How to get G2 reviews

Buyers of business software check G2 before they try a new tool, and an empty G2 profile tells them nobody has used yours yet. To get G2 reviews, claim your free profile, ask every person who has used your SaaS for real work in a personal message, and follow up until each review passes G2's checks. If you wait for users to review you on their own, almost none will, and your first users never turn into proof.

Do these three things

About 2 hours today, then about 3 to 4 hours a day, mostly the messages. Judge G2 after 10 published reviews and 2,800 messages.

Show the three actions in fullHide the full list

1. 1Today: claim your free G2 profile and ask everyone who has used your SaaS for real work for a review, each in a personal message with your review link.
2. 2Every day: follow up everyone who has not reviewed yet, up to 3 times, ask each new user on the day they get their first result, and send 100 personal messages to buyers who fit who your SaaS is for.
3. 3Every Sunday: count requests, published reviews and signups from G2, and pay G2 nothing until the rules in step 7 say so.

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1. Claim your free G2 profile

A G2 profile is free. Search for your product on g2.com. If it is there, claim it. If it is not, fill in G2's request form at sell.g2.com/create-a-profile. G2 says it checks a new product "in about 3-5 business days", then reviews your claim "within 1-3 business days".

What to fill in. Write every section for one kind of buyer, in the words from your value proposition:

• Description: who it is for and what they get, in the first sentence. The same line as your homepage headline.
• Pricing: your real plans and prices, the same as your pricing page. Say if there is a free trial.
• Screenshots: G2 takes up to 6, each under 5 MB, as JPG, PNG or GIF. Use the same ones as your directory listing kit. Add a short demo video to the banner if you have one; G2 takes YouTube, Vimeo, Vidyard and Wistia links.
• Main category: this matters most. G2 ranks products inside each category, and your product needs 10 reviews in a category before it shows on that category's Grid, the chart buyers use to compare tools. Pick the category where your 3 closest competitors from your competitor analysis are listed. In my.G2 (G2's dashboard for software companies), go to Product Categories and use "Change Main Category". To add or remove a category, press "Request Updates".

Let ChatGPT or Claude draft the description from your homepage. Then cut every word a buyer would not say.

In early 2026, G2 bought Capterra, GetApp and Software Advice, so all four are now one company. List on Capterra too, but send your review requests to G2 first, until it has 10.

If you sell a service, not software: buyers of agencies and consultants compare on Clutch. Use how to get reviewed on Clutch for the service, and this guide for any software you sell.

• Tool: G2, free profile.
• Time: 1 hour, then 1 to 2 weeks of waiting for G2.
• You will have: a claimed profile with every section filled and the right main category.
• It worked if: your profile shows as claimed, your 3 closest competitors are in your main category, and every section has your real words and prices.
• Common mistake: picking a wide category because it sounds bigger. Your reviews then count where buyers do not compare you, and the 10 you need take longer to matter.

2. List everyone who can review your SaaS on G2

Anyone who has used your SaaS for real work can review it on G2, and G2 counts one review per person, not one per company. So make one list today: every person on every paying team, every trial user who did the main thing, and every past user from the last 2 years.

Open a Google Sheet, or your CRM if you already use one, and add a row for:

• Every person on every paying team. If a team of 4 pays you and 3 of them use it, that is 3 rows. This is how a SaaS with 2 paying teams finds 5 or more people to ask.
• Trial users who did the main thing, such as sending their first report or finishing their first project. G2 accepts reviews from people who are trying a product, but it may send back a review from someone who barely used it. Your activation data shows who did the main thing.
• Past users from the last 2 years, including people who cancelled. G2 only accepts reviews about use in the last 2 years.

Who to leave off. G2 does not accept reviews from people who work or worked for you, or from direct competitors. Reviews from resellers and partners get a "Business Partner" label and do not count towards your score. Leave off family and investors too: the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says a reviewer close to the business must say so, and a review that has to explain it helps nobody. Leave off signups who never used it. They cannot say anything useful, and G2 may reject them.

