Termly Review 2024: The Key to Uncomplicated Compliance?

Safeguard your small business from potential legal complications with Termly, an affordable, comprehensive, and user-friendly compliance solution.
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Termly
  • All-in-one compliance solution
  • Free plan available
  • Premium features can be expensive
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Legal compliance is extremely important for businesses of all sizes. Laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) ensure businesses protect consumer data. Infringement of these likely results in significant penalties of up to millions, which could cripple small businesses.

Thankfully, there are solutions like Termly that help simplify the daunting task of legal compliance.

Termly provides a comprehensive compliance solution allowing you to manage privacy policy, cookie consent, and all necessary policies with ease. We took Termly for a spin to find out just how easy it can make compliance. Keep reading our Termly review to find out if it’s the right choice for your business by exploring its plans, costs, features, and more.

In this article
Termly review at a glance
Who is Termly best for?
Termly features
How does Termly work?
Does Termly keep data safe?
Termly customer support
Termly prices and subscriptions
Termly FAQs
Bottom line: Is Termly good?

Termly review at a glance

Price $10.00–$15.00/mo
Free plan Yes
Privacy policy generator Yes
Cookie consent manager Yes
Terms and conditions generator Yes
Return policy generator Yes
Details Get Termly
Prices as of 07/7/2023.

Here are some of the most significant data privacy laws and regulations that Termly.io helps businesses comply with:

  • GDPR: A regulation enacted by the European Union to protect the privacy and personal data of its citizens.
  • CCPA: A state statute intended to enhance privacy rights and consumer protection for residents of California.
  • CAN-SPAM Act: A U.S. law that sets the rules for commercial email, establishes requirements for commercial messages, and gives recipients the right to have businesses stop emailing them.
  • Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA): A U.S. law designed to protect the privacy of children under 13 by requesting parental consent to collect or use any personal information.
  • Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA): Similar to GDPR, this Canadian privacy law oversees the collection and use of personal data.

Termly pros and cons

Pros
  • All-in-one compliance solution
  • Free plan available
  • User-friendly interface
Cons
  • Premium features can be expensive
  • Limited customization in the free plan

Who is Termly best for?

  • Small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs): Termly is a cost-effective solution for SMBs that need to comply with various privacy regulations but don't have a big budget to hire a legal team. Features like a privacy policy generator and cookie consent manager simplify compliance management.
  • E-commerce business owners: These businesses collect vast amounts of customer data and are therefore, subject to numerous regulations. Termly's terms and conditions generator and policy management tools can help such businesses ensure they comply with these requirements.
  • Marketing teams: Marketing teams often manage customer data for advertising and personalization purposes. The ability to generate privacy policies and manage cookie consent with Termly helps these teams stay compliant while they work to create compelling marketing strategies.
  • Bloggers and independent website owners: Even small-scale bloggers and website owners need to meet privacy regulations if they collect user data. Termly's user-friendly interface and affordable pricing make it a good choice for these home-based businesses.
  • App developers: Termly's ability to generate privacy policies for mobile apps makes it an excellent choice for developers who need to ensure their products meet app store requirements and protect user data.

The Termly dashboard is clean and easy to use.

Termly features

Termly offers an extensive suite of features designed to ensure your business maintains compliance with privacy laws and regulations.

Consent management platform

The consent management platform is an important feature that helps you comply with regulations related to website cookies and includes the following tools:

  • Cookie consent banner: A customizable banner that informs visitors about the use of cookies on your website. This ensures transparency and allows visitors to give or withhold their consent.
  • Cookie policy generator: This creates a comprehensive policy that details the types of cookies your website uses. The policy also covers why your site uses cookies and how users can control their cookie preferences. A cookie policy is required if your website collects any type of data from users.
  • Scan and categorize cookies: Termly automatically scans your website to identify all active cookies, then categorizes them based on their function to provide a clear view of your site's cookie use.

Termly scans the cookies on your site and reports on which types of cookies are in use as well as what they do.

Terms and conditions generator

The terms and conditions generator creates a standard agreement for your business that outlines the rules users must agree to follow to use your website or app. It's customizable to suit specific your business needs as well as the style of your website.

Privacy policy generator

The privacy policy generator creates a comprehensive policy that aligns with various privacy laws and regulations, including GDPR and CCPA. This feature is particularly valuable for businesses that collect, use, or share personal information.

