# Gong vs Circleback: pricing, features, and which is better > Gong and Circleback compared across pricing, capture, speaker labels, recordings, notes, sharing, automations, integrations, AI-agent access, and administration. - Canonical HTML: https://circleback.ai/compare/gong-vs-circleback - Structured JSON: https://circleback.ai/compare/gong-vs-circleback.json - Comparison directory: https://circleback.ai/compare - Language: en-US - Editorial perspective: Circleback-authored direct comparison. The point of view is explicit, and each product gets credit for what it does well. ## Short answer Gong is a sales system. Circleback is a meeting system the whole company can use. The useful buying test is to run both products on the same external call, internal planning session, and noisy in-person meeting. Compare the result, the sharing defaults, and the work that still has to happen by hand. ## Gong at a glance Gong captures customer interactions and turns them into sales coaching, deal intelligence, pipeline inspection, forecasting, and engagement workflows. It is much more than a note taker—and that is both its superpower and its cost. **Best for:** Mature go-to-market organizations that want rep coaching, deal inspection, pipeline forecasting, conversation intelligence, and sales engagement in one suite. **Less ideal for:** A whole company looking for a light, shared memory across engineering, product, recruiting, leadership, and internal conversations. **Price:** Custom quote: per-user licenses plus a platform fee Gong does not publish a self-serve price. Its pricing page says cost combines a per-user license with a platform fee, and capabilities such as Forecast, Engage, Enable, and Data Cloud are organized as additional packages. **Free option:** No self-serve free plan or free trial is advertised; request a demo and quote. ### Gong strengths - Mature sales coaching, call libraries, scorecards, deal inspection, pipeline analytics, and forecasting workflows. - Captures calls, meetings, and email in a customer-account context designed for revenue teams. - Native Zoom recording avoids a Gong bot for eligible company-hosted Zoom calls, while iOS and Android cover face-to-face conversations. - A mature public API, data exports, and a new MCP server give engineering and AI tools useful access to Gong’s revenue context. - Gong Engage has a mature sales to-do system with AI-recommended follow-ups, due dates, completion state, rep and manager views, and direct email or call execution. ### Gong tradeoffs - Pricing is opaque and includes a platform fee; important workflows are split across packages. - Its data model, vocabulary, rollout, and analytics are sales-first, which can create another silo for non-GTM teams. - It is a substantial platform to administer when the actual need is meeting notes, shared context, and reliable follow-through rather than revenue operations. - Standard retention is the shorter of three years or the customer term, but calls placed in the company library are excluded. Shortening retention can also reduce the history behind Gong insights. - The new MCP server is useful but narrow and read-only: it answers questions about one account or deal and generates briefs rather than returning raw transcripts. MCP and some AI APIs also consume a shared pool of Gong credits. - Gong’s meeting-follow-up to-dos require the separately packaged Engage product, are fully supported only in English, and auto-dismiss after seven days if no other completion rule fires. ### Choose Gong when - Forecasting, rep coaching, and deal inspection are the center of the buying decision. - Your organization wants a full revenue platform and can support an enterprise rollout. - Sales leaders need opinionated analytics and manager workflows, not just searchable conversation context. ## Circleback at a glance Circleback turns online meetings, in-person conversations, and imported calls into one shared company memory. Record with a bot, with the botless desktop app, from an iPhone or Android phone, or on Apple Watch. Every route produces the same speaker-labeled record, detailed notes designed to stand alone, and automatically assigned action items. Sharing rules and automations carry the useful parts into the teams and tools that need them. Circleback is built for people and AI agents: the complete meeting record available to a person is also available programmatically through its API, MCP, and CLI. **Best for:** Companies that want one shared meeting system across sales, product, engineering, recruiting, customer success, and leadership—with automatic sharing, function-specific workflows, and complete data for people, agents, and their own software. **Less ideal for:** A team that only wants a cheap transcript now and then, or a sales organization buying mainly for