Delighted vs Gainsight
A side-by-side comparison of two customer success tools for small businesses.
Bottom line
For most small businesses, Delighted edges out Gainsight on overall SMB fit (8/10 vs 6/10), especially for Delighted is a strong fit for small retail and e-commerce brands that want post-purchase…. That said, weigh pricing and the feature breakdown below against your needs.
At a glance
| Attribute | Delighted | Gainsight |
|---|---|---|
| SMB score | 8/10 | 6/10 |
| Category | Customer Success | Customer Success |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| Starting price | — | Contact sales |
| Best for | Delighted is a strong fit for small retail and e-commerce brands that want post-purchase NPS or CSAT feedback without hiring a CX analyst. Service businesses—HVAC companies, salons, cleaning services—benefit from automated follow-up surveys that fire after each appointment. Early-stage SaaS startups use the web widget to catch friction during free trials or onboarding flows. Any SMB owner who currently guesses at customer sentiment, or relies entirely on public reviews to measure satisfaction, will find Delighted a faster, more structured alternative. It also suits HR managers at companies under 200 people who want a single tool for both customer and employee feedback rather than maintaining two separate subscriptions. | Gainsight is best suited for SaaS companies and subscription businesses that have reached a stage where customer retention and expansion revenue are board-level metrics, not afterthoughts. It shines for teams with a dedicated customer success function—even a single CSM—that needs to scale coverage across a growing account base without proportionally adding headcount. B2B SaaS companies with annual or multi-year contracts, managed service providers with recurring billing, and any subscription business where net revenue retention is tracked closely will find the most immediate ROI. It also works well for ops-minded founders who want systematic, repeatable CS processes in place before their team scales beyond a handful of people. |
Delighted
Run NPS, CSAT, and five-star surveys in minutes and turn customer feedback into decisions your whole team can act on.
Picture a boutique e-commerce shop that just fulfilled its 500th order. The owner wants to know if buyers are happy before reviews start rolling in on their own—but she has no budget for a research firm and no time to build a survey from scratch. She logs into Delighted, picks th…
Key features
- Eight ready-made survey formats including NPS, CSAT, CES, and smiley face
- Six distribution channels: email, web, link, embed, kiosk, and mobile SDK
- Real-time response dashboard with trend charts and sentiment filtering
- Automated recurring surveys triggered by time intervals or customer actions
- Conditional follow-up logic with up to 10 additional custom properties
- Native integrations with HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, Shopify, and Zapier
- Logo and brand-color customization included on every plan
- Employee pulse survey capability alongside customer feedback campaigns
Limitations
Delighted deliberately keeps survey design simple, which means teams that need multi-page questionnaires, complex skip logic trees, or rich media embedding will hit walls quickly. The free plan is limited to a modest number of monthly responses; growing businesses may find themselves needing a paid tier sooner than expected—verify current plan thresholds on the vendor site, as they change. Reporting, while clean, lacks the cross-tabulation depth of dedicated research platforms. Role-based access controls are basic compared to enterprise survey tools, which can frustrate larger teams. There is no built-in ticket or case management system, so closing the loop with unhappy customers requires exporting data or relying on an integration.
Gainsight
Spot at-risk subscription customers early and trigger the right retention action before churn becomes inevitable.
Picture this: your SaaS startup just crossed 200 paying customers, and your one customer success manager is juggling renewal calls, onboarding check-ins, and a growing pile of support escalations—all tracked in a shared spreadsheet that nobody fully trusts. Deals slip through the…
Key features
- Customer 360 view consolidates CRM, support, and product usage data per account
- Configurable health scorecards flag at-risk customers before renewal conversations lag
- Automated playbooks trigger CSM tasks and emails based on health score changes
- AI-assisted risk detection surfaces churn signals from emails, tickets, and meetings
- Renewal and expansion forecasting tied directly to account health trends
- Journey orchestration guides customers through onboarding and adoption milestones
- Revenue intelligence dashboards track net revenue retention and upsell pipeline
- Pre-built playbook templates reduce time to configure common CS workflows
Limitations
Gainsight is enterprise-grade software with enterprise-grade pricing—exact tiers are not always published publicly, so verify current costs directly with the vendor, but budget expectations should be set accordingly for SMBs. The onboarding and configuration process demands meaningful time investment; smaller teams without a dedicated admin or ops resource often feel the overhead acutely in the first 90 days. The platform's breadth can also become its own challenge: features like Success Plans, Journey Orchestrator, and advanced analytics each have their own learning curves. For businesses under roughly 50 accounts or without a recurring revenue model, the cost-to-value ratio is unlikely to justify adoption.
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Frequently asked questions
- Is Delighted or Gainsight better for small businesses?
- For most small businesses, Delighted edges out Gainsight on overall SMB fit (8/10 vs 6/10), especially for Delighted is a strong fit for small retail and e-commerce brands that want post-purchase…. That said, weigh pricing and the feature breakdown below against your needs.
- How does pricing compare between Delighted and Gainsight?
- Delighted offers a free tier or trial. Gainsight offers custom / contact-sales pricing. Always confirm current plans on each vendor's website before you commit.
- When should I choose Delighted over Gainsight?
- Delighted is a strong fit for Delighted is a strong fit for small retail and e-commerce brands that want post-purchase NPS or CSAT feedback without hiring a CX analyst.…. Lean toward Gainsight if you need Gainsight is best suited for SaaS companies and subscription businesses that have reached a stage where customer retention and expansion….
Read the full profiles: Delighted · Gainsight · All Customer Success tools