Disclaimer generator

The disclaimer generator allows you to create legal disclaimers that limit your liability for certain types of risks, which can be essential for businesses that provide advice or information that could be potentially misinterpreted.

Return policy generator

The return policy generator helps you create clear and comprehensive return and refund policies, an essential aspect of e-commerce businesses.

Shipping policy generator

The shipping policy generator is another invaluable tool for e-commerce businesses. It enables you to create a clear shipping policy that outlines shipping methods, costs, delivery timelines, and any other related information.

Termly helps you manage compliance with a handful of policy generators.

AccessiBe web accessibility

Through a partnership with AccessiBe, a provider of web accessibility solutions, Termly can also help make your website more accessible for those with disabilities. AccessiBe can also help you comply with accessibility laws like Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Special features

In addition to the above, Termly offers several special features that could benefit businesses:

  • Collaboration tools: These tools allow multiple team members to work together on policies, streamlining the creation and approval process.
  • Policy updates: Termly keeps track of regulation changes and automatically updates your policies to ensure they remain compliant.
  • Compliance monitoring: Termly monitors your compliance status and provides alerts if there are areas that need attention.

Note: Some of these special features are only available with specific plans.

How does Termly work?

Using Termly compliance software is a smooth and straightforward process. The entire process can be summarized in a few steps: registration, policy generation, customization, and implementation.

1. First, sign up for a Termly account, selecting the plan that best fits your needs. The dashboard is clean and user-friendly, making navigation easy even for beginners.

2. Next, you can start creating your compliance solutions. For instance, if you need to generate a return policy, simply click on the return policy box and select "Create New Policy."

Click Add a New Policy to start creating a custom compliance policy with Termly.

3. Then, fill out the required information about your business and data practices, and the platform will generate a detailed policy for you using a pre-created template.

Termly walks you through a questionnaire to help you customize different policies for your needs.

Termly's intelligent generator asks questions about your business and, based on your responses, crafts a policy tailored to your needs.

Termly also has an onboarding walkthrough to help you check all your compliance boxes. This is a great feature for anyone who’s unfamiliar with compliance and doesn’t know where to start.

When you sign into Termly for the first time, it walks you through different compliance steps.

Additionally, you can customize the look of your policies and cookie consent banner if you opt for a paid Termly plan. This includes adjusting the font, text size, and colors, as well as placement and style (banner, modal, or tooltip) of your cookie consent banner.

Paid Termly plans allow you to customize different compliance elements like cookie consent banners.

How do you add Termly policies to a site?

Once your policy is generated, implementing it on your website is simple. Termly offers a few methods for adding policies to your website.

You can either copy and paste the policy to your website’s backend or use the provided JavaScript code to add the policy to your website. The latter method requires a basic understanding of where to paste the code in your website’s backend, but it’s not overly technical. The copy-and-paste method works perfectly for anyone who is uncomfortable.

Adding a Termly policy to your site is as easy as copy and paste.

Termly also integrates smoothly with many popular CMS and site builders, including:

  • WordPress
  • Shopify
  • Squarespace
  • Wix
  • Kajabi
  • GoDaddy

This ensures a seamless process from policy generation to implementation, regardless of your platform.

Does Termly keep data safe?

Termly understands the importance of securing user and website data. It takes several measures, including using industry-standard security protocols and encryption, to ensure this.

How Termly handles your data

Termly’s privacy policy provides a transparent overview of how it handles customer data. It collects only the necessary information for business purposes. This includes your name, email address, and payment information.

Termly doesn’t sell your personal data, but it does share the information with third-party service providers to facilitate services like payments. These third-party providers are obliged to protect your data and use it only for the purpose provided.

How Termly handles your users' data

Termly offers a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) that sets out the terms under which you can request Termly to process personal data on your behalf. This agreement is essential to meeting GDPR and CCPA requirements.

When you use Termly's consent management platform, including the cookie scanner, cookie banner, and consent manager, Termly processes your users' personal data. This data includes information like anonymized IP addresses, cookie data, and consent preferences. Termly only accesses this data to provide its services, and it's stored securely in encrypted Amazon Web Services (AWS) databases located in the U.S.

What is a data processing agreement and should you sign one?

A data processing agreement is a contract setting out the terms under which a party may request another party to process personal data on their behalf.