forecasting and rep coaching. **Price:** Free; Pro from $15/user/month annually; Business from $25/user/month annually; Enterprise $35/user/month, billed annually Free includes unlimited meetings and members with 30 days of meeting and recording history. Paid prices are per user/month: Pro is $15 with annual billing or $18 month-to-month; Business is $25 or $29; Enterprise is $35 with annual billing only. See https://circleback.ai/pricing for current plan packaging. **Free option:** Free includes unlimited meetings and members, with 30 days of meeting and recording history and limited API, MCP, CLI, and automation access. ### Circleback strengths - Online, in-person, phone, desktop, mobile, Watch, bot, and botless capture all produce a speaker-labeled transcript; every route can keep its recording or discard it after notes are made. - The notes are detailed enough to stand alone, while automatically assigned action items stay trackable across the workspace and can become issues in Linear or another work tracker. - Conditional automatic sharing, company context, free viewers, enforced defaults, and actions in connected apps make each meeting useful beyond the person who recorded it. - Circleback is built for people and AI agents. The complete meeting record available to a person—including the recording, full speaker-labeled transcript, notes, action items, attendees, people, and companies—is also available programmatically through the public API, MCP, and CLI. - Industry-leading security practices include encryption at rest and in transit, SOC 2 Type II, EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework certification, GDPR support, and HIPAA compliance. Customer data is never used to train models, and an external infrastructure pentest report is available through the security portal. ### Circleback tradeoffs - The Free plan has shorter history and limited platform access. A solo user who only wants occasional transcripts may find a more generous free recorder elsewhere. - It is not a sales forecasting suite. Gong goes further on deal inspection, rep coaching, and forecasting. - It is not a live meeting coach. Read AI goes further on real-time engagement and sentiment signals, while Krisp specializes in cleaning up audio before it reaches the transcript. - Circleback’s primary processing operations are in the United States. A company with a hard regional-hosting or on-premises requirement should confirm fit during security review. ### Choose Circleback when - You want the same speaker-labeled record from an online call, a room, a phone recording, or your Watch. - You want notes designed to stand alone and follow-through that does not disappear inside each meeting: assigned action items, one workspace-wide list, and a path into your issue tracker. - You want Circleback to look things up and do the next step in the apps where your team works. - You want coworkers, ChatGPT, Claude, other agents, and your own tools to use the same company context. ## Feature comparison | What matters | Gong | Circleback | | --- | --- | --- | | Capture options | Broad support — Meeting bot, native Zoom recording, telephony, and mobile capture. Gong captures supported web meetings, calls, and email. Eligible company-hosted Zoom calls can use Zoom-native recording with no Gong bot; other web-conferencing paths generally use the bot. Its mobile app records scheduled or ad-hoc face-to-face conversations. | Broad support — Any meeting, with the same speaker-labeled result. Use the meeting bot for scheduled Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, and Webex calls; record locally from macOS or Windows with no bot; use iPhone, Android, or Apple Watch in person; or import a phone call or existing file. Whichever path you take, Circleback processes it into a speaker-labeled transcript, notes, and action items in the same workspace. | | Desktop and mobile | Available with limits — Web plus iOS and Android; sales workflows are cloud-first. Mobile apps support recording and review. Gong is primarily an enterprise web platform rather than a general-purpose botless desktop recorder; only its Zoom integration offers native provider recording without the Gong bot. | Broad support — Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, and Apple Watch. Desktop apps handle bot-free system audio and video. The iOS and Android apps record in-person conversations and include Assistant. Apple Watch can record from your wrist without the iPhone nearby, then sends the meeting through the same transcription and notes pipeline. | | In-person capture and speaker labels | Available with limits — Mobile face-to-face audio recording. iOS and Android can capture scheduled or ad-hoc room meetings. Gong separates speakers, but same-room voices may appear as room-name Speaker 1, Speaker 2, and so