LaunchRepoShort answer
- You do not have to choose: both profiles are free, and since G2 agreed to acquire Capterra, Capterra’s vendor page sends new listings through G2 Digital Markets.
- The real decision is where your first honest reviews go. G2 publishes its thresholds: 10 reviews in a category to appear on its Grid, 20 reviews with a 4.0 average for the free ‘Users Love Us’ badge.
- Pay only once reviews are coming in. On G2 you pay a fixed plan for review and profile features; on Capterra you pay per click for a sponsored profile, within a monthly limit you set.
- If your product only offers a waitlist, wait. Neither site lists it, and Capterra’s listing rules say so in plain words.
Buying software? This page is for vendors
If you are choosing software for your team, read the reviews on both sites and look at the labels: both mark reviews that were written for an incentive, and both say employees of the vendor may not review their own product.
Everything below is written for the people who make the software: how a profile gets listed, what reviews are allowed, and what the paid options are.
One owner now
- On January 29, 2026, G2 announced that it had formally agreed to acquire Capterra and two sister review sites from Gartner.
- Capterra’s vendor page now reads “Capterra, powered by G2 Digital Markets”. Its Get Your Product Listed button and the vendor login lead to G2 Digital Markets.
- The two brands still look different to buyers, and their rules are written separately: G2 has its own plans and Community Guidelines, while Capterra uses the G2 Digital Markets Profile Guidelines, Community Guidelines and PPC terms.
- For you that means one company, two profiles and two rule sets. Prepare one set of facts and keep both profiles consistent.
What to do first
Three questions. The answer stays in your browser.
Side by side
What each site does for a software vendor, from their own vendor pages and terms.
| Topic | G2 | Capterra |
|---|---|---|
| Owner | G2 | G2, through G2 Digital Markets, after the agreement announced this year |
| How you get listed | Request form, research check (about 3–5 business days), then claim the profile (1–3 business days) | Get Your Product Listed on Capterra’s vendor page, handled by G2 Digital Markets |
| Who writes the profile | You edit your claimed profile; G2 chooses the category by features | You supply facts; the final copy is up to their content team |
| Beta and waitlist | For products that are generally available | Beta with conditions; waitlist-only products are not listed |
| Free plan | Basic profile, basic review collection, badge when earned, up to 4 leads a month | Free profile; all providers are listed, not only paying ones |
| Paid entry | Starter as a fixed monthly or yearly fee; higher plans through sales | Pay per click for a sponsored profile, with a monthly limit you set |
| Ads | Pay-per-click clicks or bought ad placements on G2 | Sponsored profiles shown to buyers searching on Capterra |
| Review thresholds | Published: 10 reviews for the Grid, 20 for the free badge | No threshold in the vendor pages we read; beta listings need 1 review in the first year |
| Incentives for reviews | Allowed, labeled, capped at $100 per review | Allowed, labeled, nominal value, through the Vendor Portal link |
| Reusing reviews | Badge and star rating with a backlink; review texts may not be republished | Reviews may also appear on the other review sites in the same group |
Capterra: Submission guide →
B2B software review sites in the catalog →
Review numbers that count
The only numbers on this page are the ones the sites publish. We do not estimate how many reviews you will get or what they will do for you.
- G2 Grid: a product needs at least 10 reviews in the category to be included.
- Live Grid on a G2 category page: the category needs at least 3 products with 10+ reviews.
- G2 Grid report for a category: at least 6 products with 10+ reviews and 150+ reviews overall.
- G2 ‘Users Love Us’ badge on the free plan: 20 reviews with an average of 4.0 stars.
- Capterra beta listing: at least 1 review within the first calendar year on the site.
This uses only G2’s published thresholds. Whether your category has a Grid at all depends on the other products in it. The check runs in your browser and stores nothing.
