The short answer
Arkose Labs stops the attack. DataCops makes sure your ads learn only from the signups that were real.
DataCops is a tool for the ad side of signup fraud: it gives every visit a bot verdict, checks each signup email, keeps flagged signups from reaching your ad platforms, sends the real sale back to the click, and lets you warm up new campaigns with your existing customers.
How DataCops does it:
- Real people only. Every visit gets a bot verdict against 360+ billion IPs and 350+ monitoring points, with a Real people only switch per ad platform, off by default. Every form email is checked for disposable providers, domains with no mail server and an email risk score.
- The sale after the form. HighLevel natively (lead, booked, showed, won with value, paid), any CRM by webhook, Shopify through the DataCops Shopify app, all matched to the click by click ID or hashed email and phone, and sent to Meta, Google Ads, TikTok and LinkedIn.
- Ads Warmup. Upload your existing customers (up to 20,000 rows), see a 0 to 10 match score per person, and send them to Meta, Google Ads and TikTok so new campaigns start warm.
- First-party collection, no extra tool. One script and one DNS record put collection on your own subdomain; with your DNS on Cloudflare, the free Worker reads the click at the edge before the page loads. Click IDs are kept on the server for up to 90 days.
- Consent, memory and proof. A TCF 2.2 consent banner from your domain with Google Consent Mode v2 on by default, a server-set cookie up to 400 days where enabled, and a delivery log row for every send, counted once against the pixel.
Best for: ad-funded SaaS and lead gen teams, agencies, and anyone whose signups come from paid campaigns and whose fakes are polluting the ads.
The alternatives at a glance:
- DataCops: best for ads poisoned by fake signups. A bot verdict on every visit, risky signups held back from each ad platform, and the ad click kept through Sign in with Google.
- DataDome: best for a like-for-like swap for enterprise bot and account takeover defense.
- Cloudflare Turnstile: best for a free, low-friction challenge on signup and login forms.
- hCaptcha: best for a CAPTCHA with a published price.
- SEON: best for fraud teams that score users without a challenge.
Most people who look for an Arkose Labs alternative start with the renewal quote, or with real users stuck on a puzzle. Both are fair reasons. Neither is the whole problem.
Every Arkose Labs alternatives list compares one fraud check against another. None of them ask what happens to the signup after the check. That is where most of the money is lost, and that is what this guide is about.
Blocking the signup is half the job
A fraud tool looks at one signup, gives it a score or a puzzle, and says yes or no. Then it stops. It does not know which ad the signup came from. It does not tell Meta or Google Ads that the signup was fake. And it does not tell them which signups were real.
That gap costs you twice.
- The fake signups that got through reach your ad platforms as conversions. The ads learn to find more of them.
- The real signups lose their ad click. Sign in with Google sends the user away and back, and the click ID is often gone. The ads never learn which campaign brought them.
SignupCops works on that gap. It keeps the ad click through Sign in with Google, and it holds risky signups back from Meta, Google Ads, TikTok, LinkedIn, Microsoft Ads, Reddit, Pinterest and X. Every visit already carries a bot verdict (bots, datacenter traffic, VPNs, proxies), so the ad platforms get real users, matched to the ad that brought them.
Let us be honest about the other side. Arkose is built for things DataCops does not claim: account takeover at login, credential stuffing, device intelligence, a fraud operations team and payment fraud like card testing. If that is your fight, keep a tool built for it.
A fraud check says no to one bad signup. Your ads need to hear yes about every good one.
The real difference: what your ads learn
Here is what that means in practice, one job at a time.
Every visit gets a verdict, no puzzle
Arkose judges risk and, when it is unsure, shows a challenge. That works against attackers, and some real users drop off on the way.
DataCops checks every visit in the background for bots, datacenter traffic, VPNs and proxies. Nobody sees a puzzle. You decide what that verdict does with one switch per ad platform: turn on Real people only for Meta and flagged visits are held back from Meta. It is off by default. With it on, about 99% of bots are kept out. See click fraud protection.