on until someone edits them; noisy rooms can reduce quality. | Broad support — Phone, desktop, or Watch—with speaker labels. Record an in-person meeting from iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, or Apple Watch. Circleback separates and labels the speakers instead of returning one undifferentiated wall of text. Imported phone recordings get the same treatment. | | Recordings, playback, and clips | Broad support — Rich call playback, libraries, snippets, and coaching review. Recording review is a core Gong workflow, with synchronized transcript, comments, snippets, libraries, trackers, and manager coaching tools. | Broad support — A recording when you want one; notes-only when you do not. Every capture route can keep the source recording with the meeting. Play it beside the transcript, download it, link to a moment, or make a clip. If you only want notes and the speaker-labeled transcript, turn recording storage off. | | Notes, action items, and search | Broad support — Sales summaries, next steps, account search, and conversation intelligence. Gong excels at finding deal moments, objections, topics, rep behaviors, and next steps. With Engage, recommended meeting follow-ups become due-dated to-dos that can be completed, dismissed, reviewed by managers, and acted on through email or calls. A recommendation can auto-dismiss after seven days if no other completion rule fires. The experience is optimized around customer and revenue questions rather than general company knowledge. | Broad support — Detailed standalone notes, assigned action items, and cited search. Our editorial judgment is that Circleback’s notes are more detailed and need less transcript archaeology than the short recaps common in meeting tools. It automatically creates action items, assigns each one to an owner when the conversation makes the owner clear, and gathers work from every meeting in a workspace-wide view where it can be filtered and marked done. Custom insights extract the fields a team cares about, while Assistant searches meetings and connected email with citations. | | People, companies, and context | Broad support — Deep account and deal history for GTM teams. Calls, meetings, and email roll into account and deal context. This is powerful for revenue work but is not positioned as a shared memory for every internal and external company conversation. | Broad support — A shared company memory, not isolated meeting pages. Person and company pages combine rolling summaries, relationship timelines, emails, meetings, attendees, and upcoming events. Search and Assistant work across that context, so a conversation stays useful to the next person and the next team. | | Automatic sharing and workspace defaults | Available with limits — Permissioned call, snippet, and folder sharing. Calls and snippets can be shared internally or externally, and shared folders can grant access to every call they contain. Gong documents automatic capture rules, while post-meeting distribution centers on direct shares, folders, teams, accounts, and coaching libraries. | Broad support — Conditional automatic sharing with workspace safeguards. Automations can share matching meetings with specific people, teams, or the whole workspace based on titles, participants, invitee emails or domains, tags, and combined conditions. Admins can set or enforce default sharing access while members retain explicit controls for private or sensitive conversations. | | Automations | Broad support — Purpose-built revenue workflows and engagement sequences. Gong automates CRM activity, deal signals, alerts, coaching, and sales engagement. Engage flows and AI-recommended to-dos centralize rep work and let managers inspect team queues. It is highly capable inside revenue operations, but this task system is package-gated and less open-ended for arbitrary company workflows. | Broad support — One automation layer for every function. Run actions when meetings match conditions, extract the fields each team cares about, share notes, and route the result into the system where work happens. Sales can update the CRM; product and research can collect themes; engineering can open assigned issues in Linear or another tracker; recruiting and customer teams can route structured follow-up. Automations also post to Slack, call webhooks, and re-run against older meetings. | | Integrations | Broad support — Deep CRM, calendar, conferencing, and sales-stack integrations. The integration strategy is strong where revenue teams live: CRMs, dialers, calendars, meeting platforms, and sales engagement systems. | Broad support — Search other apps, then do the work there. Circleback Assistant can look up context and take actions in tools such as Linear, Notion, Asana, HubSpot, PostHog, Attio, Ashby, and Intercom. Automations can create