G2 alternative

NorthRadar vs G2

G2 is the largest software review marketplace and now owns Capterra, GetApp and Software Advice too. It sells vendors profiles, ads and Buyer Intent: which companies visited your profile, category and comparison pages. NorthRadar owns seven comparison sites and sells the signal too, with one difference: it is a named person who is in market, delivered with consent.

Researched and last updated 2026-09-23

The short version

Every software vendor should have a G2 profile; the reviews and the category traffic are real. But G2's own data reference shows Buyer Intent rows carry a company name, domain and visitor country, not a person, and account matching runs through 6sense's IP graph. If you want the person who compared you on a review site, with their email and consent, that is what NorthRadar sells and G2 does not.

What G2 does well

A fair summary, in our words.

G2 hosts three million reviews across 200,000 products and 2,000 categories. Vendors buy profile tiers, review campaigns, G2 Ads on category and competitor pages, and Buyer Intent, which reports the organisations viewing a vendor's profile, comparison, alternatives and pricing pages, matched to accounts through 6sense's identity graph. Buying Stage and Activity Level update daily. In 2026 G2 acquired Capterra, Software Advice and GetApp from Gartner and added account-level Custom Audiences for DSPs and a pay-per-lead product for Software Advice buyers.

G2Software review marketplace selling profiles, ads and account-level Buyer Intent data.

NorthRadarFirst-party demand from six comparison sites we own. The person, not the account.

What G2 publishes

Intent sourceVisits to G2 profile, category, comparison, alternatives and pricing pages

Unit of intentBuyer organisation: company, domain, size, industry, visitor country

Account match6sense 6signal graph; G2 said it nearly doubled match rate

Person fieldsNone in the Buyer Intent data reference

Published planStarter $299 a month or $2,999 a year; Buyer Intent priced on request

Median annual spend$27,813 (Vendr, 313 deals)

Side by side

Where the data comes from decides everything else.

G2NorthRadar

Data sourceTraffic to G2's own review pages, resolved to accounts through 6sense's IP graph, plus up to 25 Bombora topicsSeven comparison sites and 20+ newsletters we own. Every signal is recorded on our pages by our own tag, by a person who opted in there.

Unit of dataA buyer organisation with page views, activity level and buying stageA named person: role, work email, LinkedIn, phone, company, and the events they triggered.

Consideration setWhich G2 pages the company viewed, including comparisons and alternatives, at account levelThe vendors the person put side by side on our page, by name, with the timestamp of the comparison.

In-market definitionBuying Stage from page engagement and signal type; Activity Level from total activityA recorded comparison, alternatives read or pricing view. Never predicted.

Proof and consentAccount-level de-anonymisation; personal data shared only when a buyer requests contact or leaves a reviewProperty, timestamp and opt-in wording on every lead, with the engagement log attached.

DeliveryCSV, email, API token, and 20+ integrations including Salesforce, HubSpot, LinkedIn and SnowflakeDaily to Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, Eloqua, Snowflake, CSV, or a webhook into Clay, n8n and your agents.

Buying modelAnnual vendor plans with Buyer Intent as an add-on; auto-renews with up to 7% uplift; fees non-refundablePer lead for syndication, per send for dedicated email, quoted by category for data and activation. Rates in the FAQ.

What arrives

Field by field: what lands in your CRM from each.

FieldG2NorthRadar

Named person✕No name, email, title or phone in the data reference✓Role, work email, LinkedIn, phone

Company and firmographics✓Company, domain, size, industry, region✓Name, size band, industry, region

Vendors compared, by name~Compared competitors at account level✓The pair on the page, with timestamp

Pages and events✓Visit URL, type, date, page views✓Every read, download, comparison, pricing view

In-market flag~Buying Stage and Activity Level, daily✓Set only by a recorded comparison, alternatives read or pricing view

Consent record✕None on Buyer Intent; opt-out is browser based✓Property, timestamp, opt-in wording

Delivery✓CSV, API, integrations, DSP audiences✓CRM, warehouse, CSV, webhook

Pricing and terms

What it costs, as far as either side publishes it.

