Best Free Privacy Policy Generators for 2024
Yes, you probably are required to have a privacy policy. Unfortunately, you don’t get to choose from where your visitors come. If you get a visitor from the EU, you might be subject to GDPR. If you get a visitor from California, you might need to comply with CCPA. If you use a programmatic phone number from Twilio (which is what my AbleProApp system uses – they’re a publicly traded company), they want to know that your privacy policy does not say something like “we sell your information to the highest bidder.”
Here’s a quick reference to help you decide how to generate your privacy policy now:
- If you only need to create a single policy for free (an unlikely scenario), get the freebie from a premium provider: Termly.io
- If you’re committed to not paying but need multiple policies generated: try Shopify or Rocket Lawyer
- If you recognize the value of having enforceable online documents and peace of mind is important to you, go with a premium solution. Of the paid options, Termageddon is the best value since they offer a single price for all their available policies per site or app. More advanced users who appreciate ease of use might want to consider Termly’s Pro+ plan. See all the paid options below to prioritize what’s important to you and make the best long-term decision for your needs.
Disclaimer
Some of my past legal-related website clients (attorney, title company) have said website policies aren’t worth having so just put one together for me if one’s needed… but I personally don’t agree with this point of view and think it reflects their ignorance of the importance of policies for digital operations. If you have a policy on your site, you need to abide by it, including all your staff being aware of its existence and how it affects their duties.
Although we’re not attorneys, years ago, Cliff created (no longer owns) WPAutoTerms, the #1 legal policy generator plugin for WordPress (over 100,000 active sites). If you have a WordPress site, this is a great free plugin, but it does offer a paid upgrade per site.
Most of the premium vendors offering a free legal policy offer only one free policy–like a Privacy Policy but not also a Terms of Service or Cookie Consent policy–and require your email address to create your account and save the document into your account, allowing you to make future edits.
When using a totally free generator, there’s a “you get what you pay for” risk since these policy generators may only be boilerplate and not specific to your location (e.g. GDPR), your visitor’s location (e.g. California), or your type of website (informational, affiliate, eCommerce, physical goods, etc). There’s also no recourse if something goes wrong, like not having sufficient policies in place.
With the basics out of the way, here’s what we’ve found in our own research. These aren’t listed in any specific order. Use them at your own risk.
The List of Freebies
Shopify.com/tools is an excellent resource because it offers unlimited use of any of its generators, such as Privacy Policy then Terms and Conditions (T&C) then Refund Policy and more. If you don’t put in a working email address, you’ll only get the PDF version which is buggy. If you enter your email, it’ll send you the link to copy the text so you can then paste it into your website page no matter which website builder you’re using–Shopify, WordPress, Wix, etc.
Rocket Lawyer has been an excellent site for many years and shows you the document up-front, but it’s still a boilerplate document. Their site doesn’t claim to be free yet I’ve generated legal documents from their site for free before.
GetTerms.io offers the most bare bones option available for free–not even filling in the blanks for you. I’ve used their paid version and it’s very easy to use. I like that it creates a cookie consent policy after scanning your website, and it can create Terms of Service specific to running a SaaS. I don’t like that it isn’t flexible enough to allow me to customize the wording to my specific use case. For example, I need to have separate refund policies for print (no refunds for business cards after proof is approved to print), digital subscriptions (30 days), and services (3 days, minus our directly-incurred costs, such as outsourcing).
PrivacyPolicyTemplate.net is as basic as you can get, like most of the 100% free tools, but requires your email address.
Popular Paid Tools
Paid tools might be worth it if any of these features appeals to you:
- embed the terms so they’re auto-updating as new legislation goes into effect (your plan might count or limit your total allowed page views)
- want to manage your policies from a single dashboard instead of only having one copy or a manual backup like saving as a Word file
- need to track version history
- have important intellectual property (IP) to protect
- operate in a high risk industry or need consent management (e.g. cookies)
- have interest in some sort of protection against claims or quick access to legal help in the event of needing to legally enforce your policies
- don’t have a strong legal understanding of your own terms (way too common, yikes!)
I’ve used Termly.io before and it’s full-featured and free forever but again only for a single document. You might benefit from taking their Compliance Quiz before deciding to use a free or paid solution. If you’re into WordPress, you might like to know this is the same company as the Rank Math and WP Rocket plugins. They also offer website agencies wholesale pricing like Termageddon, but they’re slightly more expensive if you need more than 2 policies.
Termageddon does not have a free version but is easy to use, affordable, and offers preferential pricing arrangements (lower than publicly advertised) to website agencies and law firms: Termageddon vs competitors
To DIY, use coupon code TOURKICK to get 10% off your first year, or Contact Us to implement it for you with different pricing options.
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
Enzuzo is affordable and has flexible subscription options: Enzuzo vs competitors
TermsFeed, FreePrivacyPolicy.com, and PrivacyPolicies.com offer a one-time, non-recurring fee to upgrade your Agreements & Policies to address additional jurisdictions or to customize them in other ways.
Some of these generators charge more to add specific clauses within a document. It can feel a bit “nickel and dimed,” but all their pricing is up-front, which is nice I guess.
LawDepot (even though it says “free” and shows a document preview, they charge a premium), WebsitePolicies, and Iubenda are additional choices I came across that seemed to be legitimate paid options.