Gainsight vs ChurnZero
Neither vendor publishes pricing, so this page starts with what procurement data shows they actually cost, then the part that decides it: how each one builds its quote, how long it takes to deliver value, and the team each is built for.
Quick answer
Gainsight and ChurnZero are both quote-only and both seat-driven. Vendr's observed medians are $49,676 a year for Gainsight across 372 purchases and $44,625 for ChurnZero across 101. The real difference is rollout and depth: Gainsight is reported at 4 to 6 months and is built for an enterprise CS Ops function; ChurnZero is reported at 6 to 8 weeks and suits a mid-market team with one Plays author.
Last updated · Pricing and feature claims reviewed against publicly listed sources.
Side by side
Sourced figures where a source exists, reported framing where it does not. These vendors have confirmed none of it; treat the numbers as the market range for planning, not as a quote.
| Gainsight | ChurnZero | |
|---|---|---|
| Observed median, annual | $49,676 | $44,625 |
| Observed range | $14,083 to $188,879 | $12,000 to $87,000 |
| Sample | 372 purchases on Vendr | 101 purchases on Vendr |
| Publishes pricing | No | No |
| How the quote is built | Platform fee plus a per-seat licence, with account volume as a second dial. Buyers report per-seat licences at $1,200 to $4,200 a year. | Per seat, by tier. Oliv AI's negotiated curve runs from 3 users on Professional to 250 on Enterprise, and the spread is seats and tier rather than negotiating skill. |
| Implementation and rollout | Reported at 20% to 40% of first-year value, with a 4 to 6 month rollout | Reported first-year totals of $20,000 to $50,000 including implementation, with a 6 to 8 week rollout |
| Built for | Enterprise customer success organisations with a CS Operations admin to own the configuration | Mid-market SaaS teams that want rules-driven automation and have someone to author and maintain the Plays |
What actually separates them
Feature lists on these two overlap almost entirely. These are the differences that change the number on your quote and the year you have after signing.
Depth against time. Gainsight can model almost any operating rhythm, and buyers report paying for that in a rollout measured in months and in the admin who owns it afterwards. ChurnZero ships a narrower, faster system: a ChurnScore, segments, Plays, and alerts that a single owner can have running inside two months.
The shape of the quote is the same and the sizes are not. Both are reported as a platform fee plus per-seat licences, so every CSM you hire is on the renewal for either vendor. Gainsight's observed median is about 12% higher and its top of range is roughly double ChurnZero's, which reflects the enterprise deals it wins rather than a different pricing model.
Where the ceiling is. Gainsight's ceiling is the PX analytics product and enterprise journey orchestration. ChurnZero's ceiling is the rules engine: if the programme you want cannot be written as a segment plus a trigger, it is a Gainsight programme.
Each vendor on its own terms
Gainsight
$49,676 /yr median
$14,083 to $188,879, 372 purchases on Vendr
Buyers pick it for
What buyers report tripping over
ChurnZero
$44,625 /yr median
$12,000 to $87,000, 101 purchases on Vendr
Buyers pick it for
What buyers report tripping over
The call
Pick Gainsight if
You run an enterprise CS organisation with a dedicated CS Operations role, you want usage analytics and CS workflows from one vendor, and a six-month programme build is acceptable because the contract is multi-year anyway.
Pick ChurnZero if
You are mid-market, you have one person who will author and maintain the Plays, and you need alerts and automation running this quarter rather than next year.
Every figure, with its source
Each row is a publicly reported figure attributed to the source that published it. Where sources disagree, both are shown rather than averaged into a number nobody said.
