ChurnZero is a Customer Success platform designed to help subscription businesses succeed through improved customer experiences.
ChurnZero
helps Customer Success team spot potential churn risks early and see
renewal and expansion opportunities faster. Its automation and
personalization, in-app communications, and Customer Success AI™ support engagement with customers and lead them to value. The platform offers
journeys, health scores, survey tools, segmentation, plays,…
N/A
Gainsight CS
Score 8.8 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Gainsight Customer Success (CS) is presented as a growth engine for modern post-sale teams. Built for CROs, CS leaders, and operations pros, it provides visibility into customer health, expansion potential, and revenue risk. With automation, AI, and health scoring, Gainsight helps scale outcomes without scaling headcount. With its playbooks and success plans to CSQL tracking and journey orchestration, Gainsight CS helps teams to take the right action at the right time, every time. Access to…
$2,500
Per Company Per Month
Planhat
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Planhat, headquartered in Stockholm, offers their modular suite of applications to subscription based businesses, providing customer success product usage health alerts and guidance, as well as revenue management for tracking subscriptions and business health.
This is my first time to be working off the Customer Success platform on a day-to-day basis. While I have not had the chance to work closely with other Customer Success Platforms, I would love to experiment with Planhat sometime due to the favorable reviews I have come across …
While Gainsight CS and PX are owned by the same parent company, they couldn't be more different on a fundamental level. PX is a nuts and bolts usage data platform which reports on many of the same datapoints as ChurnZero, but beyond that, PX has very little in terms of team …
Gainsight CS - you need a team to manage this tool; not intuitive to use, and you're not able to be as agile once configured
GUIDEcx- One of my favorites in the space, and so easy to set up, configure, customize, and scale. Able to connect onboarding milestones to SFDC cases, …
ChurnZero seemed a little more geared towards our customer base and goals. Their onboarding was thorough and included (Gainsight's was not). Cost/Budget also came into the picture as well!
ChurnZero was the perfect mix of tools and features at the right price. It has scaled as we've scaled and the new features they roll out are always industry firsts.
Gainsight is a great software, and a good alternative to ChurnZero. However for us, ChurnZero had made a number of key changes to their product suite that helped us decide for it over Gainsight. For instance the integrated AI text generator, the new round robin, enhanced note …
Our management team reviewed both Gainsight and Totango, while both were very robust and feature rich, the cost and price point did not make sense for a team of our size and where we would be scaling to. It also seemed that through our conversations both of those tools would …
ChurnZero is a better fit out of the box for our business in terms of its features, functions, usability, scalability, serviceability, and costs. We really wanted a customer success platform that doesn't take a long time to deploy while being flexible enough to allow us to …
We selected ChurnZero based on price and having the functionality we needed for right now. Gainsight had more features, but at a much higher cost and these features weren't necessarily items we needed to get ourselves up and running now.
ChurnZero was a solution that better fit our needs. The pricing was better for our budget, and the product wasn't split up into pieces like some other products were. As a B2B software company, the ability to have ChurnZero sit in our app for success centers, walkthroughs, and …
ChurnZero was feature-rich and had everything we needed (Totango was lacking in key features such as displaying a journey to a customer and having them follow along). ChurnZero was way more financially approachable than Gainsight. ChurnZero also was much more of a CS platform …
ChurnZero was the most competitive product for us given the price, ease of use, and feature availability.
Verified User
Director
Chose ChurnZero
[N/A]
Verified User
Account Manager
Chose ChurnZero
We selected ChurnZero as while the other platforms (not limited to those listed here, just some aren't options on TrustRadius), ChurnZero matched my concept for what I wanted to provide my team. Until I tried ChurnZero in a demo site, I was completely sold on ClientSuccess, but …
The in-app messaging based on certain segments was the key differentiator. Also, while they are growing as an organization and expanding their portfolio of customers, they are extremely receptive to product suggestions, most of our suggestions we have given them have been …
My companies both chose Gainsight before I arrived, so I was not part of that process. I have evaluated ChurnZero outside of the process and I think it's a great tool - maybe more so for smaller companies.
We went with Gainsight above Totango or ChurnZero primarily because of the maturity of their organization. They are the market & thought leaders on Customer Success management and we wanted that in our corner when maturing our own CS organization. Gainsight is also the most …
We were users of ChurnZero -- however, it reached a point where the features and functionality of Gainsight surpassed what ChurnZero was offering at the time
Gainsight CS simply had a broader set of functionality that we wanted. That said, if Vitally or ChurnZero were to close a few of the functionality gaps that mattered to us, we would prefer to use either of those competitor products.
