Do You Actually Need a Consent Management Platform as a Solo Developer?

If you search for "consent management platform," you will find options like OneTrust, Cookiebot, and TrustArc. These are systems designed for big businesses, which have many data sources, dedicated compliance staff, and large budgets. For a single developer launching a SaaS from their computer, the common responses are either surprise at the cost or the belief that GDPR does not concern them, leading to them ignoring it completely. Neither of these approaches is correct.

The correct approach lies somewhere in the middle. A solo SaaS with just a few external tools does not require cross-brand coordination or automatic tracking scans across a data warehouse. However, saying "I do not need enterprise tools" is different from saying "I do not need to record consent at all." A cookie banner without a lasting record behind it still presents a compliance problem, because it only shows you asked, not who responded or when.

I have detailed what a solo developer truly needs (it is three items, not a full platform), along with the specific indicators that suggest you have outgrown a simple setup.

Full breakdown: https://consentkeep.com/blog/en/do-i-need-consent-management-platform-solo-developer/

(Originally published at consentkeep.com/blog)