| Cost component | Reported | Source | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Observed contracts, median and range | $49,676 median · $14,083 - $188,879 | Vendrchecked 2026-09-20 | Across 367 observed purchases, 213 deals handled. What buyers actually paid, rather than what Gainsight asked. |
| Initial quote, CS Cloud mid-market (500-2,000 records) | $60,000 - $120,000 / year | Vendrchecked 2026-08-21 | Before negotiation, and before implementation. Vendr's separate $30,000-$70,000 band is for PX, the product-analytics module, not for CS Cloud - a distinction earlier versions of this page collapsed. |
| Per-seat licence, annual | $1,200 - $4,200 | Oliv AI (Feb 2026)checked 2026-08-18 | Volume discounts reported at roughly 50% for 500 seats versus 10. |
| Implementation, one-off | 20% - 40% of year one | Vendrchecked 2026-08-21 | Re-verified 2026-08-21; Vendr's own worked example is $20,000-$40,000 on a $100,000 subscription. On the $49,676 median that is roughly $10,000 to $20,000 before a single account is scored. |
| AI features (Atlas / Copilot) | $5,000 - $40,000+ / year | Software Finder (Jul 2026)checked 2026-08-18 | Priced as an add-on rather than included in the base platform. |
| Per-seat licence, buyer-reported | ~$1,400 / year | r/CustomerSuccesschecked 2026-08-18 | Alongside a platform fee reported above $30,000 a year and under $10 per tracked account. |
| Entry listing (Salesforce AppExchange) | $225 / user / year | Salesforce AppExchangechecked 2026-08-18 | The Basic listing, and the only public list price Gainsight attaches its own name to. Not representative of a full Gainsight CS deployment. |
| Training and enablement | $2,000 - $25,000 / year | Software Finder (Jul 2026)checked 2026-08-18 | Optional, but commonly bundled into first-year quotes. |
These vendors have not confirmed any of these figures and most publish no rates at all. Treat them as the reported market range for planning and negotiation, not as a quote. Your own number will depend on seat count, module scope, contract length, and how hard your procurement team pushes.
Every figure, with its source
| Cost component | Reported | Source | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Published entry plan | $12,000 / year | Capterrachecked 2026-08-21 | Capterra lists a single plan at $12,000 a year, with no free trial and no free version. It is the only number ChurnZero's own listings attach to. |
| Negotiated range by seat count | $10,700 - $180,100 / year | Oliv AI (Feb 2026)checked 2026-08-18 | Median negotiated rates, from 3 users on Professional to 250 users on Enterprise. The spread is seats and tier, not negotiating skill. |
| List price by team and account volume | $20,000 - $87,000 / year | Accoilchecked 2026-08-18 | Reported list pricing scaled by team size and number of tracked accounts. |
| Observed contracts, median and range | $44,625 median · $18,681 - $131,560 | Vendrchecked 2026-09-20 | Across 101 observed purchases. This is what buyers actually paid, and it sits three to four times above the $12,000 entry listing - the single most useful fact on this page. Vendr also reports quote bands by size: $15,000-$50,000 for 100-500 accounts, $40,000-$100,000 for 500-2,000, and $100,000+ above that. |
| Quote structure | Platform fee + per seat + per account | r/CustomerSuccesschecked 2026-08-18 | Practitioners report a platform fee above $30,000 a year, per-user licences around $1,400 a year, and under $10 per tracked account, with all three charged rather than bundled. |
| Typical first-year total | $20,000 - $50,000 | Customerscore.iochecked 2026-08-18 | Including implementation. Reviewers consistently report 6 to 8 weeks to value. |
| Mid-size deployment | $15,000 - $30,000+ / year | ChurnToolschecked 2026-08-18 | For teams managing roughly 100 to 500 accounts. |
These vendors have not confirmed any of these figures and most publish no rates at all. Treat them as the reported market range for planning and negotiation, not as a quote. Your own number will depend on seat count, module scope, contract length, and how hard your procurement team pushes.
Where we fit
We publish our prices, which is the only difference we can claim without knowing your quote.
Exeechain
$0 - $2,999 /mo
Gainsight
$30,000 - $70,000 / yr
ChurnZero
$12,000 - $87,000 / yr
Exeechain is not Gainsight and not ChurnZero. It scores every account daily, names the drivers, drafts the save from the customer's own history and sends it under your approval, and it does that without a programme build. If your operating model needs the depth either vendor sells and someone will own it, they earn their price. If the retention work needs to start this week, the free tier runs the whole product on a sample book so you can judge it before anyone quotes you.
Provenance
Named so you can check them. A comparison that cannot show its working is a pitch.
SaaS procurement marketplace publishing observed contract values from real negotiated purchases. The most reliable public signal, because it reflects what buyers paid rather than what vendors asked.
Oliv AI
Per-user cost breakdowns for Gainsight (Feb 2026) and ChurnZero (Feb 2026), including the volume-discount curve by seat count. (no direct link yet - this one has not been re-checked since the figures were compiled.)
Accoil
"Real Pricing" alternative roundups for Gainsight and ChurnZero, reporting list ranges by team size and account volume. (no direct link yet - this one has not been re-checked since the figures were compiled.)
