How to Submit Your Product to G2: A Step-by-Step Guide

What is G2

G2, formerly G2 Crowd, is one of the biggest B2B software review sites in the world. Its pages sit near the top of Google search for years. DR 91. That's a real number.

In short, it does three things:

• Lists B2B software. SaaS, dev tools, business software. No B2C.
• Collects real user reviews. Only people who actually used the product can write one. G2 reviews each one.
• Publishes a Grid Report every quarter. Each category gets a four-quadrant chart. The top-right corner is the "Leader" quadrant. That's the badge people fight over.

If you sell B2B software, you cannot really skip G2. When buyers search your product name, the G2 page often ranks higher than your own website.

Is G2 still worth it in 2026

It depends.

If you build B2C — consumer apps, games, personal tools — don't waste your time. G2 doesn't list B2C products. They will reject you.

If you build B2B SaaS, dev tools, or business software — yes, do it. But don't expect a one-shot win. G2 gives you three real things:

• Long-term Google traffic. When buyers search "<your product> review", "<your product> vs <competitor>", or "best <category> software", the G2 page sits near the top. Way easier than getting your own site to rank there.
• An easier time with procurement. When a company buys software, they look at G2. They check the star rating and your spot on the Grid. A "Leader" badge on your sales deck is strong proof.
• Free press from the quarterly Grid Report. Every time a Grid Report drops, top products get quoted by tech blogs for weeks. You don't pay for that.

One more thing that's nice to know: once you have reviews on G2, your own website also ranks better. Google sees both your site and your G2 page in the same searches and starts to think "OK, this company is real in this space."

What does G2 actually reward

The full algorithm is private. But the Grid math is public, and after watching it for a while, a few things stand out:

• How many reviews you got in the last 90 days. Old reviews fade fast. If you get no new reviews for six months, your Grid spot drops. You can see it.
• How long each review is. One review that fills out all six prompts and is 200+ words beats five short "great tool, recommend" reviews. By a lot.
• Reviews from many different companies. Five reviews from the same company on the same email domain get merged. Ten reviews from ten companies is the goal.
• Industry match. If the people writing reviews work in the industry your profile targets, those reviews count more.
• Verified vs anonymous. A review verified by LinkedIn or work email counts a few times more than an anonymous one.
• Whether you reply. When the vendor replies to reviews (especially bad ones), G2 sees the profile is "alive" and pushes it more.

That last one is where most people mess up: vendors send mass invites and offer customers cash or gift cards for reviews. G2's anti-fraud got serious in 2024. If they catch you, they don't just delete the bad reviews. They knock your whole profile down for 90 days.

What to do before you submit

Don't open the form and start typing. Spend two weeks on this stuff first. You'll pass review on the first try.

Two weeks out

• Pick the right category. Search G2 for three to five direct competitors. See what category they sit in. If you pick the wrong one, the G2 editor moves you to a tiny side category nobody searches. Hard to fix later.
• Get a work email ready. Must be name@yourdomain.com. Gmail / Outlook / iCloud will be rejected. If you still run your business off a personal email, set one up now. There's a section below on how.
• Submit Capterra too. Capterra is owned by Gartner. Strict review like G2, but they don't conflict. Run them in parallel.

One week out

• Write the profile copy. Tagline is one line, under 60 characters. Say what it does, not what it is. Good: "Auto-tags customer tickets in Slack with AI." Bad: "An intelligent collaboration platform for teams."
• Get the assets ready. Logo (transparent PNG). Three to five product screenshots, 1280×720 or bigger. A 60 to 90 second demo video. Don't use plain UI shots. Add some real-looking data so it feels like a real product.
• Make a list of customers to invite. At least 15 paying customers. Start inviting them the same day you submit the profile. Don't wait until it's approved.

Three days out

• Check your website end to end. The G2 reviewer will open your site to verify the company is real. Privacy policy, pricing page, About page — all of it should be there. Don't give them a reason to push back.
• Write the review invite. One short message under 60 words. Neutral tone. Do not mention rewards. Do not say "5 stars". Do not say "leave a good review". More on the wording below.

How submission works: three steps and each one can stall

G2 splits "make the profile" and "own the profile" into two steps. A lot of people get stuck on the second one.

Step 1: Apply for a new profile

Go to sell.g2.com/create-a-profile. The form has a checkbox: "I would like to serve as admin for this profile." Check Yes. That way, when it gets approved, the profile is already yours. You don't have to claim it again. Pick your country code and use a phone that can get international SMS.

Step 2: Wait for the G2 editor to review

Three to five business days. The reviewer actually opens your site, checks your LinkedIn company page, and looks up the domain whois. Don't resubmit while you wait. They'll flag you as suspicious.

Step 3: Claim the profile (only if you didn't check admin in Step 1)

Open your profile. Click "Claim this profile" in the top right. Wait one to three more business days. Use a work email here. Gmail will get rejected.

Once you're in, you can upload assets, invite customers to write reviews, and buy a plan. The free plan does about 90% of what you need. The Premium plan unlocks competitor compare pages and lead info. Don't pay on day one. Get to 10+ reviews first. Then think about it.

