Disclosure: We may earn a commission from clearly labeled partner links. Required capabilities, eligibility and total cost determine the recommendation, not affiliate status.
The cost verdict: Cookiebot's invoice depends on billable domains, page bands and small-plan eligibility. Biscotti bundles root domains with session capacity. A small three-site portfolio can have a different cheapest eligible plan from a four-site portfolio. Compare the measured inventory and required features, not “from €7” versus “from €6.99”.
The cost question, not a compliance promise
This is a software-budget comparison verified October 8, 2026. It does not determine what consent your site legally needs or guarantee GDPR, CCPA, advertising-platform or accessibility compliance. A CMP is one component of a wider implementation. Correct tag behavior, notices, purposes, regional configuration and consent records remain the publisher's responsibility.
GPP owns the bill: domains, pages, session ceilings, scanning and upgrade boundaries. AMF owns Biscotti's small-business implementation fit. We do not duplicate that workflow or create a generic “best cookie banners” list. Prices are a dated first-party snapshot, not live monitoring, legal advice or a binding quote.
First normalize tax and billing
Cookiebot publishes EUR prices excluding VAT. Biscotti's default private-German-customer display includes 19% VAT. A €14.99 gross figure is not directly comparable with a €15 net figure. For illustration, €14.99 / 1.19 = approximately €12.60 before that German VAT. That division is arithmetic, not a promise that every international or business checkout will charge that amount.
Our scenarios retain both the displayed Biscotti gross amount and its explicitly derived net illustration. Applicable tax depends on buyer country, status and the vendor's checkout. Verify reverse-charge eligibility and invoice treatment separately. We use monthly billing and twelve unchanged months at that rate; we do not apply Biscotti's annual promotion without a selected annual checkout quote.
| Cookiebot premium plan | Monthly / billable domain, excl. VAT | Page band or eligibility | Budget warning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lite | €7 | Under 50 pages; limited to one domain | Exactly 50 has inconsistent card/FAQ wording; confirm |
| Small | €15 | Small sites below 350 pages; 4+ domains at first invoice | Not an automatic €15 choice for a 2- or 3-domain account |
| Medium | €30 | Up to 3,499 pages; default paid small-account route when lower eligibility fails | Domain count does not make every site Small |
| Large | €50 | 3,500-6,999 pages | Scanner count can change the assigned tier |
| Extra Large | €90 | 7,000+ pages | Per-domain charge still applies |
The four-domain requirement is particularly important. Three domains of 100 pages each are not budgeted as three Small subscriptions here: the conservative current premium baseline is three Medium subscriptions, or €90/month excluding VAT. Four domains of 100 pages qualify for a €60/month Small baseline if the account meets the first-invoice condition. Adding a domain can cross an eligibility threshold rather than merely adding another identical unit.
Cookiebot's card says “up to 50” while supporting wording describes “fewer than 50” for the smallest band. We flag exactly fifty pages instead of quietly granting the cheapest plan. The scanner, the customer's actual order and current written confirmation should settle a boundary invoice. Our estimator conservatively models Medium for a single fifty-page domain. It is an estimate, not an automated vendor plan assignment.
Biscotti uses root domains and sessions
| Plan | Included root domains | Sessions / month | Monthly incl. German VAT | Derived excl. 19% VAT |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 1 | 5,000 | €0 | €0 |
| Starter | 3 | 15,000 | €6.99 | €5.87 |
| Growth | 10 | 60,000 | €14.99 | €12.60 |
| Business | 20 | 500,000 | €19.99 | €16.80 |
| Agency | 50 | 2,000,000 baseline | €79.99 | €67.22 |
Session capacity is a shared budget to check against the purchased plan, not a separate full allowance silently assigned to each root domain in these calculations. Biscotti describes a session as a visitor within a 24-hour window rather than every page view. Its terms tie metering to the consent widget's requests. That is not necessarily identical to your analytics platform's session definition or active-user count. Ask the vendor how bot filtering, multi-domain visits and high-traffic spikes appear in the actual meter.
The public product states unlimited subdomains per root domain. Cookiebot treats subdomains as separate billable domains; language folders do not automatically become separate domains. A shop.example.com and blog.example.com setup can therefore change the normalized domain count between vendors. Inventory real hostnames before entering the same number into both columns. Our simple estimator assumes independent root domains with no additional Cookiebot-billable subdomains.
