Iubenda Review: The Indie Hacker's Legal Team
If you have ever tried to manually draft a GDPR compliant privacy policy, you know the panic of wondering what a "data processing activity" actually means. Iubenda exists to make that panic disappear. It is a legal suite that generates privacy policies, cookie banners, and terms of service for websites and apps.
It positions itself as the middle ground between winging it with a free template and paying a lawyer to do it properly. But after digging into the pricing model and reading through technical implementation threads, it is clear that while it handles the legal heavy lifting, the technical side is not always as easy as the sales page implies.
The Good Stuff
The main reason people choose Iubenda over writing their own policies is the auto-updating engine. When the EU or California introduces a new privacy regulation, the company's in-house legal team updates the master templates. Your site's policies update automatically.
For the $6.99 per month Essentials plan, you get a cookie banner, a privacy policy generator with up to 20 clauses, and a permanent consent log. This entry price is why the tool is constantly recommended on Reddit for indie hackers and solo founders who want basic compliance without draining their startup capital.
Another major plus is its built-in support for Google Consent Mode v2 and the IAB TCF 2.2 framework. If you run ads or use Google Analytics, configuring these correctly is mandatory, and Iubenda has the certifications to keep your tracking compliant.
The Pricing Gotchas
The pricing page looks straightforward until you read the fine print. That $6.99 plan caps your cookie banner pageviews at 25,000 per month. If you hit a traffic spike, they charge an extra €0.05 per 1,000 pageviews. The Advanced plan bumps the limit to 50,000 pageviews for $27.99 per month, but you are still paying per view once you cross that threshold.
Another frustrating limitation is the branding. If you want to completely remove the logo from your policies and consent banner, you have to upgrade to the Ultimate plan, which costs an eye-watering $119.99 per month. Lower plans only allow partial branding removal. Also, if you need proof of consent for web forms, they bill that separately at €5 per month for every 1,000 consents.
Implementation Reality Check
A common Reddit complaint is that integrating the Cookie Solution with specific stacks, like custom WordPress builds or complex Google Tag Manager setups, can be chaotic. While basic implementation is just pasting a script tag, users frequently mention that the official documentation feels scattered. Getting advanced features to work often requires hunting down third-party YouTube tutorials.
The Verdict
Pick Iubenda if you are launching a new site, want to stay out of legal trouble, and do not have the budget for a real lawyer. The entry tier is a very cheap insurance policy against basic GDPR fines, provided your traffic is low.
Skip it if you have a massive audience but low revenue, as the pageview caps will eat into your margins quickly. It is also worth noting that because the company hosts the legal documents on their servers to keep them updated, you lose access to your policies the moment you cancel your subscription. You are essentially renting your privacy policy.