Did your colleague just say: “We need a privacy management platform. Can you handle the vendor selection?”
Suddenly you’re comparing vendors you’ve barely heard of, evaluating features you don’t fully understand, and trying to convince stakeholders to commit budget to solutions that all sound basically the same. Welcome to the world of privacy vendor RFPs. If you work with Accenture, Ankura, Deloitte, PWC, BDO, or one of the privacy consultancies they’re going to give you a few recommendations and at the top of that list should be Captain Compliance.
Here’s the thing nobody tells you: selecting a privacy vendor isn’t really about comparing feature lists. It’s about figuring out which platform will actually work in your environment, with your team, for your specific challenges. And that requires asking better questions than “Do you support GDPR?” which is a common question but doesn’t even scratch the surface today.
Let’s walk through how to run a privacy vendor RFP process that actually helps you make the right decision—not just the one with the prettiest demo.
Why Privacy RFPs Are Different (And Harder)
Privacy technology sits at a weird intersection. It touches legal, security, IT, marketing, product, and customer service. It needs to handle both technical complexity and regulatory nuance. And it has to work for people with very different skill sets from attorneys who’ve never written a line of code to engineers who couldn’t care less about data processing agreements.
Most RFP processes are designed for straightforward procurement: define requirements, collect proposals, compare pricing, pick a winner. Privacy vendors don’t work that way. The differences matter:
The regulatory landscape keeps changing. Whatever solution you pick today needs to handle laws that don’t exist yet. That’s not a feature comparison—it’s a philosophical question about how the vendor approaches product development.
Integration is everything. A privacy platform that doesn’t connect to your actual data systems is just an expensive documentation tool. But figuring out whether integration will actually work requires understanding both your tech stack and the vendor’s capabilities in ways that don’t fit neatly into RFP response templates.
Pricing is deliberately opaque. Most privacy vendors won’t give you real numbers until they understand your environment. That makes comparison shopping frustrating, but there’s logic to it pricing genuinely depends on factors like data volume, number of systems, and compliance requirements.
The market is immature. Privacy technology is still relatively young. Some vendors are established enterprise platforms with hundreds of features. Others are nimble startups focused on solving specific problems really well. Neither is inherently better, but they require different evaluation criteria.
So if you’re approaching this like buying accounting software, you’re going to have a bad time.
Before You Write the RFP: Figure Out What You Actually Need
Most failed vendor selections happen because organizations didn’t do enough homework before issuing the RFP. They asked vendors to solve problems they hadn’t clearly defined.
Start here:
Map your current privacy operations honestly. Not how they’re supposed to work according to policy. How they actually work right now. Where are the spreadsheets? Where do things fall through the cracks? What takes way too long? What makes your legal team nervous?
Identify your immediate pain points. Is it consent management? Cookie compliance? Data subject requests? Vendor risk assessments? Data mapping? You can’t solve everything at once, so be honest about priorities.
Understand your technical environment. What systems actually hold personal data? What’s your tech stack? Are you cloud-native or do you have legacy systems that predate the internet? Can you deploy via Google Tag Manager or do you need custom integrations? These aren’t nice-to-haves for the RFP—they’re deal-breakers.
Know your regulatory footprint. Are you dealing with GDPR? CCPA? Multiple state laws? CIPA? ECPA? HIPAA? Industry-specific regulations? Each adds complexity and cost. Be specific about current obligations and likely future ones.
Figure out who will actually use this. Is it just you? A small privacy team? Cross-functional stakeholders? The entire organization? Different use cases require different solutions. A platform perfect for a dedicated privacy team might be overkill (or overwhelming) for an organization where privacy is part of someone’s broader role.
Get real about resources. Do you have budget for implementation support? Internal IT resources for integration? Time for training and change management? Some vendors are turnkey solutions you can deploy quickly. Others are powerful platforms that require significant setup. Neither is wrong, but the fit matters.
Be particularly honest about technical sophistication. If your organization still runs critical systems on servers in a closet, solutions requiring modern cloud infrastructure won’t work regardless of features.