One signup, on its way to MetaThe ad click survives Sign in with Google
When a user signs up with Google, they leave your site and come back. The click ID from the ad often does not come back with them. The signup is real, but no ad gets the credit, so the ads cannot learn from it.
SignupCops keeps the ad click through Sign in with Google and holds risky signups back. Arkose has nothing for this: it was never an ad tool.
Tracking and bot defense in one script
With Arkose, bot defense is one vendor and ad tracking is another setup you build: a pixel, a tag manager, a Conversions API connection per platform. Then you write the glue that stops a blocked signup from firing a conversion.
DataCops is the tracking. One script and one DNS record send conversions server-side from your own subdomain, so ad blockers and Safari are far less likely to strip them. The verdict and the send live in the same place, so there is no glue to write. Click IDs are kept 90 days, and the visitor cookie on your subdomain lasts up to 400 days (it needs consent in the EU).
Consent is built in
Arkose is a security tool and does not ship a consent banner for your marketing. DataCops includes a first-party consent manager built to the IAB TCF v2.2 standard. Google Consent Mode v2 is on by default, the banner shows in Europe by default, and the server checks consent again before every send, so a signup that said no never reaches an ad platform.
You can see why each signup was sent or held
A fraud dashboard shows what was blocked. It cannot show what your ads were told. DataCops writes every conversion as a row per platform (sent, held, skipped or failed) with the reason next to it, and every ad click sits in the click log in first-party analytics. Each signup carries one event ID, so the browser and the server copy are counted once, not twice.
On the Organization plan, two more tools work on paid clicks. Cloudflare edge blocking stops flagged traffic before it loads your page, and Google refund evidence exports the last 60 days of invalid clicks as a CSV for Google's Click Quality Form. Google decides the refund.
Arkose tells you who it stopped. DataCops tells you what your ads learned.
The real cost of a quote-only tool
Arkose Labs has no public price, so there is no number to put here. The bigger cost is not on the quote anyway. It is in the work around the tool and the ad money spent on signups that were never real. Answer these with your own numbers.
How many hours will it take to build the Arkose challenge, your own conversion tracking and the rules that keep blocked signups out of your ads before the first sale is tracked?
How many hours a month will someone spend keeping it working when Meta, Google or TikTok change something?
If a tag breaks quietly for a week, how many leads never reach your ads? And what is one lead worth to you?
How many sales a month close in your CRM that your ads never hear about?
The last question matters most. When the ads count bot signups as wins, they buy more bots. Cost per signup looks fine, paying users get rarer, and nothing in the fraud dashboard tells you why.
A blocked bot is a win. A bot counted as a conversion is a campaign that learns the wrong lesson.
Every feature, side by side
Every DataCops feature, against what Arkose Labs offers for the same need.
 DataCops |  Arkose Labs | |
|---|---|---|
| Bots and fraud | ||
| Bot verdict per visit | Bots, datacenter, VPN, proxy, no puzzle | Risk decision with challenges |
| Keep bots out of each ad platform | Real people only switch, about 99% kept out when on | Not built in |
| Risky signups held back from ads | SignupCops | Not built in. Blocks signups, does not talk to ads |
| Tracking | ||
| Server-side first-party tracking | One script, one DNS record, your subdomain | Not built in |
| Conversions to ad platforms | Meta, Google Ads, TikTok, LinkedIn, Microsoft Ads, Reddit, Pinterest, X | Not built in |
| Ad click through Sign in with Google | Kept by SignupCops | Not built in |
| Click log | In first-party analytics, click IDs kept 90 days | Not built in |
| Consent manager | Built in, IAB TCF v2.2 | Not built in |
| After the signup | ||
| CRM stages to ad platforms | HighLevel native, any CRM by webhook | Not built in |
| Upload past customers to warm up ads | Ads Warmup, up to 20,000 rows | Not built in |
| Meta health restrictions | Health mode | Not built in |
| Privacy | ||
| Visitors asking for deletion | Self-serve form, confirmed by email, status page | Not built in for your marketing data |
| Deletion requests from Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn | Acted on automatically (Google Ads is manual) | Not built in |
| Personal data in the identity store | Hashed email and phone only, click data deleted after 90 days | Not published on its site |
| Running it | ||
| Why each conversion was sent or held | Per-row delivery log with the reason | Not built in |
| Agencies with many clients | Agency board | Not built in |
| Scale and contracts | Self-serve plans | Enterprise scale, SLA offers |
Arkose Labs column from arkoselabs.com, 2 October 2026. "Not built in" means we found no Arkose feature for it; Arkose is a security product and was never built to send conversions.
