[Best Customer Success Software](https://bestcustomersuccesssoftware.com/) / How we score

Scoring rules

# How We Score Customer Success Software

**Every platform gets our rating out of 10.** Under it, each card shows what the facts show: seven categories, each scored out of 10 by the rules below. A vendor that doesn't publish a fact gets no points for it, and GainTrace is scored with the same rules as every other platform.

0 paid placements · Checked 9 November 2026

## The seven categories

| Category | How points are earned (out of 10) |
| --- | --- |
| Go-live speed | 14 days or less: 10; 15 to 30 days: 8; 31 to 45 days: 6; 46 to 60 days: 4; Over 60 days: 2; Not published: 1; A range counts at its top end. When a vendor's own pages give different figures, or none, we use [G2](https://www.g2.com/)'s reviewer average where we can read one, and otherwise the longest figure the vendor publishes. |
| Price and terms | Price on its own site: 3; Start without a sales call: 3; No required implementation fee: 2; No minimum annual term: 2; |
| Seats | Every user free: 10; Viewers free, editors paid: 5; Every user paid, capped or not stated: 2; |
| AI and MCP | MCP, up to 5 Official and generally available: 5; Beta, early access or connectors only: 2; AI, up to 5 Included: 5; Partly paid: 3; Paid add-on, credits, top plans only or beta: 2; |
| Market presence | [Gartner Magic Quadrant](https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/8524609), 19 October 2026, up to 5 Leader: 5; In another quadrant: 3; Not named: 0; Years in market, up to 5 10 or more: 5; 5 to 9: 3; 2 to 4: 2; Under 2: 1; |
| Self-serve, no admin | Whether a team can sign up on its own and run the platform without a dedicated admin or a vendor-run setup. It draws on the [start test](https://bestcustomersuccesssoftware.com/for-small-teams/#start-test) and the [upkeep test](https://bestcustomersuccesssoftware.com/for-small-teams/#upkeep-test). |
| Integrations | The native integrations each platform lists on its own site. |

## How our rating works

Our rating is our overall view of each platform, out of 10. It weighs the seven fact scores and how good and easy to use each platform is, so it isn't a fixed formula, and two platforms with similar facts can get different ratings.

## Scores by platform

| Platform | Our rating | Go-live speed | Price and terms | Seats | AI and MCP | Market presence | Self-serve, no admin | Integrations |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| GainTrace | 8.8 | **10**about 7 days | **10**all four | **10**every user free | **8**MCP 5, AI partly paid 3 | **1**not named, under 2 years | **10** | **4** |
| Planhat | 8.2 | **2**about 3 months | **2**no required fee | **5**viewers free | **7**MCP 5, AI credits 2 | **10**Leader, founded 2015 | **0** | **6** |
| Vitally | 7.9 | **4**1.9 months | **0**none of the four | **5**observers free | **7**MCP 5, AI in beta 2 | **6**Niche Player, founded 2017 | **0** | **6** |
| Custify | 7.7 | **8**under 4 weeks | **2**no setup fees | **2**seats capped | **7**MCP 5, AI credits 2 | **6**Visionary, founded 2017 | **0** | **8** |
| Velaris | 7.4 | **2**8 to 10 weeks | **0**none of the four | **5**viewers free | **7**MCP connectors 2, AI included 5 | **6**Visionary, founded 2021 | **0** | **8** |
| Gainsight | 7.2 | **2**about 5 months | **0**none of the four | **5**viewers free | **8**MCP 5, AI partly paid 3 | **10**Leader, founded 2009 | **0** | **8** |
| ChurnZero | 7.0 | **2**about 3 months | **0**none of the four | **2**not stated | **7**MCP 5, AI add-on credits 2 | **10**Leader, founded 2015 | **0** | **8** |
| ClientSuccess | 6.7 | **6**4 to 6 weeks | **4**no fees, monthly option | **2**licences capped | **4**MCP early access 2, AI add-on 2 | **5**not named, founded 2014 | **5** | **6** |
| Odie (formerly Totango) | 6.4 | **4**about 8 weeks | **3**price published | **10**no seat pricing | **7**MCP 5, AI tokens 2 | **5**not named, founded 2010 as Totango | **0** | **6** |

[Download the data (CSV)](https://bestcustomersuccesssoftware.com/how-we-score/scores.csv)

## Rules that keep it fair

1. **No published fact, no points.** The one exception is go-live speed, where "not published" scores 1, since every platform goes live eventually.
2. **Announced isn't shipped.** Gainsight's value-based pricing, planned for next year, doesn't count until it's live.
3. **A renamed company keeps its founding year.** Odie counts from Totango's 2010.
4. **Not in the fact scores:** review stars, customer counts or funding. How good and easy to use a platform is counts toward our rating, not toward the fact scores.
5. **A rule change applies to every platform.** We re-score all nine and date the change [below](https://bestcustomersuccesssoftware.com/how-we-score/#changes). A rule never changes to move one score.
6. **GainTrace scores 1 out of 10 on market presence.** It's the newest platform here.

## The tests on our team pages

Our team pages add checks the scores don't cover. Each uses one method, applied to all nine platforms:

- **[Seat test](https://bestcustomersuccesssoftware.com/for-small-teams/#seat-test):** who gets billed when three people work in the tool and ten only look.
- **[Commitment test](https://bestcustomersuccesssoftware.com/for-small-teams/#commitment-test):** minimum term and billing options.
- **[Start test](https://bestcustomersuccesssoftware.com/for-small-teams/#start-test):** where each site's main "start", "try" or "get started" button actually goes, followed by hand.
- **[Upkeep test](https://bestcustomersuccesssoftware.com/for-small-teams/#upkeep-test):** time to go live, and who runs the setup.
- **[Data path test](https://bestcustomersuccesssoftware.com/for-plg/#data-path):** native connectors to product-usage tools.
- **[Growth test](https://bestcustomersuccesssoftware.com/for-plg/#growth):** what the price is based on, and any limits.
- **[Hiring data](https://bestcustomersuccesssoftware.com/for-small-teams/#small):** 2,288 post-sale job postings with a description, at 903 software companies. A role counts as CS Operations only if its title says customer success operations, CS Ops or CS systems, checked by hand.

## Change notes

- **10 November 2026:** each platform now has our rating out of 10 in place of the weighted total. The rating weighs the fact scores and how good and easy to use each platform is. Added two fact categories, self-serve with no admin and integrations, and dropped the category weights.
- **9 November 2026:** updated ChurnZero's go-live time to about three months, where it had been not published.
- **9 November 2026:** corrected three go-live times: Planhat, Gainsight and Velaris.
- **9 November 2026:** renamed the criterion "Start free without a sales call" to "Start without a sales call", when GainTrace dropped its free plan. No platform's score changed: GainTrace still lets you start without a call, and the other eight still lead to a demo request.
- **9 November 2026:** added the seat, commitment, start, upkeep, data path and growth tests.
- **8 November 2026:** first scores published. The facts behind them include:
  - Gainsight's MCP becoming generally available on 19 October 2026;
  - Vitally's official MCP server, live since 19 August 2026;
  - Totango becoming Odie on 10 September 2026.

---

HTML version of this page: https://bestcustomersuccesssoftware.com/how-we-score/
[How we score](https://bestcustomersuccesssoftware.com/how-we-score/) · [Privacy](https://bestcustomersuccesssoftware.com/privacy/) · [Terms](https://bestcustomersuccesssoftware.com/terms/)