.
- No last-updated date. Basic, and frequently missing.
Read the generated document before publishing it. Generators produce plausible text quickly, and plausible is not the same as accurate.
Frequently asked questions
Are free privacy policy generators any good?
Free generators produce a reasonable starting document but almost always stop short in three places: they do not update when the law changes, they cover one jurisdiction rather than several, and they often add branding or a backlink to your site. For a hobby project a free policy beats no policy. For a business collecting payments or running ads, a maintained policy is worth the small monthly cost.
Can I copy another website's privacy policy?
No, for two reasons. It is copyright infringement — privacy policies are original written works. More importantly it is dangerous: the policy describes that company's data practices, not yours. A policy stating you do things you do not do, or omitting things you actually do, is a misrepresentation that regulators treat seriously.
Does a generated privacy policy make me legally compliant?
It makes you compliant with the requirement to publish a policy, provided you answer the generator's questions accurately. It does not make your underlying data practices lawful. A policy that discloses tracking you have no legal basis for is an accurate description of a violation.
How much should a privacy policy generator cost?
Expect roughly $5 to $15 per month for a maintained, multi-jurisdiction policy for a single site, usually bundled with a cookie banner. Paying several hundred dollars a year only makes sense for multiple sites or complex processing. A lawyer-drafted bespoke policy typically starts around $1,000 and is worth it mainly for regulated sectors.
Do I need a separate cookie policy?
In the EU and UK, yes in practice. GDPR and the ePrivacy rules require specific disclosure of the cookies you set, their purpose and their duration — detail that does not fit comfortably in a general privacy policy. Most generators produce a linked cookie policy alongside the privacy policy, and good ones keep the cookie list in sync with what a scanner finds on your site.
How often should a privacy policy be updated?
Whenever your processing changes — a new analytics tool, a new payment provider, a new marketing platform — and whenever the law changes materially. The CCPA specifically requires review at least every 12 months. This maintenance burden is the main argument for a subscription generator over a one-off document. See our CCPA checklist.
Do I need a policy generator if I already have a cookie banner?
They solve different problems. The banner collects and enforces consent; the policy discloses what you do with data. You need both, which is why most tools here bundle them. If your banner provider includes a policy generator, use it rather than adding a second subscription.