Scans
How the scanner works, how deep it goes on each plan, scheduled scans, and what it tells you when something changes.
A scan opens your pages in a real browser and records what they actually load — every cookie and every third-party script — rather than reading your HTML and guessing.
Running a scan
Press Scan now in the Scans section of a site. A scan can only run after the script has been seen on your domain (see Install the script).
The scanner reads your sitemap first, then follows links from the home page.
What a scan records
- How many pages were scanned and how many cookies were found — and which are new since the last scan.
- For each cookie: name, domain, provider, category, how long it lasts, and whether it is third-party.
- For each third-party script: address, provider, category and risk level.
Cookies on CookieRay’s list of known cookies are categorised automatically. Categories you set by hand are kept on the next scan (Keep Categories You Set By Hand is on by default).
Pages per scan
| Plan | Pages per scan |
|---|---|
| Free | 50 |
| Starter | 500 |
| Growth | 1,000 |
| Business | 1,000 |
| Scale | 1,000 |
Scheduled scans (paid plans)
Choose daily, weekly (default) or monthly per site. A site that has never been scanned is scanned straight away.
Daily scans are a quick look for anything new and are capped at 100 pages. Weekly and monthly scans, and any scan you start by hand, use your plan’s full depth.
Notifications
When a scan finishes, a notification appears in your dashboard’s notification bell — either “Scan found N new cookies” or “Scan finished — nothing new”. Notifications are shown in the dashboard; they are not sent by email.
A scan in the last 30 days is one of the checks in your compliance score.
The form on the home page
The scanner on our home page runs a real scan of the first 5 pages of any website, with no account and no tag. It shows how many cookies and trackers it found, and emails you the full report. A free account scans up to 50 pages once the tag is installed on your site; paid plans rescan on a schedule.