Trustpilot vs G2: Pricing, Review Rules and Which to Buy

Pay for G2 if you sell software to businesses; pay for Trustpilot if you sell to consumers or to small businesses that do not shop on software directories. They answer different buyers. G2 is free to claim and its first paid plan is $299 a month or $2,999 a year with no contract. Trustpilot is free for 50 invitations a month, and its paid plans start at $99 a month per domain for new small businesses and $319 for everyone else, on a 12 month prepaid term.

Most comparisons stop at "B2B vs B2C". The more useful differences are in the rules: G2 lets you pay reviewers up to $100 and labels the review, Trustpilot bans incentives outright, and both will punish you for inviting only happy customers. Every price and rule below was read from each company's own plans page and guidelines in September 2026.

Trustpilot vs G2 at a glance

Trustpilot pricing vs G2 pricing

The two ladders meter different things. Trustpilot meters invitations, widgets, users and domains. G2 meters seats, gift card credits, badge licenses and how many product profiles you can run campaigns for. Here they are side by side.

Two lines of fine print change these numbers. Trustpilot marks every tier "from" and prices each domain separately, and its Starter plan is limited to new small business customers, so an established company should treat $319 a month as the entry price. On G2, the free plan licenses only the Users Love Us badge; the report and milestone badges a SaaS marketer actually wants on the website, the ones that say Leader or High Performer, are licensed from Starter up.

Is G2 better than Trustpilot for SaaS?

Yes, for most B2B software companies. A buyer comparing project management tools or CRMs goes to G2, reads reviews written by people in their role, and looks at where you sit on the Grid. Nobody shortlisting accounting software opens Trustpilot to decide. G2 also verifies reviewers through LinkedIn or a business email, which is the kind of proof a procurement team respects.

Trustpilot wins for SaaS in one situation: when your customers are consumers or very small businesses who never visit software directories. A consumer app, a subscription box, or a tool sold to freelancers is checked on Trustpilot and Google, not G2.

Can you pay for reviews on G2 or Trustpilot?

On G2, yes, within limits. G2's Community Guidelines cap any incentive at $100 in value, count cash, gift cards, swag and credits toward that cap, and tag confirmed incentivized reviews as such. The paid plans even include gift card credits for this. G2 also weights reviews gathered without an incentive more heavily in its satisfaction scoring, so paid reviews help volume more than ranking.

On Trustpilot, no. Its guidelines for businesses list as a violation any offer of "discounts, promo codes, prize draw entries, refunds, freebies, or any other benefit connected with your business for leaving a review." A SaaS company that moves from G2 to Trustpilot and keeps its gift card program is breaking Trustpilot's rules on day one.

Whatever the platform allows, the FTC rule on consumer reviews (16 CFR part 465) forbids tying any reward to a positive review. G2's model stays on the right side of that line because the incentive goes to every approved review, good or bad.

Can you invite only happy customers to review you?

No, on either platform. G2 prohibits "collecting reviews by any method that segments out potentially negative reviews or exclusively targets positive reviews." Trustpilot tells businesses not to be "selective with invitations," including "inviting only those people who you know have had a positive experience," and it also bans timing invitations to a point in the journey that only satisfied customers reach.

That rule is the real reason many SaaS teams run two programs. Public review platforms are for everyone who used the product. Testimonials on your own pages are a different thing: you ask the customers who got a result, you choose which quotes to publish, and you are responsible for keeping them honest. That is the job of testimonial management software, not of a review site, and it is where the platform rules above do not reach.

Trustpilot vs G2: which one should you pay for?

If you are an ecommerce brand leaning toward Trustpilot mainly for invitation volume, compare it with a store-focused platform first. REVIEWS.io starts at $79 a month for 1,000 invitations on month to month billing, set out tier by tier in REVIEWS.io pricing.

What neither platform does for you

A G2 profile and a Trustpilot profile both live on someone else's domain. You can pull the reviews onto your site with a badge or widget, and a Trustpilot reviews widget is a sensible thing to add if you already pay for the profile. But neither platform will give you a customer on video explaining how your product cut their month end close from five days to two, placed next to your pricing table. That is the proof that closes a B2B deal, and it has to be collected and published by you.

That is the gap we built Testimonials for. You send one request link, the customer records text or video in the browser with no login, and the approved ones go onto a Wall of Love or into any page with one line of code. Plans are flat, from $49 a month, with no invitation meter and no per domain charge. For B2B teams the approval chain matters as much as the tool, which we cover in B2B customer testimonials.

One more habit worth building: read your competitors' G2 and Trustpilot reviews as closely as your own. The complaints on a rival's profile tell you which objections your testimonials should answer, and tracking your competitors' review profiles alongside their pricing changes turns that into a weekly routine instead of an afterthought.

Frequently asked questions

Is G2 free for vendors?

Yes. Any software vendor can claim a free G2 profile with 3 users, a standard seller page, basic review collection and a license to show the Users Love Us badge. Paid plans start at $299 a month or $2,999 a year and add review campaigns, gift card credits and the report and milestone badges.

How much does Trustpilot cost per month?

Trustpilot's paid plans start at $99 a month per domain for Starter, which is limited to new small businesses with up to $5M in revenue. Plus is $319 a month and Premium $799, all billed on a 12 month prepaid term. The free plan allows 50 invitations a month.

Does G2 allow incentivized reviews?

Yes. G2 allows incentives worth up to $100 per review, including gift cards, cash, swag and credits, provided every reviewer is eligible regardless of what they write. Confirmed incentivized reviews are tagged as such, and G2 weights non-incentivized reviews more heavily in its satisfaction scores.

Can I use both Trustpilot and G2?

Yes, and many software companies with a mix of business and consumer customers do. The rule to watch is incentives: a gift card that is fine on G2 breaks Trustpilot's guidelines, so run the two invitation programs separately and never reward a Trustpilot review.

Which is more trusted, G2 or Trustpilot?

For software purchases, G2, because reviewers are validated through LinkedIn or a business email and the reviews describe business use. For consumer purchases, Trustpilot, because shoppers recognize the brand and its profile covers almost any business. Trust depends on whether the reader is buying software for work.