Linear issues from assigned meeting action items, write action items to monday.com, and send outcomes to Slack, Salesforce, Zoho, and more. Zapier, Make, webhooks, and custom MCP servers cover the long tail. | | API, MCP, CLI, and data portability | Broad support — Mature APIs, exports, data cloud, and a focused MCP server. Gong exposes calls, full speaker-segmented transcripts, users, CRM-linked objects, exports, and data-warehouse tables. Its 2026 MCP server supports personal or organization-wide authorization for ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, and custom agents, but is read-only and limited to account/deal questions and generated briefs—not raw meeting retrieval. Those MCP tools and some AI APIs consume Gong credits. There is no documented first-party CLI. | Broad support — The same complete meeting data for people and AI agents. Circleback is built for people and AI agents. The complete meeting record a person can access—its full speaker-labeled transcript, recording, notes, action items, metadata, attendees, and related people and companies—is also available programmatically through the public API, MCP, and CLI. The API also supports action-item updates. MCP and CLI are read-only and add search and retrieval across meetings, transcripts, action items, calendars, email, people, companies, and tags. Use the stack from ChatGPT or Claude, build internal tools, or receive meeting payloads by webhook. | | Security, privacy, and admin | Broad support — Mature enterprise administration and governance. Gong supports large deployments, granular access, SSO/SCIM, retention configuration, deletion, and compliance workflows. Standard retention is the shorter of three years or the customer term and data is deleted 30 days after the relationship ends; company-library calls sit outside the standard rule. | Broad support — Industry-leading security, privacy, and governance. Customer data is encrypted at rest and in transit and never used to train models. Circleback is SOC 2 Type II, certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, supports GDPR obligations, and is HIPAA-compliant with BAAs available. The security portal includes compliance materials and an external infrastructure pentest report. Available controls include single sign-on (SSO), configurable data retention and recording storage, enforced workspace and sharing settings, teams and roles, domain and API key access controls, centralized billing, usage reporting, and free viewer seats. | | Languages | Broad support — More than 70 languages; some AI features remain English-only. Gong documents more than 70 transcription languages plus AI translation. Email labels, red-flag alerts, Gong-recommended to-dos, and example-based smart trackers are still English-only, so global teams should verify the exact workflow rather than relying on the headline count. | Broad support — 100+ transcription languages. Users can choose from more than 100 meeting languages and separately control the output language used for generated notes. | Ratings describe documented breadth rather than overall product quality: - **Broad support:** Broad native support across the product or relevant paid plans. - **Available with limits:** Documented support with meaningful scope, mode, or plan limits. - **Narrow or indirect:** Narrow, indirect, beta, or substantially plan-gated support. - **Not documented:** No current first-party documentation for a native option. ## Detailed analysis ### Capture options **Both products document broad support for capture options, with different scope and plan limits.** **Gong:** Meeting bot, native Zoom recording, telephony, and mobile capture. Gong captures supported web meetings, calls, and email. Eligible company-hosted Zoom calls can use Zoom-native recording with no Gong bot; other web-conferencing paths generally use the bot. Its mobile app records scheduled or ad-hoc face-to-face conversations. Evidence: [Gong web-conferencing capture](https://help.gong.io/docs/web-conferencing-integrations), [Gong mobile recording](https://help.gong.io/docs/record-meetings-on-mobile). **Circleback:** Any meeting, with the same speaker-labeled result. Use the meeting bot for scheduled Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, and Webex calls; record locally from macOS or Windows with no bot; use iPhone, Android, or Apple Watch in person; or import a phone call or existing file. Whichever path you take, Circleback processes it into a speaker-labeled transcript, notes, and action items in the same workspace. Evidence: [Circleback product guide](https://circleback.ai/llms.txt), [Circleback recording guide](https://support.circleback.ai/en/articles/11090138-getting-started-with-recording). ### Desktop and mobile **Circleback has broader documented support for desktop and mobile.