How to get G2 reviews when G2 removes 3 in 10 submissions

How to get G2 reviews that publish: invite verified customers who used the product in the last two years, through G2's own campaign tools, without filtering out unhappy ones. G2's Fall 2026 Trust & Safety Index says it removed 29.9% of reviews submitted from May 1 to July 31, 2026.

This guide covers who to ask, how to send the request, what an incentive may and may not do under G2's rules and the FTC's, and how many reviews you actually need before G2's reports count you. A smaller list of real customers, invited with work email addresses, is likely to publish more reviews than a large push that G2's moderators have to clean up.

G2 removed 69,018 of 230,998 reviews in three months

These are G2's own published figures, not an outside audit. The G2 Trust & Safety Index for Fall 2026 covers reviews submitted from May 1 to July 31, 2026:

The useful detail is where the removals come from. Roughly seven in ten removed reviews were not classed as fake at all; they failed G2's community guidelines. For a vendor, that is the controllable part: a real customer writing about the wrong product, or about an experience G2 won't accept, is a wasted ask.

Read the comparison column with care. The same page shows a "Summer 2026" column with a higher removal rate (36.7%) and incentive abuse at 5.0%, but it gives that column no date range, and its introduction says the metrics reflect "Q1 2026" and that this is the "inaugural edition" with no prior comparisons. Until G2 reconciles the page, we would not quote a trend from it. The Fall 2026 figures above carry an explicit date range; the comparison does not.

How to get G2 reviews in eight steps

Each step below rests on a rule G2 or the FTC has published, linked where it first appears.

1. Invite only people who have used the product in the last two years. G2's community guidelines accept reviews from actual users, business partners and guest users, and bar reviews based on experience older than two years. Employees of the vendor and of a direct competitor may not review. Partner and guest reviews are labeled and do not count toward the G2 Score, so your customers are the list that matters.
2. Use work email addresses. G2's Self-Service Review Campaigns take an audience from a HubSpot CRM import or a CSV upload, and G2 says it doesn't send to Gmail, Googlemail, Yahoo or Ymail addresses, or to people who have previously left a review. Reviewers then verify with a LinkedIn account, a verified business email, or a personal email paired with a product screenshot.
3. Ask your whole customer list, not just your promoters. G2 prohibits "collecting reviews by any method that segments out potentially negative reviews" and says that if it finds a seller soliciting only positive reviews, it will remove the reviews.
4. If you offer an incentive, run it through G2 and pay for honesty. G2 caps any incentive at $100 USD, says eligibility "is never based on the opinions, positive or negative, expressed in the review", and labels incentivized reviews. Its guidelines prohibit incentivizing reviewers independently without disclosing it to G2.
5. Send the link privately. G2 warns that sharing landing pages publicly "can lead to them becoming compromised" and recommends direct email, closed forums, private groups and vetted partners.
6. Tell reviewers the AI rules before they write. G2 allows AI drafting only for reviewers who are LinkedIn Verified, on a seller-provided list or submitting in-app, and bans letting AI fabricate experiences or writing for someone else. Unverified reviewers may still use tools like Grammarly or Google Translate.
7. Let G2 send the reminders. When G2 handles outreach for a self-service campaign, reviewers receive up to three emails: one invitation and two reminders.
8. Later, refresh older reviews. G2's Review Refresh re-contacts past reviewers whose reviews were submitted between seven months and four years ago, no more than once every six months. Incentivized refresh campaigns need a minimum budget of $5,000, so this is a step for later, not launch week.

Why identity is the biggest single fake-review category

Identity issues account for 15,298 of the 20,671 fake reviews in G2's Fall 2026 index, against 5,373 for incentive abuse. Step 2 is the cheapest fix on the list: a customer who reviews from a work address or a LinkedIn account is far less likely to land in G2's largest fake-review category.

Why does G2 reject reviews?