Do not sort by who seems happy. G2's rules ban "collecting reviews by any method that segments out potentially negative reviews or exclusively targets positive reviews", and G2 removes reviews collected that way. Many top results still say "ask your NPS promoters", the people who gave you 9 or 10 out of 10 in a survey. G2 says not to. Ask everyone on the list. A product with a few honest 4-star reviews looks more real than one with only 5 stars.

For each row, write one true line about what that person did with your product, from your usage data or your notes from user calls: "sent 23 bug reports since August", "set it up for 2 client projects". You will use it in step 3.

Name | Team or company | Role | Work email | Paying, trial or past user | What they did (one true line) | Date asked | Follow-up 1 | Follow-up 2 | Follow-up 3 | Review started | Published | Rejected (reason) | Fixed | Rating | Your reply

• Tool: Google Sheets and your product's user list.
• Time: 30 minutes.
• You will have: one row for every person who used your SaaS for real work, each with one true line about what they did.
• It worked if: every person on every paying team, every trial user who did the main thing and every past user from the last 2 years is on the sheet, and nobody was left off for seeming unhappy.
• Common mistake: asking only the person who pays, or only the one happiest customer. Every user counts, and G2 counts each person once.

3. Ask each user for a G2 review

Ask each person yourself, in a short personal message, on the same day you make the list. Send your G2 review link, one true line about what they did, and three tips that help a review pass G2's checks.

Get your free review link. In my.G2, go to Reviews, then Self-Service Review Campaigns. Under "Audience Reach Method", pick "[your product name] sends emails". Under "Campaign Incentive Status", pick "Non-Incentivized", and press "Review Campaign". Your landing page link is under "Details" in the Review Campaign Dashboard. G2's free plan includes this review page, as long as it offers no reward. If the form asks for a credit card, stop: you do not need to pay for anything here. Use your G2 product page address instead and ask people to press its "Leave a Review" button.

Send it yourself. A user answers a founder faster than an email from G2. Send it by email or in the chat inside your product, from your own name. Never put it in your automatic onboarding emails: people ignore them, and they reach signups who never used the product. Only post the link in places only users can see. G2 warns that public review links get found by people who are not users.

Add the three tips. Many reviews that people do write are then rejected at G2's checks. In 2026, reviewers on Trustpilot complained that G2 "could not verify I was using it professionally". G2 lists the usual reasons: it could not confirm the person uses the product, it could not confirm where they work, or the review was written by AI. G2 checks every review by hand. So tell each person:

• Sign in with LinkedIn or a work email. G2 accepts personal Gmail only with a screenshot.
• When the form asks if they are a current user, say yes and upload a screenshot of themselves logged in. G2 never shows it in public, and the review gets a "Verified Current User" label.
• Write about how they really use it, in their own words. G2 lets reviewers use AI to help draft only in a few cases, such as when they signed in with LinkedIn, and never to write a review for someone else.

Subject: An honest review of [product] on G2?Hi [first name],[One true line: what they did, such as "You've sent 23 bug reports through [product] since August."]Would you write an honest review of [product] on G2? Other [kind of team] read G2 before they try a new tool, and good or bad, your words help them decide. They help me see what to fix, too.Here's the link: [your G2 review link]Three things that help G2 approve it:
Sign in with LinkedIn or your work email.
When it asks if you're a current user, say yes and add a screenshot of you logged in. G2 keeps it private.
Say how you use it each week, in your own words.
You can hide your name if you prefer: answer "No" to the question about showing your name and face.Thank you either way,
[Your name]

Never write the review for them. Do not send a draft review, suggested sentences or a star rating to copy. G2 rejects reviews written for someone else. Do not offer a discount, a free month, a gift or anything else for a review. G2 says you may not reward reviewers yourself without telling G2, and it caps any reward at $100. Since 21 October 2024, the FTC's review rule bans any reward that depends on the review being good. Rewarded reviews also carry a label and count for less in G2's scores. Ask for an honest review and nothing else.