** **Gong:** Web plus iOS and Android; sales workflows are cloud-first. Mobile apps support recording and review. Gong is primarily an enterprise web platform rather than a general-purpose botless desktop recorder; only its Zoom integration offers native provider recording without the Gong bot. Evidence: [Gong web-conferencing capture](https://help.gong.io/docs/web-conferencing-integrations), [Gong mobile recording](https://help.gong.io/docs/record-meetings-on-mobile). **Circleback:** Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, and Apple Watch. Desktop apps handle bot-free system audio and video. The iOS and Android apps record in-person conversations and include Assistant. Apple Watch can record from your wrist without the iPhone nearby, then sends the meeting through the same transcription and notes pipeline. Evidence: [Circleback recording guide](https://support.circleback.ai/en/articles/11090138-getting-started-with-recording), [Circleback mobile and Apple Watch apps](https://circleback.ai/mobile). ### In-person capture and speaker labels **Circleback has broader documented support for in-person capture and speaker labels.** **Gong:** Mobile face-to-face audio recording. iOS and Android can capture scheduled or ad-hoc room meetings. Gong separates speakers, but same-room voices may appear as room-name Speaker 1, Speaker 2, and so on until someone edits them; noisy rooms can reduce quality. Evidence: [Gong mobile recording](https://help.gong.io/docs/record-meetings-on-mobile), [Gong speaker identification](https://help.gong.io/docs/how-gong-identifies-speakers). **Circleback:** Phone, desktop, or Watch—with speaker labels. Record an in-person meeting from iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, or Apple Watch. Circleback separates and labels the speakers instead of returning one undifferentiated wall of text. Imported phone recordings get the same treatment. Evidence: [Circleback product guide](https://circleback.ai/llms.txt), [Circleback mobile and Apple Watch apps](https://circleback.ai/mobile). ### Recordings, playback, and clips **Both products document broad support for recordings, playback, and clips, with different scope and plan limits.** **Gong:** Rich call playback, libraries, snippets, and coaching review. Recording review is a core Gong workflow, with synchronized transcript, comments, snippets, libraries, trackers, and manager coaching tools. Evidence: [Gong plans and seats](https://help.gong.io/docs/plans-and-seats), [Gong data retention](https://help.gong.io/docs/data-retention-policy). **Circleback:** A recording when you want one; notes-only when you do not. Every capture route can keep the source recording with the meeting. Play it beside the transcript, download it, link to a moment, or make a clip. If you only want notes and the speaker-labeled transcript, turn recording storage off. Evidence: [Circleback recording guide](https://support.circleback.ai/en/articles/11090138-getting-started-with-recording), [Circleback optional recording storage](https://support.circleback.ai/en/articles/10581965-configure-whether-meeting-recordings-are-saved). ### Notes, action items, and search **Both products document broad support for notes, action items, and search, with different scope and plan limits.** **Gong:** Sales summaries, next steps, account search, and conversation intelligence. Gong excels at finding deal moments, objections, topics, rep behaviors, and next steps. With Engage, recommended meeting follow-ups become due-dated to-dos that can be completed, dismissed, reviewed by managers, and acted on through email or calls. A recommendation can auto-dismiss after seven days if no other completion rule fires. The experience is optimized around customer and revenue questions rather than general company knowledge. Evidence: [Gong plans and seats](https://help.gong.io/docs/plans-and-seats), [Gong recommended to-dos](https://help.gong.io/docs/gong-recommended-to-dos), [Gong team to-do management](https://help.gong.io/docs/working-with-todos). **Circleback:** Detailed standalone notes, assigned action items, and cited search. Our editorial judgment is that Circleback’s notes are more detailed and need less transcript archaeology than the short recaps common in meeting tools. It automatically creates action items, assigns each one to an owner when the conversation makes the owner clear, and gathers work from every meeting in a workspace-wide view where it can be filtered and marked done. Custom insights extract the fields a team cares about, while Assistant searches meetings and connected email with citations. Evidence: [Circleback product guide](https://circleback.ai/llms.txt), [Circleback action items in Linear](https://support.circleback.ai/en/articles/13622158-integrate-with-linear), [Circleback CLI documentation](https://support.circleback.ai/en/articles/14677613-circleback-cli). ### People, companies, and context **Both products document broad support for people, companies, and context, with different scope and plan limits.