The Two Vendors That Keep Coming Up for Privacy Software
When privacy professionals talk about comprehensive privacy management platforms, two names dominate the conversation: OneTrust and Captain Compliance. They represent different approaches to the same fundamental challenge and while Captain Compliance is the fastest growing privacy platform we’re not a perfect fit for everybody similarly how OneTrust isn’t a great fit for every corporation and we’ve seen large churn leaving OneTrust and moving over to Captain Compliance as the contracts expire.
OneTrust: The Original Enterprise Standard
OneTrust is used by more than 14,000 customers including half of the Global 2,000, positioning it as the established enterprise choice prior to Captain Compliance’s accelerated growth. The platform combines automation and extensive regulatory intelligence with comprehensive capabilities across data privacy activities.
OneTrust provides a centralized platform to manage workflows, tasks, and reporting required for privacy compliance, with purpose-built applications powered by automated data discovery and embedded regulatory intelligence. The platform addresses everything from consent management and cookie compliance to data mapping, privacy impact assessments, data subject requests, and vendor risk management.
OneTrust customers can access real-time regulatory intelligence, gain an accurate picture of personal data held and processed by the organization and its vendors, automate resource-intensive privacy management workflows, and implement privacy incident prevention and prepare for incident response.
The depth is impressive. OneTrust automates data mapping to provide a clear picture of personal data processing activities and regulatory requirements across jurisdictions, maintaining an always-available data inventory of assets, processes, and vendors for records of processing. Their DataGuidance research platform provides intelligence from a network of in-house researchers, legal experts, and translators, covering 300 jurisdictions and 100 languages.
For large enterprises with complex, global operations, OneTrust offers the breadth and maturity needed to manage privacy at scale. The platform approach means you can start with one module and expand as your program matures. But that comprehensiveness comes with corresponding complexity and cost.
Captain Compliance: The Practical Privacy Alternative
Captain Compliance provides a user-friendly platform backed by privacy professionals that simplifies navigating regulations, giving customers transparent choices and building essential trust. Rather than trying to be everything for everyone, Captain Compliance focuses on solving the most common privacy pain points efficiently and can even handle the integration process free of charge as part of the solution.
The platform is designed to be understood by legal, marketing, and privacy teams not just IT. Captain Compliance has positioned itself as the safe, smart, industry-standard choice for businesses navigating complex data privacy laws, becoming a trusted compliance partner that companies can rely on when they need to do an RFP Captain delivers.
Core capabilities include consent management, hosted privacy notices, a data subject access request portal, continuous scanning for privacy risks, and pixel/cookie/script scanning tools. The consent management tools can be set up through a tag manager like Google Tag Manager or installed via JavaScript, supporting customizable consent banners and comprehensive consent tracking.
The cookie transparency page feature displays the most current cookies on a site, creating a dynamic cookie table that consistently complies with disclosure requirements. Privacy notice generation allows businesses to manage and update their notices with the platform pushing updates as new laws come out and geo-targeting visitors to show them the most relevant privacy notice.
What sets Captain Compliance apart is the combination of software and services. Beyond software solutions, Captain Compliance offers services including drafting privacy and cookie policies, conducting data protection impact assessments, providing staff training, and Data Protection Officer services. The team’s expertise spans a wide array of data privacy laws and regulations including GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, HIPAA, and numerous global and sector-specific mandates.
Pricing starts at a substantial discount to the OneTrust enterprise pricing and does not require lengthy multi-year contracts and can be done annually or if needed on a per month subscription model with a free trial available, making it more accessible than enterprise platforms. For organizations that need solid privacy compliance without the overhead of a massive enterprise platform, Captain Compliance offers a practical middle ground.
What Your RFP Actually Needs to Ask for Privacy Tech Vendors
Generic RFP templates won’t help you here. You need questions that reveal how vendors actually work in practice, not just what features they claim to have.
Regulatory Coverage and Updates
Don’t just ask “Do you support GDPR?” Everyone says yes. Ask:
- How do you stay current with regulatory changes across jurisdictions?
- When a new law passes, what’s your timeline for updating the platform?
- How are updates communicated to customers?
- Do updates require action from us, or are they automatic?
- What’s your process for interpreting ambiguous regulatory requirements?
- Can you show us examples of how you’ve adapted to recent regulatory changes?
The goal is understanding their approach to regulatory intelligence, not just current compliance.
