Who Owns Your Software Reviews? What the Fine Print Actually Says

Editorial note: This post covers Capterra's content policies as they existed under Gartner Digital Markets ownership. G2 acquired Capterra in early 2026, and terms may evolve under the new ownership. We'll update this post as policies change.

TL;DR

Your customers write them. The platforms own (or control) them. As the vendor being reviewed, you're a third party with conditional access. We read the actual Terms of Service for G2, Capterra, TrustRadius, SourceForge, and Gartner Peer Insights to find out exactly what you can do with your own reviews — on your website, in sales decks, on social media, and in ads. The short answer: it depends entirely on which platform, and some of the rules are stricter than you'd expect. Understanding these rules is essential to any serious review marketing strategy.

Your Customer Wrote It. So Who Owns It?

When a customer takes 15 minutes to write a detailed review of your product, it feels like something that belongs to you — or at least to them. After all, it's about your software, written by your customer, based on their experience.

But the moment they click "Submit," the ownership picture changes. Every review platform has Terms of Service that define who controls that content, what can be done with it, and under what conditions. Most vendors never read those terms. We did.

What we found is a spectrum. On one end, the platform claims outright ownership of submitted content. On the other, the reviewer technically retains ownership — but the platform takes a license so broad that the distinction barely matters. Either way, the vendor being reviewed has the least control over content that directly affects their sales.

What Each Platform Actually Claims

Here's what we found when we read the legal terms.

G2: Extensive Platform Control

G2 exercises extensive control over submitted content. In our reading of their Community Guidelines, reviews are treated as G2-controlled, with the platform holding broad rights over how they can be used and distributed — though the requirement for reviewer consent before republishing suggests reviewers retain some residual interest.

What vendors can do depends on their plan tier. G2's Community Guidelines break it down:

Free plans: Reference rankings, aggregated star ratings, and the "Users Love Us" badge — all with attribution and backlinks to G2.
Starter plan: Access report-based badges and review display widgets.
Professional plan or above: Republish actual customer reviews — but only with a backlink to the original review on G2, and only if the customer has opted in to having their review used.

What vendors can't do: republish G2 content without proper licensing and attribution. Even with a qualifying plan, all uses require backlinks and proper credit to G2.

Basic social proof signals are free. But if you want to quote an actual customer review — the specific words your customer wrote — you need Professional tier, and you need that customer's explicit consent. G2 requires that the reviewer opt in before their review can be republished — though G2 doesn't publicly document how that opt-in works in practice. If you're unsure whether a reviewer has opted in, contact your G2 account manager. Based on the published terms we reviewed, that consent layer is the only per-review customer consent requirement among the five platforms.

Capterra (Formerly Gartner Digital Markets, Now G2): The Reviewer "Owns" It, But Gartner Controls It

Capterra was part of Gartner Digital Markets until G2 acquired it in early 2026. The terms below reflect the Gartner-era policies still in effect — though they may evolve under G2 ownership.

Capterra's ownership structure is more nuanced. The reviewer retains authorship, but grants Gartner Digital Markets a perpetual, worldwide, irrevocable, exclusive, royalty-free license with full copyright enforcement rights.

That word "exclusive" is worth pausing on. It means that even though the reviewer technically wrote the review, the platform holds the exclusive right to enforce the copyright. In our reading, this could represent a stronger form of control than G2's model — the original author has signed away their own enforcement rights while nominally retaining authorship.

Note: This is our interpretation of the license language, not a legal determination. The practical difference between "exclusive license" and "ownership" may vary depending on jurisdiction and circumstances.

For vendors, though, Capterra is actually more permissive than G2: any vendor can quote reviews for free, as long as they follow the compliance rules below. No paid tier required.

The usage rules are detailed and actively enforced. The Gartner Digital Markets Content Compliance Policy requires that any quoted review appears exactly as it does on the source site — no corrections, no revisions, not even fixing a typo unless the vendor emails the compliance team and gets written approval first. Every use must include a specific legal disclaimer, link back to the source, and comply with formatting rules down to the size of the Capterra logo relative to the vendor's own logo.

One rule that catches vendors off guard: reviews cannot be used as a competitive weapon. Quoting a review of a competitor's product — even a published, public review — violates the policy and can result in a quote ban of up to three months.

Worth noting: Capterra doesn't charge vendors separately for the right to quote reviews. Any vendor — basic or upgraded — can use review content in their marketing as long as they follow the Content Compliance Policy. The cost here is operational (compliance overhead), not financial. This is one area where G2 and Capterra differ significantly for vendors evaluating where to focus review efforts.

TrustRadius: Non-Exclusive, But Paywalled for Vendors

TrustRadius takes a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide license with sublicensing rights through multiple tiers. The platform can modify, create derivative works, and distribute the content. Reviewers waive moral rights.