The 5 Arkose Labs alternatives compared
| Best for | User friction | Feeds your ads | |
|---|---|---|---|
| DataCops | Clean signups for ads | None | Yes, 8 platforms |
 DataDome | Enterprise bot and ATO defense | Low, challenge when unsure | No |
 Turnstile | Free form challenge | Low | No |
 hCaptcha | CAPTCHA with a price list | Challenge on Free | No |
 SEON | Fraud scoring teams | None | No |
1. DataCops: best if fake signups are hurting your ads
DataCops is the tracking solution for ad-funded businesses: it keeps bots out of what your ads learn from and sends the sale that happens after the form to Meta, Google Ads, TikTok, LinkedIn, Microsoft Ads, Reddit, Pinterest and X. Every visit gets a verdict, conversions go server-side from your own domain, Real people only keeps flagged visits out of each platform, and SignupCops keeps the ad click through Sign in with Google while holding risky signups back.
Why people switch to it
- Ads learn from real signups only
- No puzzle for real users
- Tracking, consent and CRM stages in one place
- Published price and a free plan
Worth knowing
- Real people only is off until you switch it on
- Edge blocking and refund evidence are on Organization
Best for: teams whose problem is what bots teach their ads.
2. DataDome: best like-for-like enterprise swap
DataDome is the closest match to Arkose: enterprise bot protection with account takeover defense. If you want the same job from a different vendor, start here. We could not load published prices on datadome.co/pricing, so expect a sales conversation.
Like Arkose, it protects the site. It does not send conversions or tell your ads which signups were real.
Why people switch to it
- Same category, same scale
- Account takeover defense
Worth knowing
- No published price
- Nothing for your ad data
Best for: teams that want Arkose's job done by someone else.
3. Cloudflare Turnstile: best free challenge
Turnstile is free, with unlimited challenges, up to 20 widgets and 10 hostnames per widget, and it works without other Cloudflare services. Most real users never see a puzzle. Analytics are kept 7 days on the free plan.
It answers one question per form: human or not. There is no account takeover program behind it, and nothing reaches your ad platforms.
Why people switch to it
- Free
- Low friction
Worth knowing
- 7 days of analytics on free
- A form check only
Best for: teams that need a free gate on signup and login.
4. hCaptcha: best CAPTCHA with a published price
hCaptcha has a Free plan, where most users see a challenge. Enterprise adds account takeover defense and risk scoring.
It is the easy price to plan around. It still stops at the form.
Why people switch to it
- Clear prices
- Passive mode on Pro
Worth knowing
- Free plan shows challenges to most users
- Nothing for your ad data
Best for: teams that want a CAPTCHA you can budget for.
5. SEON: best for fraud teams that score users
SEON scores users from email, phone, IP and device signals, with no challenge. A fraud team reviews and acts on the score.
Why people switch to it
- No challenge for users
- Rich signals for manual review
Worth knowing
- Priced per check
- Needs people to act on scores
Best for: companies with a fraud team that wants scores. See SEON alternatives.
How to choose an Arkose Labs alternative
- Name the loss. Stolen accounts and card testing point to DataDome or Arkose. Wasted ad spend on fake signups points to DataCops.
