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Cybersecurity · head to head

Osano vs Proofpoint

Osano logo

Osano

Cybersecurity

Consent management and data privacy platform with a published self-serve tier

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Proofpoint logo

Proofpoint

Cybersecurity

Email security and data protection suite from a private company owned by Thoma Bravo, licensed per user with modules sold separately.

From
$6/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Osano has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Osano the published visitor ceilings are low, with the paid self-serve tier stopping around 30,000 monthly visitors, so any consumer facing site with real traffic leaves published pricing immediately and negotiates a quote with no public anchor.; Proofpoint licensing is per user per year with each capability as a separate stock item, so the platform shown in a proof of concept is normally several products, and adding awareness training, data loss prevention or insider threat monitoring later is a fresh negotiation rather than enabling a feature.
  • They diverge on capability: Osano covers Consent banner, Proofpoint covers Inline secure email gateway.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Osano and Proofpoint actually diverge.

Attributes where Osano and Proofpoint differ
AttributeOsanoProofpoint
Starting priceFree$6/month
Pricing modelPer month by monthly website visitorssubscription
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWebEmail, Cloud, Web
FoundedUnknown2002

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Cybersecurity).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Osano

  • Consent banner
  • Pre-consent tag blocking
  • Consent record
  • No fines guarantee
  • Subject rights requests
  • Data mapping
  • Vendor privacy monitoring
  • Cookie scanning

Only in Proofpoint

  • Inline secure email gateway
  • Attachment sandboxing
  • URL rewriting and click-time analysis
  • Threat Response Auto-Pull
  • Email Fraud Defense
  • Security awareness training
  • Insider Threat Management
  • Enterprise DLP

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Osano

  • A mid market company selling into the EU and California that needs one banner honouring different consent rules by visitor regionnot Proofpoint
  • A privacy counsel who wants a vendor that will contractually stand behind its consent product rather than disclaim all liabilitynot Proofpoint
  • A marketing team that needs Google Consent Mode signals wired correctly so analytics and ads degrade rather than break when consent is refusednot Proofpoint
  • A company with a handful of brand domains wanting one consent record and one scanning schedule across all of themnot Proofpoint

Proofpoint

  • A regulated organisation that needs a filtering layer, DMARC enforcement and archiving with an auditable trail across all threenot Osano
  • An organisation that suffered a business email compromise and must show its board a control that stops delivery rather than remediating afterwardsnot Osano
  • Concentrating stronger controls and training on the specific individuals who actually receive targeted attacks rather than applying uniform policynot Osano
  • Retracting a phishing message from thousands of mailboxes after the verdict changes, including copies that were forwarded internallynot Osano

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Osano

  • The published visitor ceilings are low, with the paid self-serve tier stopping around 30,000 monthly visitors, so any consumer facing site with real traffic leaves published pricing immediately and negotiates a quote with no public anchor.
  • The no fines guarantee is bounded and conditional on configuring the product as instructed, so it is a marketing differentiator with an indemnity cap rather than the insurance policy the name suggests, and the limits should be read before it influences a decision.
  • Everything beyond consent, including subject rights automation, data mapping and vendor monitoring, is enterprise quoted, so the transparent pricing that attracts buyers covers only the cheapest part of the platform.
  • Tag blocking depends on tags being loaded through the mechanisms Osano can intercept, and marketing teams that inject scripts directly into templates or through server side tagging routinely leak trackers past the banner without anyone noticing.
  • It is a privacy platform rather than a security compliance one, so organisations that also need SOC 2 or ISO 27001 evidence collection run it alongside a separate tool and duplicate parts of the vendor and asset inventory.

Proofpoint

  • Licensing is per user per year with each capability as a separate stock item, so the platform shown in a proof of concept is normally several products, and adding awareness training, data loss prevention or insider threat monitoring later is a fresh negotiation rather than enabling a feature.
  • It sits inline with MX records pointed at it, so any service degradation is a mail outage for the entire organisation, and both migrating on and migrating off are cutovers with queueing, rollback planning and a real risk of message loss.
  • Most customers on Microsoft 365 E5 or Google Workspace Enterprise are already paying for native filtering, so Proofpoint is a second licence layered over a capability the organisation owns, and that comparison is raised by finance at every single renewal.
  • The administration console carries a decade of acquisitions: the classic gateway policy routes and filters do not share a model with the newer module interfaces, rule evaluation is order-sensitive in ways that surprise untrained administrators, and mistakes there silently change what is delivered.
  • Quarantine management is a standing helpdesk workload because legitimate bulk mail, invoices and supplier notifications are held, and unless end-user digests are configured and users are taught to use them, the security team becomes the mail release desk.