The interesting part is on the vendor side. TrustRadius explicitly sells the right to use your own reviews through Content Licensing — their TrustQuotes product. Vendors with an active license can use review content and variations as long as TrustRadius is cited and there's a link back to the original review. Without an active license, even basic use of review content is restricted to personal or internal business use under the general Terms of Use.

TrustRadius is explicit about the commercial structure: the reviews about your product exist on their platform, and if you want to use them on your website, in your emails, or in your sales materials, you pay for a content license.

TrustRadius isn't the only platform that paywalls review usage — G2 requires a Professional plan or above before vendors can republish reviews. The difference is in the packaging: G2 bundles republishing rights into their tiered subscription model, while TrustRadius sells content licensing as a distinct, named product.

SourceForge (Slashdot Media): Broad License, Less Enforcement

SourceForge's parent company, Slashdot Media, grants itself a worldwide, non-exclusive, sub-licensable, assignable, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right to use, reproduce, distribute, adapt, and create derivative works from any user-submitted content. Users retain ownership of their copyrights and trademarks.

In practice, SourceForge's terms are broad, but without a published Content Compliance Policy, enforcement is at least less documented — and appears less structured — than G2 or Capterra's. The terms still apply, but the policing infrastructure isn't comparable.

Gartner Peer Insights: Gartner's IP, Gartner's Rules

Gartner Peer Insights reviews are governed by Gartner's Content Compliance Policy, which treats them under the Gartner content usage framework. The policy mirrors the strictness of the Capterra compliance rules (both being Gartner properties).

The rules: verbatim quotes only — no paraphrasing, no summarizing. Reviews must be from within the last 12 months to be used in external marketing. Link-back and disclaimers required. No competitive use. No implying endorsement. And the same enforcement mechanism: violations can result in quote bans or penalties applied to your vendor profile.

The Pattern: Three Parties, One Power Structure

Across all five platforms, the same dynamic plays out. Three parties are involved in every review: the reviewer who writes it, the platform that hosts it, and the vendor being reviewed. In every case, the power flows the same direction.

The reviewer creates the content but gives up meaningful control at submission. The platform takes ownership or a license broad enough to be functionally equivalent. The vendor — the one whose product is being reviewed, the one whose business is most directly affected by what that review says — sits in third position with conditional, rule-bound access.

Think about how unusual this is compared to other industries. If a customer leaves a testimonial on your website, you can use it in your marketing (with their permission). If they leave a video review on their own YouTube channel, they control it. But software reviews on directories sit in a middle ground where neither the customer nor the vendor controls the asset — the platform does.

What You Can Do With Them: Platform by Platform

Here's the practical breakdown for when you want to use reviews on your website, in social media, in sales decks, or in advertising.

On Your Website

G2: Allowed with Professional plan or above. Must link back to the original review on G2.com, and the customer must have opted in. All uses require attribution.

Capterra: Allowed. Must use verbatim text exactly as it appears on the site. Must include the required legal disclaimer. Must link back to the source review or listing page.

TrustRadius: Allowed with an active Content Licensing subscription. Must cite TrustRadius and link back to the original review. Without a license, usage is limited to personal or internal business use.

SourceForge: No published vendor content policy. General ToS applies. Best practice: attribute and link back.

Gartner Peer Insights: Allowed under the Content Compliance Policy. Verbatim quotes only. Reviews must be less than 12 months old for external marketing. Disclaimers required.

In Sales Decks and Presentations

G2: Reviews allowed with Professional plan or above (customer opt-in required). Grid placements and report data require Content Subscription or à la carte license. All uses require backlinks and attribution.

Capterra: Allowed with verbatim text, proper disclaimers, and attribution. Cannot be included in corporate boilerplate.

TrustRadius: Requires Content Licensing subscription. TrustQuotes for Salesforce is specifically designed for this use case.

SourceForge: No specific vendor policy. General ToS applies.

Gartner Peer Insights: Allowed under Content Compliance Policy with verbatim quotes, disclaimers, and attribution. Cannot imply endorsement.

G2: Allowed with Professional plan or above. Customer must opt in. Must include attribution and backlink.

Capterra: Allowed with proper disclaimers and attribution. If there's a true character limitation (like on X/Twitter), you can skip the disclaimer if you link to something that hosts it in full.

TrustRadius: Requires active license. Must cite TrustRadius and link back.

SourceForge: No specific policy. Attribute and link.

Gartner Peer Insights: Allowed with disclaimers per the Content Compliance Policy. Character-limited platforms get the same exception as Capterra.

In Paid Advertising

G2: Requires Professional plan or above. Customer opt-in and attribution rules apply.

Capterra: Allowed with compliance. Disclaimers required.