Gainsight CS is more user friendly than ChurnZero on the CSM side and the UI in general is more up-to-date and easier to glean insight. ChurnZero just looks outdated.
Gainsight CS is a little more polished and has a wider range of capabilities. However, Planhat did appear to be very easy to use. The biggest difference was PlanHats admin capabilities and how simple it was to configure. Planhat was also considerably less expensive.
Gainsight CS is beautiful and much more user friendly HOWEVER it does take more time to set up to have the desired impact than a software like ChurnZero.
Gainsight certainly outperforms Startdeliver, but it's about use cases (Startdeliver is for a certain niche), and everything is better than Salesforce. Planhat, however, is becoming a clear key player here, overtaking the momentum and becoming the market leader and next-gen …
More customization with Gainsight CS, but Churn zero did have a great UI and easier to use. Would recommend CZ if you're a smaller company with no technical admin.
Overall look and feel of the platform was what won us initially. We demoed these two side by side and everyday navigation for the CSM's was easier. In the end this is very important as the data is the data either way but if the CSM's enjoy using it and feel the impact on their …
Gainsight not only has the superior technology, (by a lot) but they have the community, documentation, LMS to overcome the inevitable struggles of adopting a new tool for the first time. It scales with your business and is built for start ups, mid size and large enterprise …
When evaluating Planhat, we found that it had a better UI and was a more rounded product than Churn Zero. Planhat was considerably more expensive than Churn Zero, but we felt that the extra investment was worthwhile given that the product better met our needs.
We needed a software that would not take months to set up and learn how to use. We needed powerful data that was easy to understand and action based on health scores dropping, etc. It was also important for us to be able to get our full team on the platform so that we could all …
Verified User
Vice-President
Chose Planhat
Planhat was the most agile and easy to use software, while still having unique and powerful features that allowed us to really customize the software around our organization and needs. Planhat is more than a Customer Success tool in essence and adds tremendous value and …
Verified User
Vice-President
Chose Planhat
Planhat has a better UI, covers a wide range of features and use-cases. It covers hybrid tech-touch and high touch well. Strong on revenue management.
Verified User
General Manager
Chose Planhat
Planhat won on best UI, easy to use, easy to set up and had the enterprise-grade features we were looking for.
Features
ChurnZero
Gainsight CS
Planhat
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
ChurnZero
8.5
193 Ratings
3% below category average
Gainsight CS
8.2
283 Ratings
7% below category average
Planhat
7.8
13 Ratings
11% below category average
Role-based user permissions
8.5193 Ratings
8.2283 Ratings
7.813 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
ChurnZero
9.5
205 Ratings
9% above category average
Gainsight CS
8.1
331 Ratings
7% below category average
Planhat
7.9
13 Ratings
9% below category average
API
9.1167 Ratings
7.9222 Ratings
8.212 Ratings
Integration with Salesforce.com
10.0171 Ratings
8.5325 Ratings
7.79 Ratings
Integration with Marketo
00 Ratings
7.977 Ratings
00 Ratings
Integration with Eloqua
00 Ratings
8.039 Ratings
00 Ratings
Customer Data Extraction / Integration
Comparison of Customer Data Extraction / Integration features of Product A and Product B
ChurnZero
9.6
221 Ratings
9% above category average
Gainsight CS
7.7
350 Ratings
13% below category average
Planhat
8.2
14 Ratings
7% below category average
Product usage
9.2218 Ratings
7.8335 Ratings
8.414 Ratings
Help desk / support tickets
10.0177 Ratings
7.5267 Ratings
7.912 Ratings
Customer Success Management
Comparison of Customer Success Management features of Product A and Product B
ChurnZero
9.6
226 Ratings
11% above category average
Gainsight CS
8.1
353 Ratings
6% below category average
Planhat
8.1
14 Ratings
6% below category average
NPS surveys
9.3198 Ratings
8.6284 Ratings
8.112 Ratings
Sponsor tracking
9.079 Ratings
7.4229 Ratings
8.09 Ratings
Customer profiles
9.9211 Ratings
8.5305 Ratings
9.014 Ratings
Automated workflow
9.9218 Ratings
8.2334 Ratings
6.913 Ratings
Internal collaboration
10.0185 Ratings
7.6320 Ratings
8.613 Ratings
Customer health scoring
9.9223 Ratings
8.5343 Ratings
8.314 Ratings
Customer segmentation
9.2217 Ratings
8.0293 Ratings
7.814 Ratings
CSM Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of CSM Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
If you are a SaaS business with a high volume of customers, having ChurnZero is a must. If you have a subscription based business and a customer success or account management function in your company, I would highly recommend ChurnZero.
