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Phil McMinn

Chief Strategy Officer (Charity Sector)

OneTrust is pricing out the nonprofit sector. We’re not staying quiet about it.

Related post categories Digital products Tech Culture Charity & non-profit
4 mins read

I’ve been at Torchbox for over ten years now, and in that time I’ve had the privilege of working alongside some of the most important charities in the UK. Organisations like Mind, Oxfam, the Disasters Emergency Committee and RNIB. I’ve seen firsthand how hard their teams work, how tight their budgets are, and how much pressure they’re under to do more with less every single year.

So when we started hearing from clients that OneTrust, one of the most widely used consent management platforms in the charity sector, had dramatically increased its pricing, I felt we had a responsibility to say something publicly.

What’s happening

OneTrust has moved away from its previous pricing model towards a new structure tied to usage-based metering. On paper, that might sound reasonable. In practice, it has meant some of our charity clients have seen their annual costs jump from under £1,000 to more than £17,000 at renewal. Even after negotiation, which takes time and energy that small digital teams simply don’t have, the revised figures still represent increases of up to ten times what they were paying before.

This isn’t a minor budget adjustment. For many charities, it’s a portion of a staff member’s salary, a campaign, or frontline service delivery. And the really frustrating thing is that consent management isn’t something organisations can choose to opt out of. It’s a legal requirement. You have to have it.

Why we’re speaking up

At Torchbox, we’ve always believed that being a good partner to the nonprofit sector means more than just delivering great digital work. It means standing up for our clients when something isn’t right, even when that means taking on organisations much bigger than us.

This isn’t the first time we’ve done this. A few years ago, when Google rolled out an algorithm update that was rewriting page titles across the web, we spotted that it was changing NHS health content in dangerous ways. Flu pages were being relabelled as vaccination pages. Condition pages were showing misleading titles. For a service where someone searching in a moment of crisis needs to find the right information immediately, this was a serious problem.

Our SEO team pushed back directly. We challenged Google publicly, provided detailed evidence of the harm, and advocated for the NHS and other nonprofits whose content was being misrepresented. Google listened, and they rolled back the changes.

We’re taking the same approach now because the principle is the same. When a technology provider makes a decision that disproportionately harms the nonprofit sector, someone needs to say so.

For Samaritans, cookie consent isn’t just about compliance – we use it to restrict advertising being targeted at vulnerable people who have visited our website for support, protecting them from potentially triggering or exploitative content. As a charity, we have very limited budgets, and a duty to our supporters to spend their donations in the most responsible way possible to achieve our mission that fewer people die by suicide. So every pound matters and when prices change unexpectedly this has a substantial impact.

James Small Head of Brand, Content and Digital Engagement

What we’re asking OneTrust to do

We’re not asking for anything unreasonable. We’re asking OneTrust to do what other major technology companies like Microsoft, Google and Adobe have done for years.

First, introduce a transparent and meaningful nonprofit pricing tier. Not occasional grants or one-off gestures, but a clearly published, permanently available pricing structure that reflects the financial realities of charity work.

Second, honour existing pricing for current nonprofit customers during a reasonable transition period. Charities plan their budgets well in advance. Springing five-figure increases at the point of renewal, with little warning, is disruptive and unfair.

Third, engage directly with the sector. We would genuinely welcome a conversation with OneTrust about how to make this work for everyone. We believe there’s a path forward, but it requires them to listen to the organisations being most affected.

We shared these concerns with OneTrust ahead of publication.

OneTrust’s response

OneTrust was approached for comment ahead of publication. Jim Monroe, Chief Customer Officer, said:

"OneTrust recently evolved its packaging and pricing structure to better reflect how organizations use our platform and the value it delivers, including the introduction of usage-based components. We understand that nonprofit organizations operate within distinct financial constraints, and we take that seriously. We are actively engaging with impacted customers to ensure they have viable paths forward that support both regulatory compliance and their mission."

We welcome that engagement, and hope it leads to clear and fair pricing structures that reflect the financial realities charities operate within.

What we’re doing for our clients

We’ve already started working with our clients to review their options, plan for upcoming renewals and, where needed, explore alternative consent management platforms that offer better value for the sector. We’ll continue to do that regardless of how OneTrust responds.

But our offer extends beyond our own client base. We’re an employee-owned agency and a certified B Corp, and our commitment to the nonprofit sector isn’t conditional on a contract. If your charity has been affected by these changes and you need advice or support, please get in touch. We’re happy to help.

A final thought

The nonprofit sector deserves technology partners who understand its values and its constraints. Partners who recognise that a charity’s budget isn’t just a line on a spreadsheet, it’s donations from the public, given in trust, to fund work that changes and saves lives.

I hope OneTrust will choose to be that kind of partner. But whether they do or not, we’ll keep advocating for the organisations we believe in.

If your charity has been affected by OneTrust’s pricing changes, or if you’d like to talk about your consent management options, please get in touch with us.

Phil McMinn Chief Strategy Officer (Charity Sector)

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