TrustRadius: Requires Content Licensing subscription.

SourceForge: No specific vendor ad policy.

Gartner Peer Insights: Allowed under compliance policy. No endorsement implications.

One Thing No Platform Allows

No platform lets you use reviews as a weapon against a competitor. The Gartner properties (Capterra and Peer Insights) are explicit about this — using a competitor's review content to criticize them violates the compliance policy. In our reading, G2 and TrustRadius's terms don't include the same explicit prohibition, but using another vendor's reviews adversarially would still violate the spirit of most Terms of Service.

What This Means for Your Review Strategy

If you're investing in generating reviews — running campaigns, asking customers, offering incentives where allowed — it's worth understanding that you're building an asset on someone else's property under someone else's rules.

Directory reviews are among the most valuable third-party signals for buyer trust, AI search visibility, and organic discoverability. They're powerful precisely because they live on independent platforms, not on your website where you control the narrative.

But it does mean your review strategy should account for the terms governing each platform. A few practical implications:

Know before you publish. Before quoting a review in your next campaign, check the specific content policy for that platform. The rules differ enough that what's allowed on TrustRadius (with a license) could get you a compliance warning on Capterra.

Budget for access. If TrustRadius reviews are important to your sales process, the Content Licensing cost is a real line item. If G2 reviews matter, you'll need at least Professional tier to republish them — and you'll need customer consent for each review you use.

Diversify where your reviews live. When all your reviews are on a single platform, you're dependent on one company's terms, pricing, and enforcement decisions. No single platform's policy change should be able to restrict your access to review content you need for marketing.

Keep records. Save review content, dates, and attribution details. If terms change or platforms merge (as they do — G2 recently acquired several Gartner Digital Markets properties), having your own records means you're not scrambling.

If you're already out of compliance. If you've been using review content without meeting a platform's requirements, most platforms have a process for addressing violations. Reach out proactively — removing non-compliant uses and contacting the platform directly is typically better than waiting for enforcement.

FAQ

Can I use my G2 reviews on my website?

Yes, if you have a G2 Professional plan or above. You must link back to the original review on G2.com, and the customer must have opted in to having their review used. Basic signals like star ratings and badges are available on lower tiers, but republishing actual review text requires Professional.

Can I screenshot G2 reviews for sales decks?

With a Professional plan or above, you can republish reviews (including in sales decks) — but the same rules apply: you need customer opt-in, a backlink to the original review, and proper attribution. Without a qualifying plan, republishing G2 content in any form is restricted. For report data, Grid placements, or comparative content, you'd need a Content Subscription or à la carte report license.

Can I use my G2 reviews in paid advertising?

Yes, with a Professional plan or above. The same rules apply as other G2 review usage: the customer must have opted in to having their review used, you need a backlink to the original review, and proper attribution to G2. For report data or Grid placements in ads, you'd need a Content Subscription or à la carte report license.

Can I use Capterra reviews in paid advertising?

Yes, as long as you follow the Content Compliance Policy. You must use verbatim text exactly as it appears on Capterra, include the required legal disclaimer, and link back to the source. Unlike G2, Capterra doesn't charge separately for the right to quote reviews.

Only with an active Content Licensing subscription (TrustQuotes). Without a license, use of TrustRadius review content is restricted to personal or internal business use. If you have a license, you must cite TrustRadius and link back to the original review.

Can I use SourceForge reviews in my marketing?

SourceForge has no published vendor content policy, so general Terms of Service apply. Best practice is to attribute and link back to the original review. Without a published compliance policy, their enforcement appears less structured than G2 or Capterra's.

Can I use Gartner Peer Insights reviews in sales materials?

Yes, under the Content Compliance Policy — but with strict rules. You can only use verbatim quotes (no paraphrasing), reviews must be less than 12 months old for external marketing, and you need proper disclaimers and attribution. You cannot imply Gartner endorsement.

Can I use a competitor's reviews in my marketing?

No platform allows this. The Gartner properties (Capterra and Peer Insights) are explicit — using a competitor's review content to criticize them violates the compliance policy and can result in quote bans. G2 and TrustRadius don't have the same formal enforcement, but it would still violate Terms of Service.

Do I need to pay to use my own reviews?

It depends on the platform. G2 requires a Professional plan or above (plus customer opt-in for each review). TrustRadius requires a Content Licensing subscription (TrustQuotes). Capterra allows any vendor to quote reviews for free as long as they follow compliance rules. SourceForge has no specific vendor policy.

Sources (all accessed February 16, 2026)

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Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice. We are not lawyers. The information here reflects our reading of publicly available Terms of Service and content policies as of February 2026. Terms change, interpretations vary, and your specific situation may be different. If you need legal guidance on content licensing or intellectual property, consult a qualified attorney.