GDPRWise vs Termly: Document Generator with a Scanner vs Complete GDPR Dossier

Quick summary

Termly and GDPRWise both touch the privacy and GDPR space, but they solve different problems. Termly generates legal documents (privacy policy, cookie policy, terms, DPA) and runs a cookie consent banner backed by a cookie scanner. GDPRWise scans your website with AI, builds a complete GDPR dossier including an Article 30 processing register, and produces your privacy policy as the result of that compliance work.

If your goal is a polished privacy policy plus a cookie banner across multiple jurisdictions, Termly does that competently. If your goal is a complete GDPR dossier that would hold up during an audit by a supervisory authority, GDPRWise covers significantly more ground.

This article walks through what each tool does, where they overlap, and which situations favour one over the other.

What Termly does

Termly is a US-based privacy compliance platform with a strong document generation suite. It serves a broad international audience and supports multiple privacy regimes (GDPR, CCPA, CPRA, LGPD, and others).

Here is what Termly does well:

• Privacy policy generation - automatically updated legal text that adapts to the services and integrations you select
• Cookie policy and cookie banner - a consent management platform with IAB TCF support and Google Consent Mode v2 integration
• Cookie scanner - crawls your website, classifies the cookies it finds, and feeds them into the banner and policy
• Terms and conditions, EULA, disclaimers, return policies - a wider set of legal templates than most competitors offer
• DPA generator - a Data Processing Agreement template you can use with your processors
• DSAR webform - a basic intake form for handling data subject access requests
• Multi-jurisdiction coverage - documents adapt to GDPR, CCPA, CPRA, VCDPA, and other regional rules
• Auto-updates - templates change when laws change, and your published documents update with them

Pricing starts with a free tier (limited features), with paid plans in the low double digits of euros per month for small sites, scaling up for larger businesses and agencies.

For businesses that want a complete document suite plus a cookie banner under one roof, Termly is a credible choice.

What Termly does not cover

The gap appears when you measure Termly against the full scope of GDPR. A privacy policy and a cookie banner are two pieces of GDPR compliance; the regulation demands considerably more.

Termly does not provide:

• Processing register (ROPA) - the Article 30 record of processing activities that every controller must maintain. This is the first document a supervisory authority asks for during an audit.
• Staff privacy policy - a separate document informing employees how their personal data is processed (payroll, access control, CCTV, IT usage)
• GDPR dossier compilation - a structured, audit-ready collection of all compliance documentation in one place
• Compliance scoring - a measurement of where you stand and what gaps remain
• Action tracking - a prioritised list of steps to close compliance gaps
• Sector-specific foundations - pre-built documentation for your industry covering typical processing activities, legal bases, and retention periods
• Guided compliance workflow - a step-by-step process that translates business questions into legal documentation
• Documented data breach procedures - protocols for handling personal data breaches and notifying the supervisory authority within 72 hours

This is not a criticism of Termly. The tool delivers what it promises. But the scope of what it promises is narrower than what GDPR compliance actually requires for a controller in the EU.

What GDPRWise does differently

GDPRWise was designed around a different premise: compliance is the goal, and the privacy policy is a byproduct of that work.

Policy as output, not starting point

Termly starts with the policy. You answer questions about the services you use, and it generates a privacy policy and cookie banner. The documents are the product.

GDPRWise reverses the sequence. The starting point is an AI-powered scan of your website that detects cookies, trackers, third-party scripts, forms, embedded services, and your business sector. From there, you work through a guided process that maps out your processing activities, legal bases, retention periods, and security measures. Once that is in place, the privacy policy writes itself from your dossier.

Scanner that does more than cookies

Termly’s scanner classifies cookies. The GDPRWise scan goes wider. It detects:

• Cookies and trackers (the same ground Termly covers)
• Third-party scripts and embedded services
• Forms that collect personal data
• Sector signals that match your business to a documentation foundation

Each finding feeds into your processing register and privacy documentation, not just a cookie banner.

Complete dossier from one scan

GDPRWise uses a three-layer approach to build your dossier:

1. Sector foundation - pre-built documentation for your industry, covering typical processing activities, legal bases, and retention periods. Your dossier starts 60 to 70 percent complete before you answer a single question.
2. AI scan results - findings from your website are layered on top, adding the specific tools, cookies, scripts, and data flows that apply to your site.
3. Guided refinement - business-language questions fill in what the scan cannot detect. Do you have employees? Do you use CCTV? Do you transfer data outside the EU?

The result is a complete GDPR dossier: processing register, customer privacy policy, staff privacy policy, cookie report, action list, and compliance score. Everything a supervisory authority expects to see, produced in one session.

Continuous compliance, not just document refresh

Termly’s auto-updates keep your published documents in step with regulatory changes. That is genuinely useful. But your own situation also changes: you add new tools to your website, hire staff, change suppliers, or start processing a new type of personal data. Document templates do not catch those.

GDPRWise’s Peace of Mind plan rescans your website automatically and compares changes to your existing dossier. If a new tracker appears or a third-party script changes, you get a notification. Your compliance score updates accordingly, and the action list tells you exactly what to address. Free Scan users can trigger a rescan manually whenever their situation changes.

This is the difference between maintaining documents and maintaining compliance.

Side-by-side comparison

Feature	Termly	GDPRWise
Privacy policy generator	Yes	Yes (generated from your dossier)
Cookie policy generator	Yes	Yes (part of cookie report)
Terms and conditions, EULA, disclaimer	Yes	Not in scope
Consent banner (IAB TCF, Google Consent Mode v2)	Yes	Generates cookie report for your banner
Cookie scanner	Yes (cookies only)	Yes (cookies, scripts, forms, embeds, sector)
DPA generator	Yes	Included as part of dossier
DSAR webform	Yes (basic intake)	Documented procedures in dossier
Processing register (ROPA, Article 30)	No	Yes
Staff privacy policy	No	Yes
Data breach procedures	No	Yes
Compliance scoring	No	Yes
Action tracking	No	Yes
Sector-specific foundations	No	Yes
Complete GDPR dossier	No	Yes
Continuous monitoring	Document auto-updates	Full website rescans with dossier comparison
Primary regulatory focus	Multi-jurisdiction, US-led	EU-first, GDPR-native

When Termly might be the right choice

Termly is a reasonable choice if:

• You need a broad set of legal documents (privacy policy, cookie policy, terms, EULA, disclaimer) under one roof
• You need to publish documents that adapt to multiple jurisdictions, including US states
• You already have your processing register and internal GDPR documentation handled, and you only need policies and a cookie banner
• You want IAB TCF support specifically for programmatic advertising
• A consent banner with a cookie scanner is the main thing you are buying

If your GDPR documentation is already complete and maintained, adding Termly for documents and consent is a perfectly valid setup.

When GDPRWise is the better fit

GDPRWise is the better fit if:

• You need to comply with GDPR as a whole, not just publish a privacy policy and a cookie banner
• You do not have a processing register, staff privacy policy, or breach procedures yet
• You want a single platform that covers everything instead of combining multiple tools
• You want to go from zero to audit-ready in a single session
• You have employees and need a staff privacy policy
• You want compliance monitoring that goes beyond document templates
• You prefer answering business questions over filling in legal templates
• You operate primarily in the EU and want a GDPR-native tool rather than a US-led platform with EU support bolted on

Most small and medium businesses fall into this category. Polished documents matter, but they sit on top of a wider compliance picture. GDPRWise builds that picture first, then produces the documents from it.