Published plans start at $299 a month or $2,999 a year for Starter; Professional and Enterprise are quoted, and Buyer Intent, Content and Ads are priced on request. Vendr reports a median of $27,813 a year across 313 deals, with Enterprise plus add-ons reaching $95,000 or more. The master agreement auto-renews unless cancelled with 30 days' notice, allows renewal increases of up to 7%, and makes fees non-refundable.

NorthRadar

Per lead, per send, or a category subscription for the feed. No platform or seat fee. Per lead for syndication, per send for dedicated email; data and activation quoted by category. Our published rates are in the FAQ below.

In their customers' words

What G2 customers say in public reviews.

Quoted from the linked reviews. We chose representative complaints and, below them, what customers praise.

“This tool is egregiously overpriced, especially since they don't tell you exactly who your lead might be.”
VP Marketing, Capterra review of G2 Buyer Intent

“Only shows intent from accounts/companies instead of contacts/leads directly, so Sales still need to put in a lot of effort.”
Capterra review of G2 Buyer Intent

“They market themselves as consumer reports and then strongarm vendors to be included. If you don't pay you are then dismissed.”
r/sysadmin, quoted by CheckThat

“Toned down the negative and magically the review got published.”
Netgate forum, on a refused negative review

What they praise

Buyers trust it: G2 is the first stop for many software evaluations, and the category traffic is real.
Reviewers value knowing which companies are researching their category; support quality scores 9.3 on G2's own profile.
Integrations are broad: Salesforce, HubSpot, LinkedIn, Snowflake, 6sense, Bombora, Demandbase and more.

Pick G2 if

You need reviews and badges for social proof and the traffic that comes with a G2 category.
You want account-level intent from the largest single review destination.
Your category is competitive on G2 and you need to defend your profile.

Pick NorthRadar if

You want the named person who compared you, with email, phone and a consent record.
You want to own the alternatives page for your competitor on sites that rank for it.
You want a lead that goes straight to a rep, not an account list to work backwards from with ZoomInfo.

If you run both

Keep the G2 profile and the reviews. Use G2 Buyer Intent to see which accounts are active, and use NorthRadar to get the named people at those accounts who compared you on our pages, with consent. The two lists overlap on accounts; only one of them carries a person.

Before you sign

Questions buyers ask when comparing us with G2.

Should a vendor be on both G2 and NorthRadar?

Usually yes. G2 gives you reviews, badges and account-level intent at scale. NorthRadar gives you named, consented people who are in market, from comparison sites G2 does not own. They answer different questions.

Does G2 Buyer Intent give me a person?

No. G2's Buyer Intent data reference lists company, domain, size, industry and visitor country, plus page and stage fields. There is no name, email, title or phone. Contacts come from separate ZoomInfo or Sales Navigator integrations.

How does NorthRadar identify the person?

People opt in on our properties: newsletter subscriptions, downloads and community. Their later reads and comparisons are joined to that record by our own tag. Nothing is de-anonymised from IP addresses or a third-party graph.

Does NorthRadar have reviews?

Our properties are comparison and review sites, so buyers read reviews and comparisons there. What we sell vendors is lead programs built on the recorded, consented signals from the people who read them.

How do the contracts differ?

G2's master agreement auto-renews, allows up to 7% renewal increases and makes fees non-refundable. NorthRadar programs are bought per lead, per send or by term, with out-of-spec leads replaced.

Is G2 Buyer Intent GDPR-safe?

That is a question for G2; its policy describes sharing personal data when a buyer requests contact and browser-based opt-outs. For our own data, every lead carries the property, timestamp and opt-in wording the person accepted.

Test it next to G2.

Send your category, ICP and goal for the quarter. We come back with a program plan, the properties it runs on, and the buying model that fits, reported on pipeline over ad spend so the two can be compared on the same number.

Talk to sales See the lead record

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