Gong Review 2026: What 6,000+ Users Really Think (Honest Analysis)
Gong has 6,470+ reviews on G2 with a 4.7/5 rating. That's impressive. But ratings don't tell you whether Gong is right for your team, at your budget, for your problems.
We dug through hundreds of G2 reviews, Reddit threads, TrustRadius feedback, and competitor analyses to surface the patterns that matter. Here's what users actually say — the good, the bad, and the expensive.
What Gong Does Well (According to Users)
1. Call Recording and Transcription Are Best-in-Class
This is Gong's foundation, and users consistently praise it. The transcription accuracy is high, the interface for reviewing calls is clean, and the ability to search across all recorded conversations is genuinely useful.
Common G2 praise: "Finding specific moments in calls takes seconds instead of re-watching entire recordings."
For sales managers who previously relied on reps self-reporting what happened on calls, Gong eliminates the guesswork. You see exactly what was said, by whom, and when.
2. Deal Intelligence Surfaces Real Risks
Users managing complex enterprise deals with multiple stakeholders cite Gong's deal board as a standout feature. It tracks engagement across contacts, flags deals where key stakeholders have gone silent, and identifies patterns that predict outcomes.
Why it works: In a 6-month B2B deal with 8 stakeholders, tracking who said what across 15 calls is humanly impossible. Gong makes it automatic.
3. Coaching Gets Specific
Instead of generic "you need to ask more questions" coaching, Gong gives managers specific data points — talk-to-listen ratios, competitor mention patterns, next-step language, objection handling frequency. Some reviewers say this transformed their coaching programs from subjective to data-driven.
4. Competitive Intelligence From Actual Conversations
Gong tracks when competitors are mentioned in prospect conversations. Sales leaders use this to understand which competitors show up most often, what objections they trigger, and how their reps handle competitive situations. This is genuinely hard to get elsewhere.
What Users Complain About (The Consistent Themes)
1. The Price Is Brutal for Small-to-Mid Teams
This is the single most common complaint across every review platform. Here's a representative sample:
G2 reviewer: "The cost is a significant barrier. For a 15-rep team, we're looking at nearly $30K/year before onboarding."
Reddit user: "Gong quoted us $5K platform fee plus $1,600/user/year for 10 users. That's $21K/year just for call recording and analytics."
For context: That $21K/year covers conversation intelligence only. You still need separate tools for prospecting, email outreach, website identification, and dialing. Total SDR stack cost with Gong easily exceeds $50K/year for a 10-person team.
Our take: Gong's pricing makes sense at 50+ reps where the per-user cost drops and the coaching insights scale. Under 20 reps, the math is hard to justify unless your ACV is $50K+.
2. No Self-Serve Trial (And It Feels Intentional)
Multiple reviewers flag that Gong won't let you try the product without going through a full sales process. One tl;dv analysis put it bluntly:
"You don't find out what it actually feels like until you're locked in. There's no sandbox, no click-to-start. Just a form, a follow-up, and a BDR who wants to know if you have budget."
This matters because several reviewers report that what looked great in a demo didn't translate to daily usage. Reps found the interface overwhelming, managers didn't build coaching habits around it, and the tool became an expensive recording device.
3. Adoption Is a Real Challenge
This shows up in review after review: the product is powerful, but getting reps to actually use it requires significant effort.
Oliv.ai's analysis of 600+ reviews: Companies commonly buy 110 licenses with only 50 active users, treating Gong as a note-taker and paying $250/user for minimal value.
The onboarding process requires dedicated internal training, and Gong's workflow is opinionated — it pushes its process, not yours. Teams without a RevOps or enablement function to drive adoption often underutilize it.
4. It Can Feel Surveillance-Heavy
This is the uncomfortable truth about conversation intelligence platforms. Multiple users describe a "Big Brother" dynamic:
Reddit thread: "Some reps push back because they feel monitored. Talk time tracking, keyword scoring, objection handling analysis — it's useful data for managers but can create a weird culture."
Some reviewers report PIPs (performance improvement plans) being built using Gong data, which is efficient for management but toxic for rep morale if not handled carefully.
5. Multi-Year Contract Locks and Auto-Renewal Traps
Users on G2 and TrustRadius flag contract issues:
- Multi-year commitments pushed by sales reps for "better pricing"
- Auto-renewal uplifts of 5-15% annually — your Year 2 price is higher even if you do nothing
- Early termination penalties of 50-100% of remaining contract value
- Forced bundling of Engage and Forecast modules you may not want
TrustRadius reviewer: "We signed a 3-year deal. By Year 2, we realized we were only using 60% of the features, but getting out would cost more than staying."
Who Gong Works Best For (Based on Reviews)
The happiest Gong users share these characteristics:
- 50+ rep teams where per-user costs amortize and patterns emerge across hundreds of calls
- Dedicated enablement staff who build systematic coaching programs, not just watch recordings
- Enterprise deals ($50K+ ACV) where tracking multi-stakeholder conversations over months prevents losses worth 10x the investment
- Existing pipeline — reps have plenty of conversations to analyze, and the problem is conversion rate, not volume
Who Should Think Twice
Based on negative reviews and complaints, these teams struggle with Gong:
- Under 20 reps — the platform fee alone pushes per-user costs to unsustainable levels
- Pipeline-starved teams — you can't analyze conversations that aren't happening
- No enablement function — without someone driving adoption, Gong becomes a $2K/user/year recording tool
- Price-sensitive organizations — if $30K-100K/year for one piece of your sales stack causes budget stress, the ROI math is shaky
- Teams that value transparency — if opaque pricing and multi-year locks bother you during the buying process, the vendor relationship won't improve after signing
Gong vs the Market in 2026
The conversation intelligence market has shifted dramatically. When Gong launched in 2015, it was genuinely category-creating. In 2026:
- tl;dv offers AI meeting transcription and coaching starting at $0/month
- Avoma provides CI plus scheduling at $49/user/month
- Oliv.ai delivers CI, forecasting, and coaching at $19-99/user/month
- Chorus (now owned by ZoomInfo) bundles CI with prospecting data
- MarketBetter approaches the problem from a completely different angle — instead of analyzing past calls, it tells SDRs who to contact and what to say before the call happens, starting at $500/month for 3 seats
The question isn't "Is Gong good?" — it is. The question is whether backward-looking conversation analytics is the best use of $30K-170K/year when forward-looking pipeline generation and SDR execution tools exist at a fraction of the price.
The Verdict
Gong earns its 4.7/5 rating. The conversation intelligence engine is genuinely excellent. The deal tracking is valuable for enterprise sales teams. The coaching insights are specific and actionable when used systematically.
But the pricing model belongs to a different era. Platform fees, opaque per-user costs, multi-year locks, implementation charges, forced bundling, and auto-renewal uplifts create a total cost of ownership that's 3-5x what modern alternatives charge for comparable (and sometimes broader) functionality.
Score: 4.2/5 — Excellent product, but the pricing and buying experience drag it down for anyone who isn't running a 50+ rep enterprise sales org.
If your problem is "my reps need more pipeline" — Gong won't help. Look at tools that generate and prioritize leads, not tools that analyze past calls.
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