GDPR is a European Union (EU) regulation that aims to protect the personal data and the right to privacy of EU citizens. If you run a business in Europe or serve European customers, making sure your site is GDPR compliant is a must.
If you have a WordPress website, making it GDPR compliant is not as hard as it may first appear. Many GDPR WordPress plugins can help you meet all of the requirements; however, you need to choose which plugin will suit your site best.
What Is GDPR and Why Should You Comply With It?
GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation. This regulation replaces the Data Protection Directive with the intent of protecting an individual’s right over their personal data and privacy. GDPR was approved by the European Union Parliament on 14 April 2016 and became fully enforced since 25 May 2018.
That’s enough theory, what does this all mean? GDPR will attempt to stop personal data abuse by forcing organizations to process that data more transparently.
Organizations that breach this regulation will be fined up to 4% of their annual global turnover or for €20 million, whichever one is greater. As an example, Google was fined $57 million, just to show that everyone has to abide by the law. That’s why in this article, I’ll show you the best GDPR WordPress plugins to help make your website compliant.
GDPR applies to both European and foreign organizations that deal with the personal data of EU citizens. To fully comply with GDPR it is important to understand the three basic rights addressed in the regulation:
- Access Rights – individuals have the right to get confirmation when their data is being processed or used and for what purpose. They can also have a copy of their personal data, as an electronic document.
- Erasure Rights – individuals can ask organizations to erase all of their data. This includes the right to correct any wrong information that might have been provided previously.
- Breach Notifications – whenever a data breach occurs that may affect a user, the organization managing that personal data must notify its users within 72 hours.
- Having a better understanding of these three laws will help website owners adhere to the GDPR requirements more efficiently.
As I mentioned in the introduction, GDPR applies to all websites that deal with the personal data of EU citizens.
Making your WordPress site GDPR compliant is fairly easy since the CMS itself implemented some of the basic features like a Privacy Form generator (which you need to enable manually) and a consent box in the default comments section.
Furthermore, there are some additional necessities that need to be set up – this includes cookie management, and data collection and processing consent forms. The plugins I picked will focus on these requirements.
Top 6 WordPress GDPR Plugin for Optimal Compliance
Here are the best GDPR WordPress plugins that will help you manage cookies and other privacy forms. I based the list comparing features, price, and flexibility of the plugins:
1. Ultimate GDPR Compliance Toolkit for WordPress
The Ultimate GDPR Compliance Toolkit for WordPress is among one of the most popular choices for helping create a GDPR compliant website.
This plugin offers a user-friendly and simple way to manage data access, cookie consent, and data deletion. Not only that, but with a single click, you can enable global functionality – display your website to everyone, or use a geolocation feature that will only enable the plugin for visitors who are connecting from the EU.
Another great feature comes from the abundance of cookie notice skins. You will easily find something that will look great on your site. In addition, you can blur out any content until a visitor accepts cookies thanks to the Protection Shortcode feature.
No need to worry if you’re using other WordPress plugins on your website. The Ultimate GDPR Compliance Toolkit for WordPress is compatible with most third-party software, including custom cookie plugins, while also offering advanced Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel integration.
You can get this plugin for $19 alongside 6 months of support and all future updates included.
The Good
- Cookie consent. It offers a variety of options for implementing cookie consent sections with plenty of different skin variants.
- Online documentation. This plugin is well documented – it will help you stay up-to-date and easily troubleshoot any issues that might occur while using it.
The Bad
- Inconsistent translation. According to some users, a few translations are done poorly.
The Verdict
You can get Ultimate GDPR Compliance Toolkit for WordPress for an affordable price accompanied by an array of must-have features that aren’t covered by the CMS by default.
2. GDPR Cookie Consent
Trusted by more than 500,000 users around the world, GDPR Cookie Consent has helped many websites add GDPR compliant cookie consent forms and management features.
This plugin comes with tons of easy-to-customize templates. You can effortlessly fit in a cookie notice that works well with the overall design of your WordPress site by changing the color, font, and position.
GDPR Cookie Consent has a unique script autoblock feature. It prevents services like Facebook Pixel from running unless a visitor accepts the cookie notice. You can configure the plugin to be displayed only for visitors inside the EU.
While you can get this plugin for free, the more powerful features come with the premium version. It has three different pricing plans depending on how many websites you’ll use the plugin with:
- Single site for $49
- Up to five sites for $99
- Up to 25 sites for $199
All of the plans include one year of support and updates.
The Good
- Multilingual. This plugin is compatible with WPML and supports qTranslate allowing you to easily set up forms in different languages.
- Satisfaction guarantee. The plugin offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.
The Bad
- High-priced. Compared to the other options present on this list, GDPR Cookie Consent is quite expensive.
The Verdict
While this plugin does offer powerful features that will allow easy cookie consent integration and helps manage third party services like Facebook Pixel, it does restrict most of the powerful options to the premium plans.
3. Complianz
Complianz is a powerful WordPress plugin that not only supports GDPR but also other privacy regulations such as ePrivacy and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
This plugin is easy-to-setup – once installed and activated, you can begin configuring your website’s privacy settings with the handy setup wizard. You can also personalize items such as the privacy statement, and data processing agreement.
Complianz allows you to manage cookie notifications through an easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor. What’s more, this plugin has a great A/B testing feature that allows you to try different layouts to see what performs best for your site.
The plugin comes with a geolocation feature too. Same as with previous plugins, here you can display the plugin based on a visitor’s location. For example, you can enable CCPA regulation to visitors from California, where it applies.