** **Gong:** Deep account and deal history for GTM teams. Calls, meetings, and email roll into account and deal context. This is powerful for revenue work but is not positioned as a shared memory for every internal and external company conversation. Evidence: [Gong plans and seats](https://help.gong.io/docs/plans-and-seats). **Circleback:** A shared company memory, not isolated meeting pages. Person and company pages combine rolling summaries, relationship timelines, emails, meetings, attendees, and upcoming events. Search and Assistant work across that context, so a conversation stays useful to the next person and the next team. Evidence: [Circleback product guide](https://circleback.ai/llms.txt). ### Automatic sharing and workspace defaults **Circleback has broader documented support for automatic sharing and workspace defaults.** **Gong:** Permissioned call, snippet, and folder sharing. Calls and snippets can be shared internally or externally, and shared folders can grant access to every call they contain. Gong documents automatic capture rules, while post-meeting distribution centers on direct shares, folders, teams, accounts, and coaching libraries. Evidence: [Gong call and folder sharing](https://help.gong.io/docs/enable-call-and-folder-sharing). **Circleback:** Conditional automatic sharing with workspace safeguards. Automations can share matching meetings with specific people, teams, or the whole workspace based on titles, participants, invitee emails or domains, tags, and combined conditions. Admins can set or enforce default sharing access while members retain explicit controls for private or sensitive conversations. Evidence: [Circleback automatic sharing](https://support.circleback.ai/en/articles/10460582-automatically-share-meetings-with-your-workspace), [Circleback enforced workspace settings](https://support.circleback.ai/en/articles/11095989-default-and-enforced-workspace-settings). ### Automations **Both products document broad support for automations, with different scope and plan limits.** **Gong:** Purpose-built revenue workflows and engagement sequences. Gong automates CRM activity, deal signals, alerts, coaching, and sales engagement. Engage flows and AI-recommended to-dos centralize rep work and let managers inspect team queues. It is highly capable inside revenue operations, but this task system is package-gated and less open-ended for arbitrary company workflows. Evidence: [Gong automation rules](https://help.gong.io/docs/introduction-to-automation-rules), [Gong recommended to-dos](https://help.gong.io/docs/gong-recommended-to-dos), [Gong team to-do management](https://help.gong.io/docs/working-with-todos). **Circleback:** One automation layer for every function. Run actions when meetings match conditions, extract the fields each team cares about, share notes, and route the result into the system where work happens. Sales can update the CRM; product and research can collect themes; engineering can open assigned issues in Linear or another tracker; recruiting and customer teams can route structured follow-up. Automations also post to Slack, call webhooks, and re-run against older meetings. Evidence: [Circleback product guide](https://circleback.ai/llms.txt). ### Integrations **Both products document broad support for integrations, with different scope and plan limits.** **Gong:** Deep CRM, calendar, conferencing, and sales-stack integrations. The integration strategy is strong where revenue teams live: CRMs, dialers, calendars, meeting platforms, and sales engagement systems. Evidence: [Gong plans and seats](https://help.gong.io/docs/plans-and-seats). **Circleback:** Search other apps, then do the work there. Circleback Assistant can look up context and take actions in tools such as Linear, Notion, Asana, HubSpot, PostHog, Attio, Ashby, and Intercom. Automations can create Linear issues from assigned meeting action items, write action items to monday.com, and send outcomes to Slack, Salesforce, Zoho, and more. Zapier, Make, webhooks, and custom MCP servers cover the long tail. Evidence: [Circleback product guide](https://circleback.ai/llms.txt), [Circleback Assistant connectors](https://support.circleback.ai/en/articles/13615023-ask-circleback-assistant). ### API, MCP, CLI, and data portability **Both products document broad support for API, MCP, CLI, and data portability, with different scope and plan limits.