- Count the friction. If puzzles cost you real users, look at Turnstile or a background verdict.
- Check the budget. Quote-only tools suit enterprise. hCaptcha, Turnstile and DataCops publish prices.
- Ask what your ads learn. If no tool on your list tells Meta and Google which signups were real, the gap is still open.
Also compare Castle, Sift, Verisoul, IPQualityScore, reCAPTCHA, FingerprintJS and Rupt alternatives.
Pick DataCops if
- You pay for ads on Meta, Google Ads, TikTok or LinkedIn and bots fill your signups.
- Users sign up with Google and your ads lose the click.
- You want tracking, bot filtering and CRM stages without a sales call.
When not to use DataCops
- Arkose stays the expert at the login. Its challenges, warranty offers and fraud operations team are built for account takeover and credential stuffing. If that is your fight, keep Arkose on login and put DataCops on signups and ads.
- You need to judge accounts inside your product. Account takeover, payment fraud, multi-accounting and manual review are what fraud and identity tools are built for. DataCops does none of that.
- You do not run paid ads. If fakes are not reaching an ad platform, an account-fraud tool alone may be all you need.
What's your actual goal?
Nobody buys bot defense for its own sake. On the growth side, you want four things:
- Keep bots from filling your signup form, without making real people solve puzzles.
- Keep fake signups out of your ad platforms, so Meta and Google do not chase them.
- Tie every real signup to its ad click, including the ones through Sign in with Google.
- Send what happens next, the trial, the booked call, the paid plan, so the ads learn who pays.
Arkose does the first one, very well. The other three sit outside it. Here is the same goal, done both ways.
The traditional way, with Arkose Labs
- Book a demo and negotiate a quote.
- Integrate the challenge into signup and login.
- Tune when real users see a puzzle.
- Build your own pixel or GTM setup for the ads.
- Write code so blocked signups never fire a conversion.
- Rebuild the ad click after Sign in with Google.
- Buy a consent banner and wire it in.
- Connect your CRM to each ad platform yourself.
With DataCops
- Add one script and one DNS record.
- Connect each ad platform with one click.
- Switch on Real people only per platform.
- Switch on SignupCops for your signup flow.
- Switch on the consent manager.
- Connect HighLevel or your CRM webhook.
Then run your business. Bot verdicts, click IDs and the sends to each platform are handled for you.
Arkose guards the door. DataCops tells your ads who actually walked in.
Why people leave Arkose Labs
Arkose is good at what it does. People leave for reasons around it.
- The price is a quote. No plan on the site, no free tier, no self-serve. Reviews on AWS Marketplace name renewal cost as a reason to look around.
- Challenges cost real users. A puzzle makes attacks expensive. It also adds a step for every honest person who meets it.
- It is built for enterprise. A small team or an agency often needs signups cleaned for ads, not a fraud operations contract.
- The ads still learn from bad data. Arkose does not send conversions, so whatever tracking you run is left to sort it out.
- The ad click is still lost. Blocking bots does not bring back the click ID a real user lost in Sign in with Google.
After the signup: the stage that pays
A signup is not the sale. The trial becomes a paid plan, the lead books a call, the deal is won in a CRM. That later moment is what your ads should learn from. A fraud check never sees it. Here is what DataCops sends, by business.
| Business | What the pixel sees | What DataCops adds |
|---|---|---|
| SaaS and apps | Signup | Real signups only, trial, paid, by webhook |
| B2B lead generation | Demo request | Qualified lead, booked, won with its value |
| Agencies running client ads | Form fills per client | Every client's booked, showed, won and paid |
| Marketplaces and communities | Account created | Signups held back when risky, first paid action |
From HighLevel natively (lead, booked, showed, won with value, paid; never cancelled, no-show or lost), or any CRM by private webhook, directly or through Zapier, Make or n8n.
See offline conversions for the full picture.
