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Sales Enablement · head to head

Gainsight vs Responsive

Gainsight logo

Gainsight

Sales Enablement

The #1 Customer Success Platform

From
$2500/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Responsive logo

Responsive

Proposals

Strategic Response Management

From
$10000/year
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Gainsight limited customization options; teams resort to exports and scripts when platform lacks required fields; Responsive growth and Enterprise pricing requires contacting sales
  • They diverge on capability: Gainsight covers Health scores, Responsive covers AI content suggestions.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Gainsight and Responsive actually diverge.

Attributes where Gainsight and Responsive differ
AttributeGainsightResponsive
Starting price$2500/month$10000/year
CategorySales EnablementProposals
Founded20112015

Identical on both: pricing model (subscription), free tier (No), platforms (Web), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Gainsight

  • Health scores
  • Churn prediction
  • Playbook automation
  • Customer 360 view
  • Journey orchestration
  • HubSpot
  • Zendesk
  • Ios support

Only in Responsive

  • AI content suggestions
  • Response automation
  • Content library
  • Collaboration
  • Analytics
  • Microsoft Teams
  • Google Workspace

Both cover

  • Salesforce
  • Slack
  • Web support

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Gainsight

  • Customer Successnot Responsive
  • Retentionnot Responsive
  • Health Scoringnot Responsive

Responsive

  • Automated back-office administration for Canadian independent portfolio managersnot Gainsight
  • Client onboarding and compliance management for investment advisory firmsnot Gainsight

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Gainsight

  • Limited customization options; teams resort to exports and scripts when platform lacks required fields
  • Integration reliability issues; broken connectors and schema changes create stale health scores
  • Cannot automatically track emails within the platform; requires manual logging or third-party solutions
  • Long implementation and setup; typically requires 12-24 weeks and mandatory implementation services
  • High total cost of ownership; Year 1 costs often exceed $200K including required professional services

Responsive

  • Growth and Enterprise pricing requires contacting sales
  • Three-component pricing model (platform fee, per-user licenses, add-ons) may make budgeting complex

Pricing, plan by plan

Gainsight

$2500/month
  • Essentials$2500/month
    • Health scores
    • Customer 360
    • Playbooks
  • Enterprise$5000/month
    • Advanced analytics
    • AI predictions
    • Custom integrations

Responsive

$10000/year
  • Emerging Edition$10000/year
    • Unlimited response projects
    • AI & automation studio
    • Unlimited content collaboration
  • Growth Edition$null/contact sales
    • All Emerging features
    • Intake requests
    • LookUp & eSignature
  • Enterprise Edition$null/contact sales
    • All Growth features
    • Flexible custom AI
    • Enterprise security controls

Which should you pick?

Choose Gainsight if

  • You need health scores.
  • You also want churn prediction.
Gainsight review

Choose Responsive if

  • You need ai content suggestions.
  • You also want response automation.
Responsive review

Questions people ask

Is Gainsight or Responsive better?
Neither clearly leads. Gainsight starts at $2500/month and Responsive at $10000/year, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Gainsight or Responsive?
Gainsight starts at $2500/month and Responsive at $10000/year.
Does Gainsight or Responsive run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
What is Gainsight best used for?
Gainsight is most often used for customer success, retention, health scoring. Of those, customer success and retention are not what Responsive is typically brought in for.
What can Gainsight do that Responsive cannot?
Gainsight covers Health scores, Churn prediction, Playbook automation, Customer 360 view. Responsive covers AI content suggestions, Response automation, Content library, Collaboration. Both handle Salesforce, Slack, Web support.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Gainsight: Does Gainsight offer a free tier?

Gainsight does not offer a free trial for the main Customer Success Cloud platform. Gainsight PX (product analytics) offers a free Starter tier supporting up to 100 monthly active users.

Source
Responsive: How much does Responsive cost?

Responsive's Emerging Edition starts at $10,000/year. Growth and Enterprise pricing requires contacting sales. Pricing comprises three components: annual platform fee, per-user license costs, and optional add-ons for professional services and integrations.

Source
Gainsight: How is Gainsight priced?

Gainsight prices at $150-$300 per user/month for tier plans, but the main CS Cloud pricing is based on customer records managed. Initial deployments managing 500-1,500 customer records typically cost $60,000-$120,000 annually, with Year 1 costs often exceeding $200K including mandatory implementation.

Source
Responsive: What is included in the Emerging Edition?

The Emerging Edition at $10,000/year includes unlimited response projects, AI & automation studio, unlimited content collaboration, integrations, and admin support. It is designed for early-stage proposal teams with low-to-moderate RFP volume.

Source
Gainsight: What are Gainsight's core features?

Gainsight offers health scoring, customer journey orchestration, playbooks, in-app engagement, reporting, customer data consolidation via Customer 360, and Staircase AI for real-time engagement insights. It also includes Skilljar for customer education and Communities for self-service support.

Source
Responsive: When do I need Growth or Enterprise editions?

Growth Edition is for organizations with weekly RFP volume and cross-functional collaboration needs. Enterprise Edition is for complex multi-team operations with dedicated proposal teams and global or multi-region requirements. Both require custom quotes.

Source
Gainsight: What CRM integrations are available?

Gainsight integrates with Salesforce, HubSpot, and Slack. The Salesforce connector syncs account data, the HubSpot connector ingests engagement data, and Slack automation sends Gainsight notifications and alerts to channels.

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