How to get a work email

This is where most people get stuck. G2 doesn't care if your email is fancy. It cares about one thing: does the email domain match your product website domain. Three options:

• Cloudflare Email Routing (fastest, free). If your domain is on Cloudflare, go to Email Routing. Add a rule: forward hello@yourdomain.com to your Gmail. 5 minutes. The G2 verification email will land in your Gmail. Click the link. Done.
• Google Workspace (cleanest, paid). Business Starter is $6 per user per month. Set up MX records and you have a real you@yourdomain.com. Worth it long term — you'll use it for sales emails too.
• A regional provider. Tencent Exmail, Aliyun, Zoho Mail. Free or cheap. The catch: G2 emails are international, and these providers sometimes mark them as spam or bounce them. If option 1 works for you, take option 1.

The address part also matters. Don't use info@, admin@, or noreply@. The G2 editor sees those as suspicious. Use something that looks like a real person: jian@, founder@, mike.chen@.

How to get real reviews without breaking rules

PH is a one-day game. G2 is a one-quarter game. G2 publishes a Grid Report four times a year, in the middle of March, June, September, and December. Reviews written in the 45 days before the report carry the most weight. So the right rhythm is:

• Start inviting six weeks before the report. Five to ten reviews per week. Spread across different customers, different email domains, different industries.
• Don't blast everyone in one day. 30 reviews on the same day is exactly what the anti-fraud system looks for.
• Invite long-term users first. Customers who used your product for three months or more write reviews with real detail. G2 rewards that.
• Never offer a reward yourself. The only legal incentive is the $10–$25 gift card G2 itself sends out. G2 hands it to the reviewer directly. The vendor never touches it. Anything you pay for on your own is against the rules.

How to write the invite (the safe version)

You can send this:

You cannot send this:

Anything that pushes a rating, G2 will find. Reviewers screenshot it and report. AI text checkers catch copy-paste invites. If they confirm it, the related reviews get deleted, and your profile is downranked for 90 days.

What happens after the review goes up

The review going live is the start, not the end. The next steps are how you actually catch the traffic.

• Reply to every review. Even the 5-star ones. Just write "Thanks. Next version we're shipping X." Always reply to bad reviews. Your reply gets indexed by Google too.
• Put the badges back on your website. When you earn "High Performer", "Leader", or "Users Love Us", drop them on your homepage and pricing page right away. Solid social proof.
• Turn reviews into content. Read the reviews. Find the pain points and use cases that show up over and over. Write a case study or blog post about them. That post will get linked back from G2.
• Ride the quarterly report. When a new Grid Report drops, screenshot your spot in the grid. Post it on LinkedIn or your blog. The report is already credible. Some of that credit rubs off on you.

Common ways people mess this up

• Using a personal email. You'll get blocked at step one.
• Paying for reviews. Already covered. The deadliest mistake.
• Getting 15 reviews in a single day. Anti-fraud flags it as a suspicious batch. They all go to manual review. Some get rejected.
• Filling the profile with marketing words. "Revolutionary AI", "industry-leading", "next-gen" — the G2 editor will rewrite or reject this. Use plain feature descriptions instead.
• Not replying after reviews come in. A profile with a dead reply section gets flagged as half-abandoned. Less exposure.
• Making two profiles for the same product. You can list different products under one company. But the same product under two names will get merged. You wasted the review time.

G2 vs Capterra: which one to pick

People often ask: G2 and Capterra both do B2B reviews. Which one is worth it more? The answer is — do both. They focus on different things.

Bottom line: for B2B SaaS going global, do G2 first. Then run Capterra in parallel. The reviews don't transfer between them — you have to invite each customer twice. But the same customer can write on both, that's fine.

FAQ

Does G2 cost money? The free plan lets you build a profile, collect reviews, and reply to them. The Premium plan unlocks competitor compare pages, lead info, and category ranking tracking. New companies should stick with the free plan until they have 10+ reviews. Then think about paying.

How long does it take to review a G2 review? G2 usually takes 1-3 business days to approve a review after it's submitted. They check that the reviewer is a real person and actually used the product. Reviews get rejected when they're too short, look copy-pasted, or don't match what the product actually does.

Can I sign up for G2 with Gmail at all? Pretty much no. The form blocks it on the front-end. In rare cases, indie developers with real product websites have made it through, but the odds are low. Don't bet on it.

Can a bad review be deleted? A real bad review cannot be deleted. But you can reply to it and explain the context. If the bad review has a factual error (says your product doesn't support a feature when it actually does), you can file a dispute and G2 will re-check it.

What do I do with the Grid Report when it comes out? Screenshot your quadrant position and score. Post it on LinkedIn, your blog, and email newsletter. The report comes with a PDF too — you can quote specific sections at the top of customer case studies.

Other platforms to run in the same quarter

G2 has the highest DR in the B2B review space, but it's not the only one. Run these in parallel during the same quarter. The backlinks and search exposure stack up:

• Capterra — Gartner-owned. Doesn't conflict with G2. Submit at the same time.
• Product Hunt — Different beast, but you can run it alongside a G2 push at launch time. PH gets you the spike. G2 builds the long-term reviews.
• BetaList — You can list while still in beta and pair it with G2 to get your first round of early-user reviews.
• SaaSHub — High DR, slow pace. Good for long-term backlink value.
• Uneed — Newer curated site. Works for design tools and AI products.
• Microlaunch — Less crowded than PH. Friendlier audience.

Full lists by category: SaaS launch platforms, startup communities, launch and directory sites.