How to send them all today. Paste a row from your sheet and the template into ChatGPT or Claude and ask for one message per person. Check the true line, change anything that does not sound like you, and send each one yourself. About 10 minutes per person.

• Tool: your email or in-product chat, my.G2 and your sheet.
• Time: 10 minutes per person.
• You will have: everyone on the list asked within 24 hours, each with the link and the three tips.
• It worked if: every row has a "date asked".
• Common mistake: one group email with a bare link. People open G2, hit the sign-in or the screenshot question, close the tab and never come back.

4. Follow up until each G2 review is published

Most people mean to write the review and then forget. Follow up up to 3 times, on day 3, day 7 and day 14 after your ask, and check G2 every day until each review is published.

Use the same thread each time, so the link and the tips are one scroll away. The same rules as any follow-up apply: short, polite and a new reason each time.

Day 3:
Hi [first name], just bumping this in case it got buried. Here's the G2 link again: [link]. The tips are in my first message.Day 7:
Hi [first name], if it's easier, I can book 15 minutes so you can write it while we talk about what you'd like [product] to do next. Would [day] work?Day 14:
Hi [first name], last nudge from me. If now's not a good time, no problem at all. I'll ask again when [next thing they will do with the product].

What happens after they submit. G2 checks every review by hand, which takes "up to 3 full working business days". Until then the reviewer sees "Awaiting Moderation" in My Reviews on their G2 account, and nobody else can see it. When it is approved, G2 publishes it and emails them. You see it in my.G2 under Review Management, then Review Activity.

When a review is rejected. G2 emails the reviewer the reason, and they can edit the review and send it again; G2 checks it again within 3 business days. Ask them to forward you the reason, then send the fix that matches it:

• Missing verification details or company not verified: add a screenshot of themselves logged in, link LinkedIn, or add a work email to their G2 account.
• Unverified username: use their real name. They can still hide it from the public.
• Flagged as AI-generated: rewrite it in their own words.
• Outdated experience: they used it more than 2 years ago. Close it.
• Employee or competitor: that person cannot review you. Close it.

When a review is critical. Reply to every review, good or bad, on the day it is published, from Review Activity in my.G2. G2 does not remove reviews because the company asks, and it does not hide negative ones. Thank them, answer the point in one or two lines, and say what you will change. Then message the person and offer a 15-minute call, run like a customer interview. Each critical review is also feedback from your first users: write it in your sheet. G2 itself emails every reviewer every 6 months to ask if their opinion changed, so a fixed problem can turn into an updated review without you asking for one.

Thanks, [first name]. [One line on what they liked, or on the problem they hit, in their words.] [What you changed or will change, with a date if there is one.] If you'd like to talk it through, my email is [your email].[Your name], founder of [product]

• Tool: your email, my.G2 and your sheet.
• Time: about 15 minutes a day.
• You will have: everyone followed up on day 3, 7 and 14, every rejected review fixed or closed, and every published review answered.
• It worked if: at least 1 in 4 people you asked have a published review within 3 weeks of the ask. If fewer, phone the ones who said yes but did not finish, and stay on the call while they do it.
• Common mistake: asking once and deciding the person does not want to. Busy people say yes and forget. The second and third reminders bring in most of the rest.

5. Ask every new user for a review at their first result

Every day, ask each new user for a G2 review on the day they first get the result your SaaS is for. Your list from step 2 runs out fast, and G2 gives more weight to reviews from the last 18 months, so the asking never stops.

Pick one moment, the same for every user. The first result is the moment a new user first sees your SaaS do its job: their first report sent, their first invoice paid, their first project shared. It is the same event your activation rate counts. In June 2026, one SaaS founder wrote that his reviews went from under 1 in 100 asks to about 15 in 100 when he stopped sending anniversary emails and asked by personal email right after a customer's specific win. He never offered anything for a review.

Ask everyone at that moment, whatever they think of you. Send it as a personal note, not as part of your automatic onboarding. The moment is about timing, not about picking happy people. Do not put a "How likely are you to recommend us?" question first and send the G2 link only to high scores; that is the sorting G2 bans. If a user on a free trial never reaches the first result, ask them anyway on day 10 of the trial, and ask what stopped them. Their answer helps you turn trials into paying customers.