Vendor-supplied listing pages. The only place several of these vendors attach a number to their own name, though entry SKUs rarely reflect a real deployment.
Planhat and Totango contract data from verified purchases (35 and 102 respectively), re-read September 2026.
Vendor reviews with tier-level monthly equivalents for Planhat and Vitally, cited to Vendr. Read September 2026.
Customerscore.io and ChurnTools
First-year totals including implementation, and reported time to value. (no direct link yet - this one has not been re-checked since the figures were compiled.)
r/CustomerSuccess
Practitioner threads on platform costs. Useful for the shape of a quote (platform fee plus per-seat plus per-account) even where absolute figures have aged. (no direct link yet - this one has not been re-checked since the figures were compiled.)
ZoomInfo
Published July 2026. Confirms Gainsight publishes no rates and reports contracts commonly capping annual increases at 6%. (no direct link yet - this one has not been re-checked since the figures were compiled.)
Figures were compiled on 14 September 2026 and are re-verified quarterly. Reported ranges move. If you have a current quote that falls outside these bands we would genuinely like to know, because a pricing page that drifts from reality stops being useful to anyone.
Questions
On observed contracts, Gainsight's median is $49,676 a year (372 purchases on Vendr) and ChurnZero's is $44,625 (101 purchases on Vendr). The unit matters more than the median. Gainsight: Platform fee plus a per-seat licence, with account volume as a second dial. Buyers report per-seat licences at $1,200 to $4,200 a year. ChurnZero: Per seat, by tier. Oliv AI's negotiated curve runs from 3 users on Professional to 250 on Enterprise, and the spread is seats and tier rather than negotiating skill. Price both on your own seat count and account count before comparing the medians.
Gainsight: Reported at 20% to 40% of first-year value, with a 4 to 6 month rollout. ChurnZero: Reported first-year totals of $20,000 to $50,000 including implementation, with a 6 to 8 week rollout. Neither vendor publishes these; they are what procurement datasets and buyers report, and your own rollout depends on how much of your programme has to be built before the team uses it.
Enterprise customer success organisations with a CS Operations admin to own the configuration. The deepest configurability in the category: scorecards, journey orchestration, CTAs and playbooks can be shaped to almost any operating model.
Mid-market SaaS teams that want rules-driven automation and have someone to author and maintain the Plays. Real-time alerts and in-app messaging tied to a configurable ChurnScore.
You run an enterprise CS organisation with a dedicated CS Operations role, you want usage analytics and CS workflows from one vendor, and a six-month programme build is acceptable because the contract is multi-year anyway.
You are mid-market, you have one person who will author and maintain the Plays, and you need alerts and automation running this quarter rather than next year.
Exeechain publishes its prices: $0 on the Free tier (the whole product on a sample book), then $299/mo, $999/mo and $2,999/mo, month to month with no implementation fee. First scores in 15 minutes. Full accuracy in 24 hours. At $999/mo a year costs $11,988, below both observed medians above, with nothing to configure. If your programme needs the depth of Gainsight or ChurnZero and someone will own it, they earn their price; if the retention work needs to start this week, Exeechain is the fit.
Gainsight alternative
7 options with real prices
ChurnZero alternative
7 options with real prices
Vitally alternative
7 options with real prices
Planhat alternative
7 options with real prices
Totango alternative
7 options with real prices
Gainsight pricing
What it really costs, sourced
ChurnZero pricing
$12k listed, $180k observed
Planhat pricing
Per account, not per seat
Vitally pricing
Listed low, observed at 4x
Totango pricing
The published packages are gone
CS software pricing
7 platforms on one table
Customer success software
The 2026 buyer's guide
Churn prediction
See churn risk ranked by revenue at stake
Customer health scores
A score with the reasons attached
Retention intelligence
Recover revenue, prove the save
Gainsight vs Vitally
Enterprise build or product-led
Gainsight vs Planhat
Per seat against per account
Planhat vs ChurnZero
Team size against book size
Planhat vs Vitally
Structure against speed
ChurnZero vs Vitally
Rules-led or collaboration-led
Deciding? Which plan is right for you · How setup works for your stack
Exeechain publishes its prices, and the free tier runs the whole product on a sample book so you can judge it before anyone quotes you.
Not ready to switch? Size your leak from your MRR and churn rate, with no billing access at all.