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How Telltale Bot compares

Most bot products are built to block bots or to protect ad spend. Telltale Bot is built to tell you who is visiting: people, AI agents and bots in your reports and your dataLayer.

It is built for analytics and marketing teams: one tag instead of a change to your infrastructure, and a published price instead of a quote.

At a glance · Bot blockers · Ad and marketing fraud · Account protection · Device intelligence API ·What Telltale Bot doesn't do

At a glance

Product	What it does	What it doesn't do	How you install it	Price
Telltale Bot	DoesTells people, AI agents and bots apart, names the agent, and reports it.	Doesn'tDoesn't block or challenge anyone, or see visits that never run JavaScript.	InstallOne tag, in your pages or Google Tag Manager	PriceFrom $20 per month (pricing) 250K pageviews: $39 per month
Bot blockers
Cloudflare Free and Pro	DoesChallenges bots it rates definitely automated: simple bots from cloud hosts and headless browsers.	Doesn'tRuns without the machine-learning engine Cloudflare says makes most of its detections, and doesn't act on likely bots, so bots that don't look obviously automated get through. No bot score.	InstallProxying through Cloudflare	PriceFrom $0; Pro is $25 per month
Cloudflare Business	DoesAdds the machine-learning engine; Cloudflare says it catches many sophisticated bots.	Doesn'tNo bot score you can see or write rules on, and one setting for the whole domain: that takes Bot Management.	InstallProxying through Cloudflare	PriceFrom $250 per month
Cloudflare Enterprise Bot Management	DoesMore sophisticated detection, with a bot score on every request for your own rules, plus bot analytics.	Doesn'tNot sold on its own: only with a Cloudflare Enterprise contract.	InstallProxying through Cloudflare	PriceFrom about $5,000 per month (reported), on an annual contract
Akamai Bot Manager	DoesScores and blocks bots at Akamai's edge.	Doesn'tNot sold on its own: only for sites on Akamai's delivery or security products.	InstallProxying through Akamai	PriceFrom about $3,000 per month (reported)
Imperva Advanced Bot Protectionpart of Thales	DoesAllows, limits or blocks automation.	Doesn'tNo self-serve plan or published price.	InstallProxying through Imperva, or a module on your own servers	PriceFrom about $2,500 per month (reported) for Imperva's cloud, with bot protection extra
Fastly Bot Management	DoesDetects and blocks bots on Fastly's CDN.	Doesn'tNot sold on its own: only with Fastly's CDN, and not in its entry security package.	InstallProxying through Fastly	PriceFrom $1,500 per month for Fastly's CDN, plus about $2,000 per month for Bot Management (reported)
DataDome	DoesAllows, challenges or blocks every request.	Doesn'tNo self-serve plan: the smallest listed plan is a 1-year contract.	InstallA module on your CDN or web server, plus a tag	PriceFrom about $3,830 per month on a 1-year contract (AWS Marketplace) 250K pageviews: the same; that plan covers up to 100 million requests a month
HUMANformerly PerimeterX	DoesBot and fraud protection, with a product for AI agents.	Doesn'tNo self-serve plan or published price.	InstallA script in your pages, plus a module on your CDN or servers	PriceFrom about $3,000 per month (reported)
Ad and marketing fraud
CHEQenterprise platform	DoesModules for paid ads, analytics, lead forms and privacy, and since June 2026 Agent Intent: a verdict on every visitor, AI agents included, with controls to act on it.	Doesn'tNo self-serve plan: the listed plan is a 1-year contract.	InstallA tag, plus connections to your ad platforms and other tools	PriceFrom about $4,170 per month on a 1-year contract, for 2.5 million visits a year (AWS Marketplace) 250K pageviews: by quote, just past that plan's 2.5 million visits a year
CHEQ Essentialsformerly ClickCease	DoesBlocks fraudulent ad clicks in Google and Meta Ads, and checks HubSpot leads.	Doesn'tDoesn't block visitors on your site without a paid add-on.	InstallA tag, plus your ad accounts	PriceFrom $99 per month for 5,000 visits, billed annually 250K pageviews: by quote; its self-serve plans stop at 140,000 visits ($799 per month)
TrafficGuard	DoesFinds invalid clicks on your Google Ads and blocks them by excluding their IP addresses.	Doesn'tDoesn't block visitors on your site. The $49 plan covers Google Search ads only.	InstallA connection to Google Ads, plus an optional tag	PriceFrom $49 per month (promotional), up to $30,000 a month in Google Search ad spend 250K pageviews: not priced on traffic. Above $30,000 a month of ad spend, reported at about 2% of it: $600 per month and up
Account protection
Arkose Labs	DoesChallenges and blocks bots and fraud at sign-up, login and other account steps, with its own puzzles. Since June 2026, Agent Trust Manager also sorts AI agents into authorized ones and adversaries.	Doesn'tNo self-serve plan: the listed plan is a 1-year contract.	InstallA script in your pages plus an API your server calls, or through your CDN	PriceFrom about $20,830 per month on a 1-year contract ($250,000 a year), plus $1,000 per million sessions beyond those included (AWS Marketplace)
Castle	DoesScores sign-ups, logins and other account events for bots, takeovers, fake accounts and shared logins, and can block them.	Doesn'tDoesn't watch every page: it checks the events your developers send it.	InstallA script, plus an API your server calls	PriceFrom $200 per month (Pro) 250K pageviews: $1,250 per month, at one call per pageview
Device intelligence API
Fingerprint	DoesIdentifies devices and returns signals, bot detection among them.	Doesn'tDoesn't decide or block anything: your developers build the rules.	InstallA script, plus an API your server calls	PriceFrom $99 per month 250K pageviews: $1,019 per month, at one call per pageview

