Gong Review: Pricing, Features & What the Data Shows
Revenue intelligence platform that records, transcribes, and analyzes every customer interaction.
What Gong Does
Gong is the category-defining revenue intelligence platform that records, transcribes, and analyzes every customer-facing interaction — sales calls, video meetings, and emails — to surface patterns that drive better deal outcomes. With 60 job postings in our database, Gong is one of the most in-demand sales technology tools in the market. The platform doesn't just record calls — it uses AI to analyze thousands of conversations simultaneously, identifying what top performers do differently, which deals are genuinely progressing, and where the pipeline has hidden risks.
What makes Gong transformative for sales organizations is the shift from anecdote-based management to data-driven coaching. Before Gong, sales managers relied on rep-reported deal updates and occasional ride-alongs to understand what was happening in the field. Gong makes every conversation visible and searchable — a manager can review an AI summary of every call in their team's pipeline, compare top and bottom performers on specific metrics (talk-to-listen ratio, question count, competitor mentions), and intervene in at-risk deals with specific coaching points backed by conversation data.
Founded in 2015 in Palo Alto, Gong has expanded from pure conversation intelligence into a broader revenue platform. The deal intelligence features analyze engagement patterns across a deal's lifecycle — meeting frequency, stakeholder involvement, sentiment trends — to predict which opportunities will close and which are at risk. Forecasting features use conversation signals rather than rep guesses to project quarterly outcomes. Gong Engage — the sales engagement module — brings prospecting sequences into the same platform as conversation analytics.
The practical buyer consideration is team size and deal value. Gong's AI analysis becomes valuable when you have enough conversation data for patterns to emerge — typically 20+ reps generating hundreds of calls per month. The insights are most actionable for complex B2B sales with $25K+ deal sizes where coaching and deal strategy meaningfully impact close rates. For teams under 10 reps or companies selling transactional products, Gong's $100-150/user/month pricing is hard to justify when managers can listen to a handful of calls manually.
Gong Key Features
Conversation Intelligence
Records and transcribes sales calls, video meetings (Zoom, Teams, Google Meet), and emails. AI analysis extracts talk-to-listen ratios, question frequency, monologue length, filler word usage, competitor mentions, pricing discussions, and next steps from every conversation. Conversations are searchable by keyword, topic, or participant. The analysis happens automatically — reps don't need to tag or categorize calls. For managers, the key value is being able to review conversation patterns across the entire team without listening to every recording.
Deal Intelligence
Analyzes the health of individual deals based on conversation and engagement signals. Tracks which stakeholders have been involved in conversations, how meeting frequency is trending, what topics have been discussed, and whether next steps are being followed up. Deal boards show pipeline with AI-generated risk indicators — deals where engagement is declining, where key stakeholders have disappeared, or where competitor mentions are increasing. This signal-based deal visibility is more reliable than rep-reported updates.
Revenue Forecasting
Projects quarterly revenue based on conversation signals and deal engagement patterns rather than rep-submitted forecast numbers. The AI model learns from historical patterns — which conversation signals correlated with won deals, which engagement patterns predicted losses — and applies those patterns to the current pipeline. The forecasting is most accurate for organizations with 6+ months of historical data in Gong and deal sizes large enough that individual deal outcomes materially impact quarterly numbers.
Coaching & Enablement
Compares conversation behaviors between top and bottom performers — identifying which talk tracks, question sequences, and objection handling approaches correlate with higher close rates. Managers can create coaching scorecards, assign call reviews, and track improvement over time. Call libraries curate examples of excellent conversations by topic (discovery calls, pricing discussions, competitive situations) for rep training. The coaching features are most impactful for ramping new hires and upleveling mid-performers.
Gong Engage (Sales Engagement)
Multi-channel prospecting and engagement features added as Gong expands beyond conversation intelligence. Includes email sequences, call tasks, and workflow automation. Competes with Outreach and Salesloft for the engagement workflow. The differentiation is the integration with Gong's conversation intelligence — engagement sequences can be optimized based on which messaging and call patterns the AI identifies as most effective. Still less mature than dedicated SEPs for complex multi-channel campaigns.
Smart Trackers & Alerts
Custom AI-powered trackers that monitor conversations for specific topics — competitor mentions, pricing pushback, budget concerns, specific product features, or custom keywords relevant to your sales process. Alerts notify managers or reps when tracked topics appear in conversations. This is useful for competitive intelligence (tracking how often competitors are mentioned and in what context), pricing analysis (understanding where pricing resistance appears in the sales cycle), and deal risk management.
Who Uses Gong
Sales Coaching at Scale
The most impactful Gong use case. Sales managers use conversation intelligence to coach reps based on actual call data rather than subjective impressions. The coaching workflow: review AI-generated call summaries across the team, identify reps who are talking too much (>70% talk ratio), not asking enough discovery questions, or missing next steps. Create coaching plans with specific examples from recorded calls. Track improvement over time using Gong's metrics. For organizations with 20-50+ reps where managers can't listen to every call, Gong makes systematic coaching possible. The ROI compounds through improved rep performance — even a 10% improvement in close rate across 30 reps generates significant incremental revenue.
Pipeline Forecasting & Risk Management
Revenue leaders use Gong's deal intelligence and forecasting to improve quarterly prediction accuracy and catch at-risk deals early. The deal board shows engagement patterns for every opportunity — which deals have increasing stakeholder involvement (positive signal), which have gone quiet (risk signal), and which have recent competitor mentions (competitive risk). The AI forecasting model projects likely revenue based on conversation patterns rather than rep optimism. For VP Sales and CROs, this provides an earlier and more objective view of quarterly outcomes than traditional CRM-based forecasting.