Four scenarios with explicit qualifications
| Portfolio assumption | Cookiebot premium / year excl. VAT | Biscotti lowest capacity-fit / year incl. German VAT | What still needs checking |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 root, 40 pages, 4,000 sessions/month | Lite €84 | Free €0 | Free branding, features and legal configuration may be unsuitable |
| 3 roots, 100 pages each, 12,000 sessions/month combined | Medium €1,080 | Starter €83.88 | Starter features, records and scan limits; no legal equivalence implied |
| 4 roots, 100 pages each, 40,000 sessions/month combined | Small €720, subject to first-invoice eligibility | Growth €179.88 | Account/domain qualification and actual session metering |
| 1 root, 4,000 pages, 100,000 sessions/month | Large €600 | Business €239.88 | Scanner capacity and enterprise requirements |
The three-domain Biscotti illustration equals approximately €70.49/year excluding the displayed 19% VAT, if that net treatment applies. The four-domain Growth illustration is approximately €151.16/year on the same basis. These are capacity-based comparisons, not a declaration that the cheapest package fulfills all requirements. A free or Starter banner without a required feature is ineligible even when its traffic limit fits.
Do not conclude that fewer pages always means a lower bill or that more traffic always costs more. Cookiebot's current premium model is domain/page-led; Biscotti's bundled model crosses session and root-domain thresholds. A low-traffic site with many indexed/scanned pages and a high-traffic single-page application can therefore produce opposite cost patterns.
Domain and session estimator
Enter the same number of independent root domains, equal pages per root and combined monthly sessions. This simplified comparison excludes extra subdomains, mixed-size domains, negotiated packages and feature upgrades. Cookiebot is premium-only here; its free offer needs separate eligibility evaluation. Biscotti's result is the lowest published capacity-fit plan, not a compliance or feature recommendation.
Cookiebot formula = billable domain count × eligible page-band monthly price. Biscotti selection = first published plan meeting both domain and session capacities. Annual illustration = twelve monthly payments, not a claimed annual discount. Exactly fifty Cookiebot pages requires vendor confirmation; above fifty Biscotti roots or two million sessions this estimator asks for a quote rather than extrapolating a fictional unlimited plan.
Scanning, geo rules and account controls
Scanner frequency determines how quickly changed tags are discovered, not whether a site is legally compliant. Biscotti publishes different scan frequencies and manual-scan allowances by tier, including daily scanning on Growth and hourly on Business. A team releasing tags frequently may need a higher tier even when sessions fit Starter. Cookiebot's automatic scanner can also reclassify page volume and alter the charge as content grows.
Geo targeting, consent analytics, integrations, branding and record management are purchase requirements, not decorative extras. List which jurisdictions the site serves, which consent modes must be supported, what records you need to retrieve and who must administer each domain. Obtain written confirmation of those capabilities in the exact plan; do not infer enterprise access controls from an “unlimited domains” marketing phrase or from agency subaccounts.
Biscotti's Agency reference includes subaccount features, but a publisher with four sites does not automatically need an agency package. Conversely, four unrelated clients may need delegated access that a cheaper shared account cannot safely provide. A domain-count match alone does not validate client isolation, data processing terms or a record-retention obligation.
Hidden costs and migration
The software charge is only one part of a CMP change. Inventory tags, update consent configuration, validate blocked scripts, test withdrawal, adjust analytics and retain required records. Costs belong to the team's actual implementation estimate, not an invented fixed saving. A cheap subscription that leaves analytics or advertisements firing incorrectly is not a successful migration.
Check how the current supplier bills renewals, rescans and domain additions. Keep a reserve for content growth that crosses a page band and traffic that exceeds a session tier. Do not rely on a rollover or promotional allowance as permanent headroom without the current order terms. Export capability and exit steps matter if a lower introductory bill creates a costly later move.
A practical break-even is old recurring bill minus new eligible recurring bill, compared with one-time implementation and overlap. Use your own hours and labor rate. If the annual difference is €200 and the migration genuinely costs €600, fee-only payback is three years before any changed usage or renewal price. The existing cost-avoidance calculator supports transparent user-input assumptions; no new standalone calculator URL is needed.
Evidence, partner routes and next checks
Check Cookiebot pricing (partner link). Explore Biscotti's product and plans (partner link). Cookiebot uses the centrally approved exact pricing route. Biscotti uses the already approved root product route and is labeled accordingly; its factual evidence below remains direct. Neither commission nor a vendor's compliance slogan determines the recommendation.
First-party sources checked October 8, 2026: Cookiebot pricing, small-domain eligibility and VAT FAQ, Biscotti pricing, domain/session definition and scan limits. Where card wording and FAQ differ, the estimator takes the conservative treatment and marks the uncertainty. We did not buy a plan, alter consent banners or test legal compliance.