Bot blockers

Cloudflare, Akamai, Imperva, Fastly, DataDome and HUMAN stop bots before they reach your pages, and HUMAN also sells controls for AI agents. If you need bots stopped, you need one of them, because Telltale Bot never blocks anyone.

They are also bigger purchases. Most work by proxying your site through their network: to use Cloudflare, your whole site has to run through Cloudflare. DataDome and HUMAN can also plug into the infrastructure you already have, but on contracts that typically run to thousands of dollars a month. Apart from Cloudflare's self-serve plans, prices are by quote.

They work well beside Telltale Bot. A blocker stops what it catches at the door, so those visits never load your page; Telltale Bot shows you what got past it, AI agents included.

Pick one of these if bots must be stopped: scraping, credential stuffing, fake sign-ups, inventory hoarding.

Pick Telltale Bot if you need to know who is visiting without moving your DNS or adding a module to your servers, or to see what gets past the blocker you already have.

Ad and marketing fraud

These are sold to marketing teams, to protect ad spend and marketing data. CHEQ Essentials and TrafficGuard watch the clicks on your ads and block invalid ones inside the ad platforms; CHEQ's enterprise platform adds lead forms, analytics and, since June 2026, a verdict on every visitor. Telltale Bot's Paid clicks report shows which ad clicks came from bots and agents, but it doesn't change your campaigns.

CHEQ

CHEQ sells to marketing teams. Its enterprise platform has modules for paid campaigns (Acquisition), the effect of bots and invalid traffic on your marketing (Analytics), lead forms (Form Guard), tag management (Manage) and privacy (Enforce). In June 2026 it added Agent Intent, which CHEQ says gives a single verdict on every visitor, human, bot or AI agent, with what it is there to do and real-time control over what happens next. That makes it the closest match to Telltale Bot. It is sold by contract: its AWS Marketplace listing is $50,000 a year (about $4,170 per month) for 2.5 million site visits a year.

Pick CHEQ if you want ad, lead-form and AI agent controls from one vendor and are ready for an enterprise contract.

Pick Telltale Bot if you want to know who visits your whole site, AI agents named, with the verdict in your own analytics, without an enterprise contract.

CHEQ Essentials (ClickCease)

CHEQ's self-serve product, sold as ClickCease. It watches the clicks on your ads, blocks fraudulent IP addresses in Google Ads and excludes fraudulent audiences in Meta Ads, and also covers Microsoft Ads, WordPress sites and HubSpot forms (fake leads). Blocking visitors on your site in real time is an add-on. It starts at $99 per month, billed annually, for one site and 5,000 visits a month, and its self-serve plans stop at 140,000 visits ($799 per month). CHEQ counts as a visit any activity on your site it checks, page views included.

Pick CHEQ Essentials if click fraud on a modest ad budget is the problem, and you want it blocked in the ad platforms.

Pick Telltale Bot if you want to know who visits your whole site, including AI agents, and to use the verdict in your own analytics.