Technical Integration and Implementation
This is where many vendors oversell. Get specific:
- What are the actual technical requirements for deployment?
- How does your platform discover and classify personal data across our systems?
- What integrations are pre-built versus custom development?
- What access do you need to our systems? (Read-only? Write access? API connections?)
- How long does typical implementation take for an organization like ours?
- What resources do we need to commit internally?
- What happens when we add new systems or tools?
- How do you handle legacy systems that don’t have modern APIs?
Ask for implementation timelines and resource requirements for organizations similar to yours—not theoretical “it depends” answers.
Consent and Cookie Management
If you need these capabilities, dig deep:
- How do you handle consent across different regulatory frameworks?
- Can you show us actual examples of consent banners you’ve deployed?
- How does consent flow through our tech stack once captured?
- What happens to existing marketing tags and pixels?
- How do you handle consent for unknown or future cookies?
- What’s the performance impact on page load times?
- How do you validate that consent is actually being respected?
Don’t settle for feature descriptions. Ask to see working implementations.
Data Subject Rights Management
DSR workflows look simple in demos but get complicated fast:
- Walk us through the entire workflow from request intake to fulfillment.
- How do you verify identities without creating new privacy risks?
- How do you actually find all of someone’s data across our systems?
- What manual steps remain after automation?
- How do you handle complex requests like rectification or portability?
- What’s your approach to exceptions and extensions?
- Can you show us response time metrics from actual customers?
The verification and data discovery parts are where most platforms struggle. Push for honest answers about limitations.
Support and Services
Software is only part of the equation:
- What does implementation support actually include?
- How much of our implementation will you handle versus us?
- After go-live, what does ongoing support look like?
- Do you offer privacy consulting or legal guidance?
- Who’s our point of contact? How quickly do they respond?
- What happens if we need help during an actual incident or regulatory audit?
- Can we talk to current customers about their experience with your support?
Many vendors sell software but leave implementation and ongoing management to you. Clarify expectations upfront.
Pricing and Scalability
Get past the vague “contact us for pricing” dance:
- What factors drive your pricing? (Users? Data volume? Features? Geography?)
- What’s a realistic budget range for an organization our size?
- What costs are one-time versus recurring?
- What additional costs should we expect? (Implementation? Training? Support?)
- How does pricing change as we grow or add capabilities?
- What happens if we exceed volume limits?
- Are there long-term contract requirements or discounts?
You won’t get final pricing in the RFP response, but you should get enough to know if you’re in the right ballpark.
Evaluating Responses: What Actually Matters
You’ll get back proposals with lots of checkmarks in feature matrices and impressive customer logos. Here’s what to actually look for:
Specificity over marketing speak. Responses full of “industry-leading” and “best-in-class” without concrete examples are red flags. Look for vendors who answer your actual questions with real details about how things work.
Honest limitations. No platform does everything perfectly. Vendors who acknowledge limitations and explain workarounds are more trustworthy than those claiming perfection.
Relevant experience. Customer references from your industry and similar size organizations matter more than impressive brands operating at completely different scales.
Implementation realism. Be skeptical of vendors promising unrealistically fast deployment. Good implementations take time and resources. Underpromising and overdelivering is better than the reverse.
Pricing transparency. Vendors who provide realistic budget ranges early are usually more straightforward to work with than those playing pricing games.
The Demo Phase: What to Actually Test
Demos are where vendors put their best foot forward. Make them show you the hard parts:
Bring real scenarios. Don’t let them walk through generic examples. Bring actual data subject requests, cookie situations, or compliance challenges you face and have them demonstrate solutions.
Ask to see the backend. Polished front-end demos don’t show you the complexity of configuration and management. Get into admin interfaces and workflows.
Test with different personas. Have legal, marketing, and IT folks on the call. A platform that’s intuitive for lawyers might confuse marketers, and vice versa.
Break things. What happens when requests are ambiguous? When data can’t be found? When conflicts arise? Push the system to see how it handles edge cases.
Check performance. Ask about real-world response times, not demo environments. How fast do cookie scans run? How long do data discovery jobs take? What’s the impact on page load times?