Termly requires a data processing agreement under GDPR and CCPA to safeguard personal data handling and ensure understanding of roles and responsibilities. This contract sets out the terms for Termly's data processing, ensuring both you and Termly comply with regulations.

Termly customer support

Termly offers comprehensive customer support, and you can primarily contact the support team via email or phone. If you call the Termly support number at 1-855-234-5020, keep in mind phone lines are open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST. In addition to this, Termly offers an extensive library of user guides, FAQs, and informative blog posts.

Even if you have less technical experience, Termly’s guides are easy to follow, thanks to clear language and step-by-step instructions. During our testing, we found the resources immensely helpful, along with responsive and knowledgeable customer service.

Termly prices and subscriptions

Termly offers a tiered pricing structure. It provides a Free, Starter, and Pro+ plan, providing options for businesses of different sizes. The Free plan is ideal for home-based businesses or startups on a tight budget. It provides the necessary tools to start your compliance journey, covering one site, one user, and one legal policy. However, this plan doesn't offer the option to add additional sites.

For small businesses looking to expand or with more advanced compliance needs, the Starter or Pro+ plans may be more appropriate. The Starter plan, priced at $10.00/mo when billed annually, covers up to 1 site and unlimited users, offering more flexibility and additional features like a cookie policy and banner, monthly compliance scans, and privacy regulation monitoring and updates.

The Pro+ plan, $15.00/mo (billed annually), offers coverage for one site, with the option to add additional sites and pay per license. This plan also offers more comprehensive services, including custom banner support, multi-language support, policy style customization, and more.

Termly plans comparison

Plan Termly Free Termly Starter Termly Pro+
Price per month Free $10.00/mo $15.00/mo
Number of sites covered 1 1 1
Option to add additional sites
Number of users Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited
Number of legal policies 1 2 Unlimited
Number of policy edits 4 10 Unlimited
Cookie policy and banner
Number of monthly banner views 10,000 100,000 Unlimited
Cookie script auto blocker
Compliance scans Quarterly Monthly Weekly
HTML embeddable policies
Privacy regulation monitoring and updates
Details View Plan View Plan View Plan
Prices as of 07/7/2023.

Termly also offers an Agency plan for larger businesses. This plan offers custom pricing and is tailored to handle complex and extensive compliance needs. It’s an ideal solution for businesses managing multiple sites or requiring comprehensive legal coverage.

Termly FAQs


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Is Termly legit?

Yes, Termly is a legitimate company that offers comprehensive compliance solutions for businesses. It has a positive reputation and BBB accreditation, as well as high scores on TrustPilot.


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Is Termly really free?

Yes, Termly offers a free plan, but it’s limited in terms of features and the number of legal policies you can generate. For more comprehensive coverage, Termly also offers paid plans that start at $10.00/mo.


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Why use Termly?

Termly helps your business manage privacy policies, cookie consent, return policies, and other compliance needs. It helps you navigate complex laws like GDPR and CCPA, thus avoiding potential legal fees.


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Do I need a privacy policy on Shopify?

Yes, privacy policies are not only legally required in many jurisdictions but also an essential part of building trust with your customers. Termly can help you create a customized privacy policy for your Shopify store.

Bottom line: Is Termly good?

Termly emerges as a valuable asset for small or home-based businesses. It offers an easy-to-use interface, an abundance of features, and scalable plans to help businesses with privacy compliance without spending mass amounts on legal fees. The value for money Termly offers is clear when you consider the potential fines a business could face if its compliance isn’t up to par.

While the free version is handy for startups, it may be limiting for businesses looking to grow due to its restricted features. If you need more extensive compliance coverage, Termly’s paid plans make it easy to comply with GDPR, CCPA, CAN-SPAM, and other laws or regulations.

Overall, Termly is certainly a worthwhile investment for small businesses looking to navigate compliance and build user trust. As you continue to secure your online business operations, don’t forget the importance of managing passwords. Check out our best password managers review for easy ways to save and share passwords for yourself or company.

5.0
Learn More
On Termly's website

Termly
  • All-in-one compliance solution
  • Free plan available
  • Premium features can be expensive
Author Details
Ryan Clancy is a freelance writer and blogger. With 5+ years of mechanical engineering experience, he's passionate about all things engineering and tech. He loves bringing engineering (especially mechanical) down to a level that everyone can understand.