Similar to GDPR Cookie Consent, you can download this plugin for free. However, you need to get the premium version for more advanced features. Their pricing plans are:
- Single — $49, for one site.
- Plus — $149, for five sites.
- Unlimited — $299, for unlimited sites.
The Good
- A/B testing. This feature allows you to create the best cookie consent form for your site by making data-driven decisions.
- User-friendly. It has a handy setup wizard that gets the plugin up and running quickly and without much hassle.
The Bad
- Partial GDPR support. The plugin focuses only on cookie consent forms. It lacks additional features that help your site become fully GDPR compliant.
The Verdict
If you need a WordPress GDPR plugin that focuses on cookies and allows you to track performance or experiment with A/B testing easily, then Complianz just might be the option for you.
4. CookiePro
CookiePro boasts about its quick scan and cookie categorization features that allow you to generate a full-proof privacy consent notice more easily. The scanner compares all cookies generated by your site alongside their extensive database, then generating a policy based on the gathered data. The plugin comes with well-designed banner templates that you can customize to fit your website’s look as well.
It also features pre-built banner text samples in more than 50 languages to provide for visitors from different regions. Furthermore, it includes the geotargeting method, making sure that non-EU visitors are unable to see the banners.
You can get CookiePro for free to support up to 100 subpages and unlimited subdomains. If you want more pages and features, you can get one of their premium plans:
- Starter – $10 for up to 500 subpages.
- Standard – $30 for unlimited subpages.
- Enterprise – $45 for unlimited subpages plus enterprise features.
Apart from that, you can also get quick-start support for $250 per domain, and have technical experts set up the plugin for you.
The Good
- Cost-effective. CookiePro offers an abundance of features and flexible pricing plans to choose from.
- Quick implementation. The plugin has great online documentation to help you get started in no time.
The Bad
- Steep learning curve. The plugin requires some technical knowledge to set up and the quick-start support services are non-refundable.
The Verdict
This plugin is for people who need an easy to manage privacy consent notice with premium support, and have the money to spare for the setup process, or feel confident in their technical abilities.
5. WordPress GDPR
If you need a one-stop solution for privacy management to comply with GDPR, WordPress GDPR is definitely worth having a look at.
This plugin offers much more than a well-implemented cookie consent feature. WordPress GDPR has a data erasure feature that allows customers to fill out a Forget Me Form, that removes data in accordance with GDPR.
It allows customers to get all data related to them that’s been collected easily. They can simply fill out the request data form and wait for an email. What’s more, you can handle your customers’ newsletters subscriptions with ease, easily manage data correction and policy updates, or breach warnings.
WordPress GDPR also lets you use a Data Privacy Officer account to answer any user questions related to their personal data.
You can get this plugin for $15 along with six months of support and updates.
The Good
- Plugin integrations. It is compatible with such plugins as WooCommerce, MailChimp and plenty of others.
- Affordable. You can get the plugin for a small price of $15 while still getting a great number of features.
The Bad
- Lack of customization options. WordPress GDPR doesn’t offer as many design options as its competitors do.
The Verdict
If you need a plugin with all GDPR compliance features in a single place for an affordable price, WordPress GDPR is definitely worth trying out.
6. Total GDPR Compliance
Total GDPR Compliance is excellent at helping your WordPress site become GDPR compliant. All of the three individual GDPR rights we mentioned at the beginning are covered – from access rights to breach notifications.
This plugin comes with more than 30 cookie templates and three different layouts while also allowing you to further customize them by changing the confirmation text, button or background.
With Total GDPR Compliance, you can manage cookies easily – the categorization feature helps to automatically arrange cookies based on type. You can create and manage your own categories as well.
If you want to hide your content until visitor’s approval, you can enable the Protected Content feature.
Total GDPR Compliance has an EU Region Mode feature that functions similarly to the geo-caching methods mentioned in previous plugins.
You can get Total GDPR Compliance for $18 including 6 months of support and future updates.
The Good
- Mobile device support. It’s mobile responsive, and shortcode and translation ready.
- 24-hour support. The plugin provides extensive online documentation and 24/7 support.
The Bad
- Not compatible with new versions of WordPress. At the time of writing the plugin is not optimized for the Gutenberg editor.
The Verdict
Total GDPR Compliance covers your WordPress site completely while providing a plethora of visual options and easy management tools.
Wrapping Up
GDPR seeks to protect users from unwanted use of their personal data. This regulation requires all EU-based organizations to comply with the required guidelines. Otherwise, a company may face a hefty punishment.
Using WordPress GDPR plugins is an easy way to make sure your site fully covers the data management requirements implemented by the regulation.
Let’s recap – here are some of my favorite WordPress GDPR plugins based on their features, ease of implementation and price:
- Ultimate GDPR Compliance Toolkit for WordPress – a well-documented and feature-rich plugin that provides plenty of visual options.
- GDPR Cookie Consent – a powerful GDPR cookie consent and management plugin with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
- Complianz – an easy-to-use plugin with A/B testing functionality.
- CookiePro – a WordPress GDPR plugin with pre-built banners in over 50 languages and a premium support service.
- WordPress GDPR – one of the cheapest all-in-one privacy plugins that support WooCommerce, MailChimp and offers plenty of other plugin integrations.
- Total GDPR Compliance – an amazing plugin that covers every GDPR requirement not already present in WordPress.
Install WordPress GDPR plugin of your choice to easily manage your customers’ data and privacy. If you gain the trust of your customers, it will pay off in the long run. Happy webmastering!
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