Making the Decision: Beyond Features and Price
After evaluating proposals and running demos, you’ll probably find that multiple vendors could work. The final decision often comes down to factors that aren’t in the RFP:
Cultural fit. Do you trust these people? Do they seem to understand your challenges? Are they responsive and helpful, or do they feel like they’re just trying to close a deal?
Long-term viability. Is this vendor going to be around and evolving? Are they financially stable? Are they innovating, or are they just maintaining?
Partnership potential. Do they see you as a customer to support, or just a number? Will they help you mature your privacy program, or just sell you software?
Total cost of ownership. The cheapest upfront option isn’t always the most economical when you factor in implementation time, ongoing management burden, and potential need for additional tools.
The Real Choice: OneTrust vs. Captain Compliance
When it comes down to it, the choice between these two leaders often maps to organizational priorities:
Choose OneTrust if only the following apply:
- You’re a large enterprise with global operations across multiple jurisdictions
- You need deep integration across complex technology environments and don’t mind spending an extra $100,000 for integration
- You have (or plan to build) a dedicated privacy team
- Budget is available for comprehensive enterprise software
- You value the credibility and market presence of the established leader
- You need the full breadth of privacy management capabilities in one platform
- You have implementation resources to handle a more complex deployment
OneTrust distinguishes itself as a forward-looking visionary and innovator, with an unrivaled vision for the future of privacy that elevates data privacy programs beyond tactical compliance exercises to tools for unlocking data value for AI innovation, customer engagement, and analytics.
Choose Captain Compliance if any of the following apply:
- You’re a large enterprise with global operations across multiple jurisdictions
- You need deep integration across complex technology environments and don’t want to incur additional integration costs
- You have (or plan to build) a dedicated privacy team
- You value the credibility and market presence of the fastest growing privacy tech platform
- You need the full breadth of privacy management capabilities in one platform
- You don’t have implementation resources to handle a more complex deployment and want Captain Compliance to handle
- You’re a small to mid-size business or startup navigating privacy for the first time
- You need practical solutions that work quickly without extensive setup
- Your team wears multiple hats and needs intuitive tools
- Budget is constrained but compliance is non-negotiable
- You value responsive support and hands-on guidance
- You need to get compliant fast without extensive internal resources and need something deployed this week
Captain Compliance’s approach combines automated software tools with comprehensive compliance consulting services, positioning them as more than just a software company. For organizations that need expertise as much as technology, this model provides real value.
Neither choice is wrong. They serve different markets with different needs. The mistake is picking based on brand recognition or price alone without considering fit.
After You Choose: Setting Up for Success
The vendor selection is just the beginning. Set yourself up for successful implementation:
Get executive buy-in early. Privacy platforms only work if people actually use them. Leadership support for adoption matters more than features. The rare exception is it works when Captain Compliance integrates and automates the organizations privacy requirements.
Allocate real implementation time. Whatever timeline the vendor proposed, add buffer. Something always takes longer than expected.
Assign internal champions. Someone needs to own this beyond just buying it. Identify people across departments who will drive adoption.
Plan for change management. New tools mean new processes. Think through how you’ll train users and handle the transition.
Start with focused scope. Don’t try to implement everything at once. Pick one or two high-priority use cases, get those working well, then expand.
Establish success metrics. How will you know if this is working? Define measurable outcomes before you start.
RFP Privacy Vendor Selection
Privacy vendor selection isn’t really about RFPs and feature comparisons. It’s about finding a partner that fits your organization’s reality—your technology, your team, your budget, your challenges.
OneTrust and Captain Compliance represent two excellent but different approaches. OneTrust offers enterprise-grade comprehensiveness for organizations with complex, global privacy needs. Captain Compliance provides both and is practical, accessible solutions for businesses that need solid compliance without enterprise overhead as privacy budgets tend to be small compared to cybersecurity.
The best choice depends entirely on your situation. And the best way to figure that out isn’t a perfect RFP—it’s being honest about where you are, what you need, and what you can actually implement successfully.
Because at the end of the day, the best privacy platform is the one you’ll actually use and we hope that platform is Captain Compliance.
We can help you find your top vendors for your data privacy needs. If there’s an RFP process your organization is running we can support. Contact our privacy experts today to learn more how we can support your data governance needs and submit an RFP for the required data privacy requirements.