Pricing, plan by plan

Osano

Free
  • FreeFree
    • 1 user
    • 1 domain
    • 5,000 monthly visitors
  • Plus$199/month
    • 2 users
    • 3 domains
    • 30,000 monthly visitors
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Unlimited domains and higher visitor volumes
    • Subject rights request automation
    • Data mapping and assessments

Proofpoint

$6/month
  • Email Protection$6/month
    • Per user
    • Advanced threat detection
    • Data loss prevention
  • Compliance$8/month
    • All Email Protection
    • Archive & search
    • eDiscovery
  • Advanced Threat$10/month
    • All Compliance features
    • Targeted attack detection
    • Behavior analytics

Which should you pick?

Choose Osano if

  • You need consent banner.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want pre-consent tag blocking.
Osano review

Choose Proofpoint if

  • You need inline secure email gateway.
  • You work on Email, Cloud, Web.
  • You also want attachment sandboxing.
Proofpoint review

Questions people ask

Is Osano or Proofpoint better?
Neither clearly leads. Osano starts at Free and Proofpoint at $6/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Osano or Proofpoint?
Osano has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Osano and $6/month for Proofpoint.
Does Osano or Proofpoint run on more platforms?
Osano runs on Web. Proofpoint runs on Email, Cloud, Web.
Can I use Osano for free?
Yes. Osano has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Proofpoint starts at $6/month.
What is Osano best used for?
Osano is most often used for a mid market company selling into the eu and california that needs one banner honouring different consent rules by visitor region, a privacy counsel who wants a vendor that will contractually stand behind its consent product rather than disclaim all liability, a marketing team that needs google consent mode signals wired correctly so analytics and ads degrade rather than break when consent is refused, a company with a handful of brand domains wanting one consent record and one scanning schedule across all of them. Of those, a mid market company selling into the eu and california that needs one banner honouring different consent rules by visitor region and a privacy counsel who wants a vendor that will contractually stand behind its consent product rather than disclaim all liability are not what Proofpoint is typically brought in for.
What can Osano do that Proofpoint cannot?
Osano covers Consent banner, Pre-consent tag blocking, Consent record, No fines guarantee. Proofpoint covers Inline secure email gateway, Attachment sandboxing, URL rewriting and click-time analysis, Threat Response Auto-Pull.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Osano: Does the free tier include the no fines guarantee?

No. The guarantee attaches to paid use of the consent product, and the free tier is capped at one domain and 5,000 monthly visitors.

Proofpoint: Does it replace Microsoft Defender for Office 365?

Functionally it overlaps heavily, and running both means paying twice for filtering. Most Proofpoint customers on Microsoft 365 keep Defender licensed because it is bundled in E5 and use Proofpoint as the inline gateway. Expect to justify that duplication annually.

Osano: How is Osano priced?

By monthly website visitors, number of domains and tier. The self-serve path stops at a low visitor ceiling and everything above is quoted.

Proofpoint: Who owns Proofpoint?

Thoma Bravo, a private equity firm, which took the company private in 2021. It has continued to acquire since, including Tessian, Normalyze and Hornetsecurity, which is why the portfolio spans so many adjacent categories.

Osano: Can it handle US state privacy laws as well as GDPR?

Yes, with region aware rule sets covering GDPR, ePrivacy and the US state regimes, so an EU visitor sees an opt-in banner and a US visitor sees the applicable opt-out.

Proofpoint: Do I have to change my MX records?

For the gateway, yes. That is what makes it inline and able to block before delivery. Some newer capabilities integrate through the mailbox API instead, but the core protection model is MX-level.

Osano: Does Osano do subject access requests?

Yes, but in the enterprise tier rather than the published plans, and it is quoted separately from consent.

Proofpoint: Is security awareness training included?

No, it is a separate subscription. It integrates well with the threat data, so training can target the users actually being attacked, but it is a distinct line item on the quote.

Proofpoint: What does Threat Response Auto-Pull actually do?

It removes messages from mailboxes after delivery when the verdict changes, including copies that users forwarded internally. It is the answer to the case where a link was clean at delivery and weaponised an hour later.

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