I love using Gainsight CS for global collaboration, monitoring account health, digging into potential churn risks, summarizing account activity, logging account activity and having an overall historic record of account activity across multiple account teams, especially in my segment on a global account team.
For someone working in the Customer Success team, Planhat is a must-have software. All your client-level data can be easily managed, stored, and reviewed at any point in time by Planhat. It also helps the management and the leadership team better see each account and its usage. It also helps in identifying potentially risky customers and taking the required actions to engage and retain the account. It also gets integrated easily with other meeting recording tools wherein the summary from the tool gets easily synced with Planhat
ChurnZero has excellent customer success! They worked very hard to ensure a successful implementation and launch.
The CZ platform gives a detailed view of customer usage. We know exactly how clients are using our platform which allows us to provide excellent customer success services. This allows helps our product team understand the needs of clients and the success of new features.
We are able to create plays based on usage which provides a customized and personal experience for each user. CZ makes it possible to give our clients what they need when they need it.
Ability to capture all customer information in one spot
Gantt charts for overall success plans to map out TAM deliverables
Automatically integrate feeds from sources to build reports as needed
Ability to capture customer follow-up tasks so I'm not trying to capture the list of actions too repetitively (e.g. using the "Tasks" section of an entry)
Ability to use the plugin to automatically add emails to timeline; ability to use calendar integration to automatically add meeting minutes that will sync up to Gong notes
Reporting - you can set up filters with boolean criteria to give you insight into everything you need to know.
Playbooks - these are very good for less-experienced CSM's who need a step-by-step guide on how to deal with different stages of the customer lifecycle. More experienced CSM's may not need the playbooks.
Usage data for customers - there's a wide range of charts in Planhat that tell the story of client consumption.
When composing an email out of segments, the ability to save it as a draft to review later would be awesome, instead of needing to set up a Play
In the admin section, I love that we can have a color palate - but we'd like the color palete to be applied in other areas so CZ has more of our companies branding
The content templates can be hard to stylize if you don't know html
Add the Merge Fields functionality to tasks, especially tasks made by playbooks
Outlook integration could be better as within Outlook we do not get much insight of the account. While contacting a contact from Outlook, it will be great if the Outlook -Gainsight CS tool can show certain important information, like any pending CTAs, the latest billing amount, and pending certifications, etc. This will improve the communications and make it more aligned with the company and account perspectives.
Limitations of report creation are user level - As a user I can not create report as per my wish on my set of accounts. Only the admin user has access to that, and also it's very intuitive compared to Salesforce.
Dashboard customization - as a user I have very much limited options to put in my dashboard. It's all about CTA all the time.
Allow for cc'ing of AEs or others within the same organization from the messaging center. When I went to send a message from within Planhat, I had to manually type out the AE's email address every time if I wanted them cc'd.
The fonts were funky if I went to add text into an existing email template. For example, if I added in an extra sentence or paragraph, in Outlook on the recipient's end, the font was different despite looking the same within Planhat. Gmail was all consistent, Outlook was showing a different font.
Our team is very happy with the product after evaluating multiple vendors, including Gainsight, Totango and Planhat. We like the additional functionality that CZ offers on its enterprise version. We were strongly considering other products if the price was right and functionality worked, but the change management would have been too heavy and taken too long. The ChurnZero team has been a good partner to rely on and allowed us to free up our time and resources to focus on more pressing matters
Gainsight offers a level of support that I've not experience before. They will work with you to come up with a solution to a problem - or help match you with another client that has a similar setup as you to get their feedback. Also the functionality that we have built within the software works for us. It's 'easy' to use (once you get the hang of it) and our users rather enjoy working in the software.
