Consent management for Matomo
Matomo can wait for consent before it does anything, or it can measure anonymously and hold back only the cookies. Which you pick changes how much you learn and how much you have to ask for. Consent Studio drives either one, correctly, from the answer your visitor gives.
- Both consent modes
- Analytics category
- Built in, no code
From €10 a month. No credit card, no per-visitor billing.
A cookie banner that works with Matomo
Matomo gives you two ways to handle consent and they behave very differently. The useful part of this page is choosing between them.
Block everything, or hold back only the cookies
The first mode stops Matomo doing anything at all until your visitor agrees, so a refusal means no measurement. The second lets Matomo count the visit without storing anything on the device, and holds the cookies until consent arrives. The second keeps your traffic numbers honest; the first is the plainer position to defend.
- Two modes
- Mutually exclusive
Both halves read the same setting
Matomo needs the tag that starts it and the signal that answers it to use the same mode. Mixing them is the classic failure and it is quiet: consent looks granted, then is forgotten on the next page, because the stored cookie is never the one being read. Consent Studio drives both sides from one setting, so they cannot disagree.
- One setting, both sides
- No silent mismatch
A refusal actually clears up
When someone declines under the cookie mode, Consent Studio does not simply stop asking Matomo to store things. It tells Matomo to forget the consent and delete the cookies it already set, so a visitor who changes their mind is not left carrying identifiers from before they did.
- Cookies deleted
- Consent forgotten
One answer controls every tool on your site
A banner that only governs the platform leaves everything you added on top of it running. Consent Studio speaks to the tools around it as well, and by default holds anything it does not recognise until the visitor says otherwise.
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How to set up cookie consent for Matomo
The third step is the one that matters and the fourth is the one people skip. The rest is ordinary.
Install the banner
Add Consent Studio to your site, either as a script in your template or as our official tag in Google Tag Manager. Leave your Matomo tracker where it is for now. Nothing about this integration asks you to move it, and if you deploy Matomo through our own tag manager instead, the two are wired together for you.
Switch the Matomo integration on
Open Web CMP, go to Integrations and enable the Matomo Consent API. It is one of the built-in integrations, so there is no key to copy and no account to connect. From that point Matomo is driven by your analytics category: granted means measure, refused means stop or forget, depending on the mode you pick next.
Choose your consent mode, on purpose
This is the real decision on this page. Block everything until consent and your numbers only ever describe people who agreed. Hold back only the cookies and you keep counting everyone while storing nothing on their device until they say yes. Pick the one that matches what you actually promise your visitors, and be aware that changing it later resets stored consent for everyone, because the cookie Matomo remembers it in is named after the mode.
Load a second page before you believe it
Accept the banner, then navigate to another page and check that Matomo still considers consent given. This is the check that catches the one failure worth catching: if the tag and the signal disagree about which mode is in use, consent looks fine on the first page and is silently forgotten on the second. One extra click, and it is the difference between a setup that works and one that only appears to.
A cookie banner alone is not enough
Most sites are leaking before anyone notices. Not through malice, but through a tag somebody added in a hurry, a vendor that changed its script, a plugin that phones home.
- Unconsented tracking
- Unwanted overseas transfers
- Consent records you cannot produce
- Scripts you never approved
The Full Consent Stack.
Three products, one consent record. What a visitor agreed to in the banner is what every downstream tag sees.
Which plan Matomo needs, and why
Essential covers this. The Matomo integration is identical on every plan, so what changes as you grow is how many integrations you run at once.
Essential is enough
€10/month
- The Matomo Consent API integration
- Three integrations included, then charged
- Unlimited pages, 200,000 consent actions a month
What Professional adds
€36/month
Worth it once Matomo is one tool among several rather than the only one.
- More depth: HTTP consent cookies, accessibility, re-prompting
- Unlimited integrations, Essential includes three
- On-demand scans, not the weekly crawl
- Sitemap scanning, for unlisted pages
Every plan includes
Trusted by organisations that care about privacy
Frequently asked questions about Matomo
Does Matomo need cookie consent?
It depends on how you configure it, which is why Matomo offers two modes rather than one. Configured to store cookies and identify returning visitors, it needs consent like any other analytics tool. Configured to measure anonymously without storing anything on the device, the position is different, and how different depends on your jurisdiction and your own assessment.
What is the difference between requireConsent and requireCookieConsent?
The first blocks all Matomo tracking until the visitor agrees, so a refusal produces no data at all. The second lets Matomo record the visit but blocks the cookies, so you keep counting traffic while storing nothing on the device until consent arrives. They are mutually exclusive and Consent Studio drives whichever you choose.
Can I run Matomo without a cookie banner?
Only if nothing you run needs consent, and Matomo is rarely the only thing on a site. Even a Matomo configured to store nothing sits beside embedded video, maps, chat widgets or a marketing pixel, each of which brings the question back. The banner is about everything on the page rather than about your analytics choice alone.
Does self-hosting Matomo remove the need for consent?
No. Self-hosting changes who holds the data, not whether something is stored on your visitor’s device, and consent rules for storage turn on the storing rather than on the destination. It is a genuine privacy improvement and a good reason to run Matomo; it is not an exemption on its own.
Can I change the consent mode after launch?
You can, but it forgets every visitor’s stored answer. Matomo remembers consent in a cookie named after the mode in use, so switching means the old cookie is no longer read and everyone is asked again. Worth deciding before launch rather than after, and worth doing deliberately if you do change it.
Get Started with the Full Consent Stack
Everything you need in one bundle. Consent Studio provides you with a consent banner, scanner and client-side tag manager that guarantees no data ever gets transferred overseas.
Read the documentation
Our help center walks through every integration, plugin and template step by step, with screenshots. It is written and kept current by the people who build Consent Studio.