How to see the moment. If your product sends you an email or a Slack message when a user does the main thing, use that. If not, check your user list once a day for anyone who did it for the first time, and add them to the sheet. Send the step 3 request the same day, with their true line, and put them on the step 4 follow-up dates.

Collect the other proof at the same time. If someone says something kind but does not want to use G2, ask if you can quote them on your site: that is a testimonial. A user with a clear before and after is your first case study.

• Tool: your product's event alerts or user list, your email and your sheet.
• Time: 10 minutes per new user.
• You will have: a daily routine that asks every new user at the same moment.
• It worked if: every user who reached the first result in the last 7 days has a "date asked" in the sheet.
• Common mistake: an automatic email that sends the G2 link to every signup on day 1. Nobody has anything to say yet, and the people who never used it are the ones G2 rejects.

6. Show your G2 reviews in 100 messages a day

Your review count can only grow as fast as your user count. A SaaS with 2 paying teams cannot reach 10 reviews from the people it has. So, every day, send 100 personal messages to buyers who fit, with a link to your G2 reviews once you have some, and ask every new user in step 5.

Where to put the link, once:

• Your website. Add one line under the price on your pricing page and near the top of your homepage: your G2 star rating and number of reviews, "Source: G2.com, Inc.", and a link to your G2 profile. The social proof belongs where buyers decide.
• LinkedIn. Add your G2 page to the Featured section of your LinkedIn profile.
• Demos and follow-ups. Put the link in the email you send after every product demo.
• Your email signature. One line: "Reviews from our users: [G2 link]".
• Your posts. When a review is published, thank that user and ask if you can quote them in their own words as a testimonial. Use their answer in your posts on the channel where you post as a founder.

What the free plan lets you show. G2's rules for companies on the free plan allow your star rating with "Source: G2.com, Inc." and a link to your profile, and the "Users Love Us" badge, which you earn at 20 reviews with an average of 4.0 stars or more. Copying the text of G2 reviews onto your site or into ads needs G2's Professional plan, so do not paste review text. Use a testimonial the user gave you directly instead. Once you earn the badge, in my.G2 go to Marketing Content, then G2 Badges, and press "Copy embed"; it must link to your G2 category page.

Then message 100 buyers a day. Pick people from your lead list and send each one a personal message by cold email or LinkedIn. Lead with one true line about them and one small question, and offer a way to try it in a few minutes. Put the G2 link in the second message or your signature, not in the first line: people reply to interest in them, and then check the proof.

How 100 a day is possible: paste 10 rows into ChatGPT or Claude with your message and ask for one draft per person. You add the true first line and send each one yourself. About a minute each, so about 1 hour 40 minutes for new messages and about an hour for follow-ups. Stay inside each channel's limits: LinkedIn caps how many connection requests you can send each week, so spread the rest across email from a warmed-up second domain and replies where your buyers ask questions. The full daily routine is in how to market a SaaS product and how to get your first 100 SaaS users.

Do not expect G2 to send you traffic on its own. In a June 2026 test of 40 buyer questions about business software in ChatGPT, G2 and Capterra were not cited once. Other studies find review sites cited more often. Either way, buyers who already talk to you are the ones who read your reviews. To be named in AI answers, work on the best-of lists AI tools cite and on getting your brand mentioned by ChatGPT, and put your G2 page on your comparison and alternative pages.

• Tool: your website, LinkedIn, your email, your lead list, and ChatGPT or Claude to draft.
• Time: 30 minutes once for the links, then about 3 hours a day for the messages and follow-ups.
• You will have: your G2 page linked from your site, LinkedIn, demo emails and signature, and 100 messages sent every day.
• It worked if: after 2,800 messages (4 weeks at 100 a day), at least 3 in 100 buyers reply, and new users who reach the first result go into step 5. Below 2 in 100, fix the list or the first line, as in getting replies to cold emails.
• Common mistake: adding a G2 badge to the footer and waiting. A buyer has to be talking to you before your reviews can help.