ChurnZero makes my work life a complete game changer. I say it all the time ChurnZero is a one stop shop for data! I don't fumble through numerous different programs, try to remember different passwords, I literally login to CZ and it is right there in front of me
Gainsight CS earns a 10/10 usability rating for me by prioritizing strategic power and deep configurability over simplistic, rigid design. Instead of forcing users into a generic workflow, the platform allows us to build bespoke health scores and playbooks that align perfectly with our unique business model. This high degree of customization ensures that the tool acts as a tailored workspace that meets the needs of mature CS organization like ours. By leveraging the proactive CTA triggers, Gainsight CS reduces the manual burden on our CSMs, allowing them to focus on high-value customer interactions rather than administrative data hunting. It ultimately functions as a professional grade cockpit that empowers our team to manage complex revenue lifecycles with precision and repeatability.
It takes a while to learn Planhat even for experienced users. It has limitations in terms of what data you can present where, but its important to set internal guides outside Planhat as well so everybody working collaborative. But as CSM Planhat is a great- and critical tool which I use daily to optimise my work schedule and customer interaction with various topics.
Rarely any issues with availability or outages. When they do occur, there is excellent communication and consistent updates. Bugs are usually addressed in a timely manner, and communication around those issues is also extremely good
There are some times when it can take almost a minute to load some of our reports or the rules engine. Within a rule it can also take time to load the actions as they each load one at a time when scrolling. The ability to scroll without waiting would be ideal
I recently had the opportunity to interact with ChurnZero's customer support team, and I must say, I am thoroughly impressed. Their responsiveness and willingness to solve problems are exemplary. From the moment I reached out, their team displayed a level of professionalism and dedication that truly stood out.
The CSMs are very hands-on and helpful, both Elaine and Lane have provided a lot of guidance and value over the years. Support is responsive and will jump on things as needed. The thought leadership and community is probably the most valuable part of our support from Gainsight.
The support team couldn't be better. They are quick to respond, very helpful, and thorough. Our CS manager was always happy to schedule calls to go through specific feature queries and she ensured we had a smooth and quick setup.
The training and onboarding have been very helpful. Since I was not a part of the team when ChurnZero was implemented, it was important to get brought up to speed as quickly as possible and our CSM has been incredibly receptive in that regard.
The online videos are very good for basic tasks in the platform, but it isn't very descriptive or helpful trying to make your own specific variables fit the simple example that is typically used. Typically, I'll watch a video, try on my own and still have to get help from support or Customer Success team
I implemented CZ in 4 months. When I look back, this is not a long time where I needed to get to know CZ by myself (as I did not have knowledge of it at all..) study the Academy, playing around in the test environment and setting up in live environment.
I was not part of the implantation (I took over later). However, based on what was passed to me, the tool was not well implemented at our org. I think this had to do with complexity, wrong person assigned in our org, and org buy-in. I think it would have been very successful if we had a better assignment process internally.
Gainsight CS - you need a team to manage this tool; not intuitive to use, and you're not able to be as agile once configured GUIDEcx- One of my favorites in the space, and so easy to set up, configure, customize, and scale. Able to connect onboarding milestones to SFDC cases, and share out as a customer portal. Mixmax has been purchased in past companies to help fill in gaps of other tools (gives us scheduling links, in-inbox email templates, SFDC lead/contact and task management)
They're pretty neck and neck. Both are super similar. I love the icons for logging account activity in Totango. I also like the dropdown activity tab we have in Gainsight. We need to improve our auto forms for QBR notes and cancellation notes, but I do like that we can have details listed for the CSM to fill out without them having to think about it. Helps us improve our reporting efforts, too.
I was not the person involved in choosing Planhat, but it seems to me that Planhat is much better suited to an account management style role, whereas Hubspot is closer to a sales CRM instead. In my position, Planhat is better suited as it is more graphical, more flexible, and easier to find information on.
It can lean a little heavily toward Customer Success, but the ability to customize many areas based on specific user or account characteristics allows you to make it work across many different roles. This also makes collaboration within the tool across teams possible. It a flexible tool if you have a skilled admin to help guide your process building.
No metrics yet, but we have improved our at-risk customers by identifying risks earlier via our automated health score and with our Gainsight approved mitigation workflow, CSMs and leaders have better discipline with mitigation efforts and sharing at-risk customers across the org so other teams can step in and assist
Planhat has, for the first time, given us a 360-degree view of all our customers and access to all the different types of communication we have with them across different departments and functions.
The ability to automate workflows, tasks, and assign playbooks to the various phases of our customer lifecycle has aligned all our departments.