Custodian
Consent and compliance you own — the cookie banner, the audit trail, the data map.
Useful when replacing: OneTrust, Cookiebot, Axeptio and the rest of the compliance tax
Pricing · USD
Own it
$99 once
Run it yourself or use optional managed hosting.
Hosted by us · optional
$9/mo
Cancel any month — it keeps running, because you own it. Or self-host and pay $0 forever.
$99 and it's yours as-is: MIT licensed, in your repo, unlimited domains, sessions, and consents. Deploy it yourself today, or add hosting and regulation updates for $9/mo — cancel any month and the banner keeps running, because you own it. Want it shaped to your tag manager and your legal team's wording? That's a Build Sprint, and it's the work you're paying for — not the software. OneTrust starts around $3,000/year, every year, forever.
Inside Custodian
The problem
Consent management is the purest form of resented spending: you're billed monthly, per domain, per session, for a banner you didn't want, to satisfy a regulator you didn't choose. OneTrust starts in the thousands per year. Cookiebot bills per subdomain. And the ultimate irony — a tool whose entire job is proving you handle personal data responsibly is itself a third party you've handed your visitor data to, phoning home from every page load on your site.
How Custodian solves it
A banner that's yours, on your domain
The consent UI ships as a component in your repo, served from your domain, styled as part of your site rather than an obvious bolt-on. No third-party script tag, no render-blocking CDN call, no vendor watching your traffic. It's the same banner running on this site — we don't sell what we don't use.
Consent that actually gates something
Most banners are theatre: they record a click and load the trackers anyway. Custodian holds tags until consent exists, blocks the ones refused, and enforces the decision at the script level — which is the part regulators fine people for getting wrong.
The evidence, on your infrastructure
Every consent decision is stored with its timestamp, scope, policy version, and proof — a queryable audit trail on your own database. When a DPA asks what a visitor agreed to in March, the answer is a SQL query, not a support ticket to a vendor.
GDPR, DPDP, CCPA — by geography
Serve opt-in in the EU, notice-and-choice in the US, and DPDP-shaped consent in India, from one deployment with rules by region. Data residency is a deployment decision you make, not a premium tier you buy.
Delivery terms — stated precisely
How Custodian is delivered, what you control, and where the boundaries sit.
Source included · MIT
Run it yourself or use optional managed hosting.
Data and hosting
Deploy in your cloud or use the stated optional managed-hosting plan. Data location and operator access are agreed before production use.
Compliance boundary
Residency, controls, and regulatory requirements are implementation decisions documented in the selected plan or delivery scope.
Rented vs. owned
The rented way
OneTrust, Cookiebot, Axeptio and the rest of the compliance tax
- Metered pricing that scales with your success, not the value
- Your data sits in their database, exportable only through their API
- Prices rise once you're integrated and can't leave
- Switching is a migration project nobody will approve
The Custodian way
$99 once — and then it's yours
- One price, paid once — hosting is $9/mo and optional, or $0 if you run it
- Self-host in your infrastructure, or use the optional managed plan under its stated data terms
- Source included · MIT — the exit terms are stated on this product
- Stop paying and nothing switches off. Leave with a git clone, not a support ticket
Built on
More to run your business
Custodian — the questions buyers ask
Who owns the code and IP?
For a Build Sprint, the repository, deployment assets, and work-product IP described in the SOW are handed over to you. Pre-existing products retain the licence shown on their product page; hosted services remain services. We state that boundary before work starts.
What happens if a sprint misses its scope?
We finish it. Fixed price means the risk of estimation is ours, not yours — a missed scope item is completed without a new invoice. Changes you request are re-scoped explicitly, so the line between 'our miss' and 'new ask' stays honest.
How do time zones work with a pod in India?
Every engagement includes 4+ hours of overlap with US or EU working hours. Async by default — written updates, weekly clickable demos — and meetings only when they earn the slot. You'll never chase a status report.
How is our data and code kept secure?
Work happens in your repos and your infrastructure wherever possible — we hold the minimum access needed, revoked at handover. NDAs are standard on request, and everything we self-host for you runs behind your keys, not ours.
How fast can you actually start?
Scoping takes a day; most sprints start within a week of sign-off. Pods are deliberately small and senior, so your start date is confirmed in the sprint plan — not left floating.
Do we need a retainer afterwards?
No — that's the point. A sprint ends with handover docs and training. If you want us to keep maintaining what we built, that's an optional flat monthly add-on you can cancel any month, because the software keeps working without us.
Own Custodian, don't rent it.
See the price, deploy on your infrastructure, keep the code. Or scope a sprint and we'll customise it and hand it over.