Asking for reviews
Both sites allow you to ask customers for reviews and even to thank them, within clear rules. These are the rules that matter most when you write your first request.
| Rule | Official wording | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Who may not review (G2) | Employees working for the product’s company and employees of a direct competitor may not leave reviews, as those would be considered biased. | Your team and your competitors are out. Ask customers only. |
| Who may not review (Capterra) | Vendor, its employees, or anyone with a financial interest in the success of a product are not allowed to review their own product. | The same on Capterra, including anyone with a financial interest. |
| Incentive label (G2) | If a review is incentivized, G2 will clearly label the review as incentivized. | A thank-you gift is visible to every reader of that review. |
| Incentive cap (G2) | G2 limits the value of any incentive offered in exchange for a review to $100 USD. | Any gift for a G2 review stays at or below $100. |
| Incentive size (Capterra) | Incentives must not exceed nominal value, as defined by applicable law. | Keep gifts small; the law where you operate sets what nominal means. |
| Same gift for every rating | Incentives must be offered equally to all eligible participants, regardless of the rating provided. | Never tie a gift to stars. Everyone who reviews gets the same. |
| Ask broadly | This includes requesting feedback from a broad cross-section of their user base and not selectively targeting users based on expected sentiment or prior feedback. | Send the request to a cross-section of users, not only your fans. |
| No NPS filtering (G2) | segment its outreach to gather reviews via NPS score, or other similar metric, regardless of whether the outreach is incentivized | Do not send review requests only to customers who scored you high. |
| Tell G2 about your incentives | fail to disclose to G2 any incentive offered to a reviewer, regardless of whether that offer was made independent of G2 | If you thank reviewers outside G2’s own tools, G2 still has to know. |
| Use their link (Capterra) | Vendor must use the incentive link provided in the Vendor Portal. | Incentivized Capterra campaigns run through the link in your Vendor Portal. |
| Accept every verified review | Vendor must accept all verified reviews generated through an incentivized campaign | You cannot drop the critical ones from an incentivized campaign. |
| Review texts stay on G2 | Client may not republish or share, in full or any excerpt thereof, any reviews of any products or services on G2.com, even if such review was solicited by Client. | Quote your badge and star rating with a backlink, not the reviews themselves. |
A simple, rule-proof request: one short message to every active customer, the same wording for all, a direct link to the review form, and a thank-you that does not depend on the rating.
Listing and money rules in their own words
The listing, ownership and paid-option rules quoted from G2, Capterra and G2 Digital Markets, with what each means for you.
| Rule | Official wording | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership | today announced it has formally agreed to acquire the software discovery and recommendation platforms Capterra | The same company now runs both brands. |
| Capterra’s vendor page | Capterra, powered by G2 Digital Markets | Listings and vendor accounts go through G2 Digital Markets. |
| G2 checks new profiles | Our G2 research team verifies your product or service—in about 3-5 business days— before placing it in the right category. | Plan a few business days before a new profile is placed. |
| Claiming on G2 | After submitting your claim request, our team will review your submission for final approval within 1-3 business days. | Claim the profile to edit it; approval takes another few days. |
| What G2 lists | A G2 Profile may represent a current business-to-business software, service, or open-sourced project that is generally available in the market. | Business software, services or open-source projects that are on the market. |
| G2 categories | G2 Profiles are categorized into at least one category based on the functionality of the software or service, i.e., the product’s features, and not based on what it is used for or who uses it. | Your features decide the category, not your target customers. |
| What Capterra lists | It is a packaged (pre-built / off-the-shelf) solution – we do not list custom-made/bespoke software. | Ready-made products, not custom builds. |
| No waitlist-only listings | We will not list products or services when, at our sole discretion, the only call to action is to “join a waitlist” or something similar. | A trial, demo or price has to be public. |
| Beta on Capterra | We will allow products in beta to be listed on the Site when there is a working website promoting the product, highlights an offer on sale to the public, and at least one review collected within the first calendar year of being added to the Site. | Allowed with a working site, a public offer and one review in the first year. |
| Who writes the Capterra text | While Vendor-provided information is used to inform certain elements of profile pages and content, the final copy is subject to the discretion of our content team. | You provide facts; their editors have the last word. |
| Profile style | Do not write in first person point of view (e.g., we, our, us), use the product name, service name, or company name | Describe the product neutrally, without we, our or us. |
