The short answer
The main Capterra alternatives for a software vendor are TrustRadius, SourceForge, Product Hunt, AlternativeTo, SaaSHub, Gartner Peer Insights and flat-fee directories such as SoftwareHome. G2, GetApp and Software Advice no longer count as alternatives, because G2 now owns Capterra and both of the others. Keep the free Capterra profile, cap or stop the pay per click spend, and move that budget to the two or three sites where your buyers already look.
Why vendors look for a Capterra alternative
Capterra has always been the pay per click one. You bid for position in a category, you pay when someone clicks through to your site, and the auction sets the price. The publicly reported floor is a $2 minimum bid with a budget of around $500 a month. In busy categories like CRM, help desk and ERP, vendors report that bids under $15 to $20 leave them near the bottom of the page.
That model is fine when a click turns into a trial and a trial turns into revenue. It hurts when your trial converts at 2 percent and your average customer pays $30 a month: at $10 a click you are spending $500 to get one trial, and several trials to get one customer.
The second reason is ownership. On February 5, 2026, G2 closed its purchase of Capterra, GetApp and Software Advice from Gartner, for a reported $110 million. Anyone who used Capterra as the hedge against a G2 renewal now has both lines of spend going to the same company. Our write-up of G2 alternatives for small SaaS vendors covers the G2 side of that decision.
Capterra pricing for vendors, briefly
A basic Capterra profile costs nothing and is worth keeping: it holds your reviews and it ranks for "your product reviews" searches. Everything paid is pay per click, bid by category, with the $2 minimum and roughly $500 monthly floor reported above. There is no published rate card, so treat any number you read, including ours, as a range to check with an account rep.
Sites like Capterra, compared for vendors
All of these take a free profile. The columns that matter are how you pay, who reads the site, and who owns it now.
| Site | How you pay | Who reads it | Owner | Where it beats Capterra |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capterra | Pay per click, reported $2 minimum | Small business buyers | G2 | Baseline |
| TrustRadius | Annual programs, quoted privately | Enterprise and mid market evaluators | Independent of G2 | Long, detailed reviews that procurement teams read |
| SourceForge | Advertising packages | Developers and IT | Independent of G2 | Technical buyers Capterra barely reaches |
| Product Hunt | Free launch, optional ads | Early adopters, other founders | Independent of G2 | A launch spike and first reviews at no cost |
| AlternativeTo | Free, optional ads | People replacing a tool they use | Independent of G2 | Catching switchers from a named competitor |
| Gartner Peer Insights | Free for vendors | Enterprise procurement | Gartner | Enterprise shortlists, if you sell that high |
| SoftwareHome | $49 one-off listing, $299 a week featured | Buyers comparing tools inside a category | Independent of G2 | Flat, published price and live the same day |
Which Capterra alternative fits which vendor
You sell to small businesses and Capterra PPC is not paying back
Cut the bid to the minimum or pause it, keep the profile, and put a fixed budget into flat-fee listings. A software directory submission round across the comparison sites costs less than one month of a $500 click floor, and the listings keep working after you stop paying. Add AlternativeTo so people leaving a competitor can find you.
You sell to mid market or enterprise teams
TrustRadius and Gartner Peer Insights reach the people who write the requirements document. Both reward a steady flow of detailed reviews more than ad spend, so the real cost is the time it takes to ask customers after a good quarterly review or a renewal.
You sell developer or infrastructure tools
SourceForge and Product Hunt, then the category directories your users already browse. Capterra's audience skews toward small business owners buying finished software, which is rarely who installs an SDK.
You just launched
Do not start with any auction. Claim the free profiles, launch on Product Hunt, take a flat-fee listing or two for a fast indexed page, and ask your first ten customers for reviews. The full list of where to be, with costs side by side, is on our software review sites comparison for vendors.
How to move budget off Capterra without losing leads
- Pull 90 days of Capterra clicks and match them to trials and paid accounts in your CRM. Cost per customer is the number that matters, not cost per click.
- Lower bids in the categories that produced no customers first. Keep the one category that did, at the lowest bid that holds a visible position.
- Put the saved budget into two alternatives from the table, chosen by where your buyers are, and tag every listing link with UTM parameters.
- Make sure the page those listings point to is doing its job. A directory click that lands on a vague homepage wastes the spend wherever it came from, so it is worth running a quick landing page conversion audit before you judge any directory on its numbers.
- Compare cost per trial across all of them after 60 days and keep only the winners.
Most vendors who do this end up keeping a small Capterra budget rather than none. The point is that it becomes one line among several, sized by what it produces.
Questions vendors ask about Capterra alternatives
What is the best alternative to Capterra?
For most small SaaS vendors the best alternative is not one site but a mix: TrustRadius for detailed reviews, Product Hunt or AlternativeTo for discovery, SourceForge if you sell to developers, and a curated directory with a one-off fee for a fast, indexed profile. Since G2 bought Capterra, G2 itself is no longer a separate alternative.
How much does Capterra cost for vendors?
A basic Capterra profile is free. Paid visibility runs on pay per click: the publicly reported minimum bid is $2 a click with a budget floor around $500 a month, and competitive categories such as CRM and ERP often clear well above $10 a click. Capterra does not publish a rate card, so check the current terms with your account rep.
Is Capterra owned by G2?
Yes. G2 completed its acquisition of Capterra, GetApp and Software Advice from Gartner in February 2026, for a reported $110 million. The sites still run under their own names, but a vendor spreading budget across G2 and Capterra is now paying one company.
Is Capterra PPC worth it for a small SaaS?
It can be, if your category has steady buyer searches and your trial converts well, because you only pay for clicks and can stop after a month. It rarely works when a free trial converts below a few percent, since clicks at $5 to $15 add up quickly. Run it as a capped 30 day test tied to signups, not visits.
Are there sites like Capterra without pay per click?
Yes. TrustRadius and G2 sell annual programs instead of clicks, Product Hunt and AlternativeTo are free to list with optional ads, and directories such as SoftwareHome charge a flat one-off fee for an instant listing. Flat pricing is easier to budget when you are not sure how many clicks a category will send.