Ads Warmup: tell the ads who pays
Arkose Labs scores accounts and visitors inside your product. It does not tell the ad platforms which people are real customers, so new campaigns learn from scratch. The customers you already have are the best description of who to find.
Ads Warmup, DataCops' flagship feature, sends them to your ad platforms before a campaign spends:
- Upload a customer list. A CSV of past buyers, old leads or booked calls. DataCops reads your columns; only email is required.
- See a match score for every person. An estimate from 0 to 10 from email, phone, name, location, click ID and customer ID, before anything is sent.
- Pick the event. Purchase, Lead, Complete registration, Add to cart or Schedule.
- Send server-side. Up to 20,000 people per upload to Meta, Google Ads and TikTok, with a sent, skipped or failed result per person. Google Ads credits only people who clicked a Google ad.
Each row is dated when you press send, not with the old sale date, so it gives a new campaign real customers to learn from on day one. Preview is free; sending needs a paid plan.
What else a fraud API never does
- Capture at the edge. With DNS on Cloudflare, the free, optional DataCops Cloudflare Worker reads click IDs and UTMs off the first request, before the page or any script runs. It captures; it does not block.
- Keep the click on the server. gclid, wbraid, gbraid, fbclid, ttclid and li_fat_id are stored for up to 90 days, so a deal that closes weeks later still finds its click. A signed server-set cookie lasts up to 400 days where enabled.
- Check the lead's email. Fixed rules, not guesses: disposable providers, domains with no mail server and an email risk score. With LeadCops (Business and up), a lead that fails is held and never billed.
- Install on Shopify. The DataCops Shopify app adds a web pixel and a theme app embed, so every paid order reaches your ads, express checkouts included. See Shopify Conversions API.
- Hand evidence to Google. On the Organization plan, the fraud refund report exports bot-flagged Google Ads clicks in the format Google's Click Quality form asks for. You attach it; Google decides.
Setup, step by step, side by side
Here is the ad-side job done both ways. Arkose steps are the usual path for a quote-led security tool plus your own tracking. DataCops steps are what you do in the dashboard.
| The job | With Arkose Labs | With DataCops |
|---|---|---|
| Get started | Book a demo, agree a quote, plan the integration. | Sign up free. Add one script and one DNS record. |
| Stop bots at signup | Integrate the challenge, tune when users see it. | Every visit gets a verdict. No puzzle for users. |
| Keep bots out of the ads | Not built in. Write code so blocked signups fire no conversion. | Switch on Real people only per platform. |
| Send conversions to Meta and Google Ads | Not built in. Set up a pixel, GTM or a Conversions API yourself. | Connect each platform with one click. |
| Keep the click through Sign in with Google | Not built in. Custom work in your app. | Switch on SignupCops. |
| Send paid plans and CRM stages | Not built in. | Install on HighLevel, or post to your webhook. |
"15 minutes to get server-side tracking live. After 3 days failing with another app and a DIY server-side Google Tag Manager, that alone sold me. Then support jumped on a Google Meet with me on a Sunday afternoon to finish the job."Andrew Forsyth, Chief Executive Officer, Zeald
What to know before you switch
- Arkose stays the expert at the login. Its challenges, warranty offers and fraud operations team are built for account takeover and credential stuffing. If that is your fight, keep Arkose on login and put DataCops on signups and ads.
- Your users lose a puzzle, your ads gain a filter. Moving the signup form off Arkose means real people stop seeing challenges there. The bot check moves into the background, and Real people only decides what each ad platform hears. It is off by default, so turn it on per platform once you trust the verdicts.
- Turn on SignupCops before you compare. If your app uses Sign in with Google, switch SignupCops on first. Otherwise your before and after numbers miss the signups that lost their ad click.
Moving from Arkose Labs
- Decide what Arkose does for you today. If it guards logins and payments, keep it there.
- Add DataCops with one script and one DNS record, and connect your ad accounts.
- Turn off your old pixel sends for the events DataCops sends, so nothing counts twice.