TrafficGuard

TrafficGuard focuses on protecting ad spend. You connect your Google Ads account, and a tag on your site is optional. It watches the clicks on your ads, and in prevention mode it adds the sources of invalid clicks to your Google Ads IP exclusion list, which Google caps at 500 addresses per campaign. Its self-serve plan, Shield, costs $49 per month.

Its price follows your ad spend, not your traffic. TrafficGuard used to charge 2% of Google Ads spend, and competitors still report it at about 2%: $600 per month at $30,000 of monthly spend, $2,000 at $100,000. Telltale Bot's Paid clicks report covers similar ground, though Telltale Bot isn't focused on ad fraud the way TrafficGuard is. And we will never charge a percentage of your ad spend.

Pick TrafficGuard if invalid clicks on paid search are the problem and you want them blocked in Google Ads.

Pick Telltale Bot if you want people, AI agents and bots told apart on every page and ad fraud is a secondary concern, or if your ad spend is high and you'd rather not pay a percentage of it.

Account protection

Arkose Labs and Castle guard the steps where accounts are made and used, such as sign-up, login and password resets, and challenge or block what looks like bots or fraud there. Telltale Bot judges every visit instead, and doesn't block anyone.

Arkose Labs

Arkose Labs challenges and blocks bots and fraud at sign-up, login and the other account steps it guards, with its own puzzles. It runs as a script in your pages plus an API your server calls, or through your CDN. In June 2026 it added Agent Trust Manager, which sorts sessions into people, authorized agents that say who they are, authorized agents that don't, and adversaries, then allows, challenges, throttles or blocks each. It is sold by contract: its AWS Marketplace listing is $250,000 a year (about $20,830 per month), plus $1,000 per million sessions beyond those included.

Pick Arkose Labs if fake sign-ups, credential stuffing or other account fraud must be stopped, and an enterprise contract fits your budget.

Pick Telltale Bot if you want to know who visits your whole site, AI agents named, without an enterprise contract or a change to your servers.

Castle

Castle protects user accounts. A script in your pages fingerprints the device, and your server sends Castle the events that matter, such as sign-ups, logins and password resets. Castle answers with bot, account-takeover and abuse scores, and its rules can allow, challenge or block. It also finds one device behind many accounts (multi-accounting) and one account used by several people (account sharing). It is priced per API call: $5 of usage a month free (1,000 calls), then $200 per month for the first 40,000 calls and $5 per 1,000 after that; Enterprise starts at $4,000 per month. Called on every pageview, 250,000 pageviews a month would come to $1,250 per month.

Pick Castle if you need to stop account takeovers, fake sign-ups or shared logins as they happen.

Pick Telltale Bot if you want every visit judged without building anything, AI agents named, and the verdict in your dataLayer. Its Member accounts report shows which members' logins are shared or driven by automation, but it doesn't block anyone.

Device intelligence API

Fingerprint

Fingerprint identifies devices and returns signals, bot detection among them, to your server through an API, and since February 2026 it verifies AI agents that sign their requests. Nothing is decided for you: your code calls it, usually at sign-up, login or checkout, and decides what to do. It is priced per API call: 1,000 calls a month free, then $99 per month for 20,000 and $4 per 1,000 after that. Called on every pageview, 250,000 pageviews a month would come to $1,019 per month.

Pick Fingerprint if your developers will build fraud rules around specific actions.

Pick Telltale Bot if you want answers without building anything: every visit judged, reports to read, and the verdict in your dataLayer.

What Telltale Bot doesn't do

It doesn't block or challenge anyone. Act on its verdict yourself, or pair it with a blocker.
It only sees visits that run JavaScript. Crawlers, scrapers and AI fetchers that download a page without running it never reach it; a blocker at your CDN sees those requests. See what it misses.
It doesn't change your ad campaigns or claim refunds. Its Paid clicks report shows which ad clicks came from bots and agents; what you do about them is up to you.

About this page

Prices and features come from each company's own pages on October 11, 2026 (Arkose Labs' on October 26), except DataDome's, CHEQ's and Arkose Labs' enterprise prices, from their AWS Marketplace listings. Where a company sells only by quote, a reported price is what others have published about it, linked to where we found it: a guide to the size of the bill, not a quote. Prices change, so check before you buy. If something here is wrong or out of date, write to support@telltale.bot and we will fix it.