New Rep Onboarding & Ramping
Enablement teams use Gong's call library and coaching features to ramp new hires faster. Instead of shadowing a veteran rep for weeks, new SDRs and AEs listen to curated collections of top-performing calls — best discovery conversations, successful objection handling, winning competitive presentations. Managers assign call reviews with specific learning objectives and track the new rep's conversation metrics as they start taking live calls. Companies report reducing ramp time by 20-40% using Gong's structured onboarding approach compared to traditional ride-along methods.
Gong Pricing
Professional
Call recording, transcription, basic analytics
Enterprise
Forecasting, deal intelligence, API access, custom integrations
Gong doesn't publish pricing, and the cost structure has multiple components. Based on buyer reports, per-seat pricing runs approximately $100/user/month for the Professional tier (conversation intelligence, basic analytics) and $150+/user/month for Enterprise (deal intelligence, forecasting, API access). On top of per-seat costs, there's typically a platform fee of $5,000-10,000/year.
For a 30-person sales team, total annual costs: Professional tier runs approximately $41,000-46,000/year (seats plus platform fee). Enterprise tier runs $59,000-64,000/year. Larger teams (50-100+ reps) can negotiate volume discounts that bring per-seat costs down 15-25%.
Minimum seat requirements typically apply — usually 5-10 seats. Annual contracts are standard with limited flexibility to reduce seat count mid-term. Implementation is typically included but may require 2-4 weeks for full deployment across recording integrations, CRM sync, and team onboarding.
Compared to alternatives: Chorus (now ZoomInfo) offers conversation intelligence bundled with ZoomInfo's data platform. Outreach and Salesloft have built in basic conversation intelligence features. Clari focuses more on forecasting than conversation analysis. Gong's pricing is premium but justified by the depth of conversation analytics and the breadth of deal intelligence features. For teams evaluating conversation intelligence as an add-on versus a standalone investment, Chorus via ZoomInfo may offer better value if you're already paying for ZoomInfo.
Job Market Demand for Gong
Gong appears in 60 job postings across 48 companies in our database of 23,338+ analyzed job postings. The average salary range for roles requiring Gong: $95K - $140K.
Department
- Director of Revenue Operations
- foxen (1)
Pros & Cons
Pros
- AI-powered conversation analysis reveals patterns across thousands of calls
- Deal intelligence pulls risk signals from actual conversations, not rep guesses
- Coaching features let managers compare top and bottom performers objectively
- Forecasting grounded in real deal activity instead of gut feel
- Deep integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoom, and major dialers
Cons
- Expensive per-seat pricing plus platform fees add up fast
- Recording calls raises privacy and consent concerns in some jurisdictions
- Steep learning curve before teams extract full value from analytics
- Requires consistent adoption across the team to generate useful data
- Annual contracts with limited flexibility to scale down
Best for: B2B sales organizations with 20+ reps who want data-driven coaching, deal intelligence, and forecasting based on actual conversations
Not ideal for: Small sales teams under 10 reps, budget-conscious startups, or teams in regions with strict call recording regulations
Gong Alternatives
| Tool | Starting Price | Job Mentions | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Groove Clari | Contact for pricing | 1 | — |
| Salesloft | $75/user/mo | 43 | Mid-market to enterprise sales teams with 10+ SDRs/AEs running structured outbound sequences |
| HubSpot CRM | $0 | 432 | Marketing-led B2B companies with 10-200 employees who want CRM + marketing automation in one platform |
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Gong cost per year?
For a team of 20 reps, expect to pay $25K-$40K/year at minimum, including platform fees and per-seat costs. Larger deployments with forecasting and deal intelligence features can run $100K-$200K+/year. There's no free tier or monthly billing option.
Is Gong worth it for small sales teams?
Probably not. Gong's value comes from analyzing patterns across hundreds or thousands of conversations. A 5-person team won't generate enough data for the AI to surface meaningful insights. At $100+/user/month, you're better off using a lighter call recording tool and reviewing calls manually.
What about call recording consent?
Gong can be configured to announce recording at the start of calls, and it supports consent workflows. But laws vary by state and country. Two-party consent states (like California) and GDPR jurisdictions require explicit approval. Make sure your legal team reviews compliance before rolling out.
Our Verdict on Gong
Gong is the right choice for B2B sales organizations with 20+ reps where conversation-driven coaching, deal intelligence, and data-based forecasting can meaningfully improve revenue outcomes. The AI-powered conversation analysis is genuinely category-defining — no other tool provides the same depth of insight across thousands of sales interactions. For complex B2B sales with $25K+ deal sizes, the ability to identify what top performers do differently, catch at-risk deals early, and forecast based on real engagement signals justifies the premium pricing.
The trade-off is cost and scale requirements. At $100-150/user/month plus platform fees, Gong is expensive for smaller teams. The AI analysis needs sufficient conversation volume to surface meaningful patterns — teams under 15-20 reps won't generate enough data for the insights to be statistically useful. Privacy and consent requirements in certain jurisdictions (two-party consent states, GDPR regions) create operational complexity. And for teams selling transactional products where individual deal coaching has minimal impact, Gong's sophistication is wasted on simple sales motions.
Gong appears in 60 job postings across 48 companies in our database, making it the most in-demand revenue intelligence tool we track. The average salary range of $95K-$140K spans from SDR to VP-level roles, reflecting Gong's broad adoption across sales organizations. The high company diversity (48 companies across 60 postings) confirms that Gong experience is valued broadly across the B2B sales market, not concentrated in a few organizations.
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