- Switch on Real people only and SignupCops, then compare for two weeks what reached each platform.
- Connect your CRM to add trials, booked calls and paid plans.
- Only then drop Arkose from signup forms if the verdicts cover what you need there.
Every DataCops product mentioned here
- SignupCops and click fraud protection.
- Server-side tracking and first-party analytics.
- Meta Conversions API, Google Ads conversion tracking, TikTok Events API, LinkedIn Conversions API.
- Offline conversions, HighLevel conversion tracking and DataCops for agencies.
- Consent manager, Ads Warmup and health mode.
Arkose Labs alternatives: FAQ
Can I warm up a new campaign with my existing customers?
Yes, with DataCops Ads Warmup. Upload a CSV of past buyers, old leads or booked calls (only email is required, up to 20,000 rows), see a match score from 0 to 10 for every person, and send them to Meta, Google Ads and TikTok as fresh signal, dated when you send. Google Ads credits only people who clicked a Google ad. Preview is free; sending needs a paid plan.
When should I keep Arkose Labs instead of switching?
Arkose stays the expert at the login. Its challenges, warranty offers and fraud operations team are built for account takeover and credential stuffing. If that is your fight, keep Arkose on login and put DataCops on signups and ads.
What is the best Arkose Labs alternative?
DataCops, for most ad-funded businesses. It replaces Arkose Labs and the rest of the stack: one script, a bot verdict on every visit, a built-in consent manager, server-side sends to 8 ad platforms, and your CRM sales matched to the ad click. Other picks depend on the job. For enterprise bot and account takeover defense, DataDome is the closest like-for-like swap. For a free challenge on a form, Cloudflare Turnstile. If the fake signups are hurting your ads, DataCops: SignupCops holds risky signups back from Meta, Google Ads, TikTok, LinkedIn, Microsoft Ads, Reddit, Pinterest and X and keeps the ad click through Sign in with Google, so the ads learn from real users.
Does DataCops replace Arkose Labs for account takeover?
No. Arkose defends logins against credential stuffing and account takeover with challenges, a fraud operations team and warranty offers. Keep it there. DataCops works on the signup and the ad side: a bot verdict per visit, risky signups held back from the ad platforms, and the real signups tied to the ad click.
Why do fake signups hurt my ads?
When a bot signup reaches Meta or Google Ads as a conversion, the platform learns to find more people like it. Your cost per signup looks fine while real users get harder to reach. Blocking at the form does not fix this if the conversion was already sent, or if the real signups never carried the ad click.
What is SignupCops?
A DataCops product for signups. It keeps the ad click through Sign in with Google, where it is usually lost, and holds risky signups back from the ad platforms. The ads get real signups, matched to the click that brought them.
How does DataCops recognise a visitor?
DataCops puts a verdict on every visit (bots, datacenter traffic, VPNs and proxies) keeps ad click IDs for 90 days, and sets a first-party visitor cookie on your own subdomain for up to 400 days. In the EU that cookie still needs consent, which the built-in consent manager checks.
Do challenges hurt real users?
They can. Any puzzle or challenge adds a step for real people, and some leave. Arkose uses challenges on purpose, to make attacks cost more. DataCops adds no challenge: it judges the visit in the background and decides what reaches the ad platforms.
Which ad platforms does DataCops send to?
Eight: Meta, Google Ads, TikTok, LinkedIn, Microsoft Ads, Reddit, Pinterest and X. Meta, Google Ads, TikTok, LinkedIn and X connect with one click. Microsoft Ads, Reddit and Pinterest connect with an API key. Microsoft Ads uses its UET Conversions API, which Microsoft runs as a pilot, so ask your Microsoft account manager to turn it on.
Can I run DataCops and Arkose Labs together?
Yes. They do different jobs. Arkose can keep guarding logins and payments, while DataCops tracks the signups server-side, keeps bots out of each ad platform and sends later stages from your CRM.