7. Count your G2 reviews and signups every Sunday

Every Sunday, fill in one row: people asked, reviews published, reviews rejected, your average rating, reviews in your main category, and signups that came from G2. Then decide what, if anything, to pay G2 for, using the rules below.

Week | People asked (new) | Follow-ups sent | Published (total) | Rejected and fixed | Average rating | Reviews in main category | G2 page visits | Signups from G2 | New users who reached the first result | Messages sent | Replies | Change this week

Where the numbers come from. Reviews and ratings are in my.G2, under Review Management, then Review Activity. For signups, put UTM tags on the website link in your G2 profile, so your analytics shows G2 by name, and count signups as a conversion. Add "Where did you hear about us?" to your signup form, and log "G2" as its own answer, the same way you track which channel brought each signup. That answer is called self-reported attribution.

What the numbers mean on G2:

• 10 reviews in one category: your product can show on that category's Grid. G2 shows a live Grid on a category page once 3 products there have 10 or more reviews, and updates it every day.
• Seasonal reports: G2 publishes Grid reports four times a year, each with a review deadline, for categories with enough reviewed products. The next is the Winter 2027 report: reviews by 3 November 2026, published 1 December 2026; then Spring 2027, with a deadline of 16 February 2027. G2's Research Agenda page lists the dates.
• 20 reviews with an average of 4.0 or more: the free "Users Love Us" badge.
• Recent reviews count more. A review keeps most of its weight for 18 months, then fades. Reviews without a reward also count for more.

Decide with these rules:

• Fewer than 10 published reviews in your main category: stay on the free plan and spend the hours on steps 3 to 6. Nothing you can buy from G2 adds an honest review faster than asking your users.
• No rewards for reviews at this stage. G2 sells campaigns where it pays reviewers a gift card from you, charged for each approved review. Rewarded reviews carry an "Incentivized" label and count for less, and they draw people who search for "G2 reviews for gift cards". Keep asking for nothing.
• A paid plan: G2's Starter plan is $299 a month, or $2,999 for the first year, rising to $599 a month or $6,000 a year after that. Buy it only once G2 has sent you signups you can count, and only if the MRR from the customers it brings in a year adds up to more than the plan costs. Work it out like any customer acquisition cost: what you pay, divided by the customers it brings. Pay it from your marketing budget, not from a hunch.
• No signups from G2 after 10 reviews and 3 months: keep asking new users, because buyers still check G2, and move your hours to the channels that bring users.

Once a month, put these numbers into your monthly marketing review next to your other channels.

• Tool: Google Sheets, my.G2 and your analytics.
• Time: 20 minutes each Sunday.
• You will have: one row a week and one written decision about paying.
• It worked if: you can say, without looking, how many published reviews you have in your main category, how many people you asked this week, and how many signups G2 sent this month.
• Common mistake: paying for a plan or for rewards with 2 reviews. It buys tools for a profile that does not yet convince anyone.

Your G2 review checklist for the next 4 weeks

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Work through this list with an AI assistant

It drafts the work and keeps track of what is done.

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Step 1 · Claim your free G2 profile

• Claim your free G2 profile, fill in every section and set your main category.

Step 2 · List everyone who can review your SaaS

• Make one sheet of everyone who has used your SaaS for real work.

Step 3 · Ask each user for a G2 review

• Get your free G2 review link.
• Send each person a personal review request.

Step 4 · Follow up until each review is published

• Every daySend today's follow-ups and fix any rejected review.
• Every dayReply to every published review the same day.

Step 5 · Ask every new user at their first result

• Pick the first-result moment for your SaaS.
• Every dayAsk each new user for a review on the day they get their first result.

Step 6 · Show your G2 reviews in 100 messages a day

• Add your G2 link to your website, LinkedIn, demo emails and signature.
• Every daySend 100 personal messages to buyers who fit.

Step 7 · Count your G2 reviews and signups every Sunday

• Every SundayFill in one row of the Sunday sheet and apply the paying rules.

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