| No superlatives | Do not use overly comparative language and superlatives (e.g., best, most, fastest) | Leave out best, fastest and similar claims. |
| Rankings are not for sale (G2) | G2 is not a pay-to-play ranking system. | Grid positions come from reviews and data, not from a plan. |
| Leads on the free G2 profile | Ability to collect leads (up to four per month for software; one per month for G2 Services Profile) | A small number of lead requests is included without a plan. |
| G2 Starter price | $299/month (no contract, cancel anytime) or $2,999/year (save 16%) | The first paid plan, without a contract on the monthly option. |
| G2 Clicks | G2 Clicks offers a Pay-Per-Click approach to ads on G2. | G2 also sells pay-per-click ads on its own site. |
| Free listing on Capterra | Capterra lists all providers across its website—not just those that pay us | You do not need to pay to appear in Capterra’s categories. |
| Where PPC shows | Through a PPC Campaign, prospective buyers searching for business software or services on www.capterra.com | Buyers searching Capterra can click your sponsored profile. |
| PPC needs approval | To use PPC, Vendor must upgrade to a Sponsored Profile, activate a PPC Campaign, and receive approval from a G2 Digital Markets representative. | Sponsored profile, campaign and a yes from G2 Digital Markets. |
| Budget changes | Any budget modifications or campaign pauses will take effect at the start of the following month. | A new limit or a pause applies from the next month. |
| Invalid clicks | All disputes must be made within 60 days of the invoice date. | Claim within 60 days of the invoice, with your own logs. |
A lean product brief template for you and your AI agent →
Check your tagline against every platform’s character limit →
What costs what
Listing on both sites is free. G2 Starter costs $299 a month without a contract or $2,999 a year; G2’s higher plans and add-ons such as Buyer Intent are priced through sales.
Capterra PPC has no public price list in the terms we read: you pay for clicks within a monthly limit you set, changes apply from the following month, and disputes about invalid clicks have to be raised within 60 days of the invoice.
A gift for a G2 review may be worth up to $100. Prices as published in US dollars on the day we checked.
What we saw ourselves
Our founder’s earlier product, SeoMap, was submitted to G2 in September. The confirmation email said the product was approved and available to the community. Claiming the vendor profile was a separate step after that.
Two lessons: plan for the vetting and the claim as two steps, and have your category, description and screenshots ready before you start. We have no review or traffic numbers to report from it.
Where LaunchRepo fits
LaunchRepo turns your repository into a launch kit that your own coding agent uses in your own Chrome. For review sites it prepares the neutral product description, features and screenshots these profiles ask for, and you decide once whether it sends final submissions on its own or asks you first.
LaunchRepo never writes, buys or asks for reviews on your behalf. Reviews come from your customers, under the rules above.
Sources
Every rule and number on this page comes from the platforms’ own public pages, read on October 1, 2026 without signing in.
| Source | Page updated | Checked |
|---|---|---|
| G2: Create a Profile | no date shown | |
| G2 Plans | no date shown | |
| G2 Profile – Free: service description | no date shown | |
| G2 Community Guidelines | no date shown | |
| G2 Research Scoring Methodologies | ||
| G2 press release on acquiring Capterra (PR Newswire) | ||
| Capterra: For Vendors | no date shown | |
| Capterra: Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Service Description | no date shown | |
| Capterra Community Guidelines | ||
| G2 Digital Markets: Profile Guidelines |
FAQ
- Is G2 or Capterra better for a SaaS vendor?
- Neither replaces the other. Both list you for free, both are now run by G2, and buyers use both. Start with the one where your first ten honest reviews can land, then keep both profiles consistent.
- Do I have to pay to be listed on G2 or Capterra?
- No. G2 has a free profile, and Capterra says it lists all providers, not only those that pay. Money comes in for G2 plans, ads and add-ons, or for Capterra’s pay-per-click sponsored profiles.
- How many reviews do I need on G2?
- G2 publishes two numbers that matter early: 10 reviews in a category to be included on its Grid, and 20 reviews with an average of 4.0 stars for the free ‘Users Love Us’ badge.
- Can I give customers a gift for a review?
- Yes, within the rules: the same gift for every rating, clearly labeled, at most $100 on G2 and of nominal value on Capterra, and never for your own employees.
- Did G2 buy Capterra?
- G2 announced on January 29 that it had formally agreed to acquire Capterra and two sister sites from Gartner. Capterra’s vendor page now says it is powered by G2 Digital Markets.
- Can I list a product that is still in beta?
- On Capterra, yes, if there is a working website, an offer open to the public and at least one review in the first calendar year. G2 describes its profiles as products that are generally available.
Prepare your listings with your own agent
LaunchRepo gives your coding agent the profile texts and a plan for each platform. You decide what it may send on its own.
See pricing