G2 rejects reviews that break its community guidelines, and it says every review passes moderation before publication. The G2 community guidelines list what is not allowed:

• reviews of a product made by the reviewer's employer or its competitors
• fake or inauthentic experiences not tied to the reviewer's own use
• experiences older than two years
• vulgar or offensive language, spam or gibberish
• confidential third-party information the reviewer may not disclose
• plagiarized or copied text
• AI-generated text without qualifying identity verification, or not checked for accuracy

Two things G2 says it won't do are just as useful. It says it "cannot reject reviews simply for being generic", so a short review from a real customer is not doomed. And trial-user reviews are welcome, but G2's moderators may return one if the reviewer's experience with the product is too limited.

Does G2 pay for reviews?

Yes, sometimes, and the money usually comes from you. G2's guidelines say it occasionally offers incentives such as gift cards or a donation for honest reviews, capped at $100. In a self-service incentivized campaign, the vendor picks the gift card type and amount, and G2 bills the vendor only for approved reviews; rejected or pending reviews aren't charged, according to the campaign documentation.

That billing model means a removed review costs you no gift card, but it still costs you the review. Cleaning the list first is where the published count is won.

How to get reviews without breaking FTC rules

The FTC's Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule took effect on October 21, 2024. The FTC's own questions and answers on the rule make three points that matter for a G2 campaign:

• Incentives are allowed. "The rule does not prohibit giving incentives for reviews." What it bars is an express or implied requirement that the review be positive. The FTC's example of an implied condition: "Tell us how much you loved your visit to John's Steakhouse and get a $5 coupon."
• Expecting praise isn't the violation. The FTC says a business expecting an incentivized review to be positive does not by itself create a requirement that it be positive.
• Disclosure still matters. The rule itself doesn't require disclosing incentives, but the FTC warns that failing to disclose them could violate the FTC Act.

Enforcement is real. On December 22, 2025, the FTC said it had sent warning letters to ten businesses over fake reviews and incentives for 5-star reviews, and noted civil penalties of up to $53,088 per violation. In April 2026 it announced an action against TruHeight, alleging thousands of five-star reviews written by employees and free or discounted products given in exchange for 5-star reviews; the release describes a $4 million judgment, partly suspended, with $750,000 to be paid.

The strongest case for review gating, and why it fails on G2

Review gating means sending an NPS survey first and inviting only the 9s and 10s to review. The best argument for it is legal: asked whether a business may request reviews only from customers it thinks are happy, the FTC answers that "the rule does not contain a specific prohibition against such conduct." But the same answer says the practice "could violate the FTC Act", and G2's own guidelines ban segmenting out likely negative reviews outright. On G2, gating risks the reviews you collected, not just a letter.

How many reviews does a new SaaS need?

For G2's reports, the published bar is ten. G2's quarterly reports page says a product needs "at least 10 reviews in the corresponding category" to qualify for a Grid report. That makes ten approved reviews, in the category where buyers compare you, the first target worth planning around.

Skip an incentivized campaign if you don't yet have ten customers who have used the product properly. A gift card can't turn a two-day trial into an experience G2's moderators will accept, and a smaller list of active accounts is the better ask.

When to ask SaaS customers for a review

G2's rules set the outer limits: the experience must be within two years, and a trial that is too limited may be returned. Inside those limits, our view is to ask after a customer has a concrete result to describe, for example right after a renewal or a support case closed well, rather than at signup. That is a judgment, not a G2 rule.

Reviews beyond G2 work by the same logic

G2 is one place buyers check. We run another: Upfynd is our site, a directory where G2 itself is listed among 3,132 published products as of October 23, 2026. On Upfynd, a review describes the reviewer's own experience; makers can reply to reviews but can't review their own product. The guide to writing a review on Upfynd explains how customers leave one, and our community guidelines cover what is allowed.

If your product is already listed, the answer to someone else listing your product explains how to claim it, which lets you reply to reviews. If it isn't, listing is free through submit a product. Growth tools for makers sit in the SEO & Growth category, which held 350 products as of October 23, 2026.

Your next step

Export your active customers with work email addresses and at least a few weeks of real use, drop anyone employed by you or a competitor, and keep the detractors on the list. Then create a non-incentivized campaign in my.G2 under Reviews, Collect Reviews, Create Campaign, and only add an incentive once you've seen how many of those invitations turn into approved reviews.