** **Gong:** Mature APIs, exports, data cloud, and a focused MCP server. Gong exposes calls, full speaker-segmented transcripts, users, CRM-linked objects, exports, and data-warehouse tables. Its 2026 MCP server supports personal or organization-wide authorization for ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, and custom agents, but is read-only and limited to account/deal questions and generated briefs—not raw meeting retrieval. Those MCP tools and some AI APIs consume Gong credits. There is no documented first-party CLI. Evidence: [Gong transcript API](https://help.gong.io/apidocs/retrieve-transcripts-of-calls-by-date-or-callids-v2callstranscript-2), [Gong API overview](https://help.gong.io/docs/what-the-gong-api-provides), [Gong MCP server](https://help.gong.io/docs/about-gong-mcp-server), [Gong MCP setup](https://help.gong.io/docs/create-an-integration-to-connect-to-the-mcp-server), [Gong AI credits](https://help.gong.io/docs/about-gong-credits), [Gong transcript downloads](https://help.gong.io/docs/view-a-call-transcript), [Gong media downloads](https://help.gong.io/docs/download-a-call-or-snippet). **Circleback:** The same complete meeting data for people and AI agents. Circleback is built for people and AI agents. The complete meeting record a person can access—its full speaker-labeled transcript, recording, notes, action items, metadata, attendees, and related people and companies—is also available programmatically through the public API, MCP, and CLI. The API also supports action-item updates. MCP and CLI are read-only and add search and retrieval across meetings, transcripts, action items, calendars, email, people, companies, and tags. Use the stack from ChatGPT or Claude, build internal tools, or receive meeting payloads by webhook. Evidence: [Circleback public API](https://circleback.ai/docs/api), [Circleback MCP documentation](https://support.circleback.ai/en/articles/13249081-circleback-mcp), [Circleback CLI documentation](https://support.circleback.ai/en/articles/14677613-circleback-cli). ### Security, privacy, and admin **Both products document broad support for security, privacy, and admin, with different scope and plan limits.** **Gong:** Mature enterprise administration and governance. Gong supports large deployments, granular access, SSO/SCIM, retention configuration, deletion, and compliance workflows. Standard retention is the shorter of three years or the customer term and data is deleted 30 days after the relationship ends; company-library calls sit outside the standard rule. Evidence: [Gong plans and seats](https://help.gong.io/docs/plans-and-seats), [Gong data retention](https://help.gong.io/docs/data-retention-policy). **Circleback:** Industry-leading security, privacy, and governance. Customer data is encrypted at rest and in transit and never used to train models. Circleback is SOC 2 Type II, certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, supports GDPR obligations, and is HIPAA-compliant with BAAs available. The security portal includes compliance materials and an external infrastructure pentest report. Available controls include single sign-on (SSO), configurable data retention and recording storage, enforced workspace and sharing settings, teams and roles, domain and API key access controls, centralized billing, usage reporting, and free viewer seats. Evidence: [Circleback enforced workspace settings](https://support.circleback.ai/en/articles/11095989-default-and-enforced-workspace-settings), [Circleback security and data processing](https://circleback.ai/dpa), [Circleback security overview](https://support.circleback.ai/en/articles/10460553-security), [Circleback security portal](https://security.circleback.ai/). ### Languages **Both products document broad support for languages, with different scope and plan limits.** **Gong:** More than 70 languages; some AI features remain English-only. Gong documents more than 70 transcription languages plus AI translation. Email labels, red-flag alerts, Gong-recommended to-dos, and example-based smart trackers are still English-only, so global teams should verify the exact workflow rather than relying on the headline count. Evidence: [Gong language support](https://help.gong.io/docs/what-languages-are-supported-in-gong). **Circleback:** 100+ transcription languages. Users can choose from more than 100 meeting languages and separately control the output language used for generated notes. Evidence: [Circleback product guide](https://circleback.ai/llms.txt). ## Where each one fits **Gong:** Pick Gong if forecasting, deal inspection, rep coaching, scorecards, sales engagement, and manager-visible follow-up are why you are buying. It has years of sales-specific depth. **Circleback:** Pick Circleback if sales is one team among many. Every function gets the same detailed notes, conditional sharing, company context, and workflows without living inside a revenue suite. **Worth knowing:** Circleback handles sales notes, assigned work, and CRM updates. It does not replace Gong Forecast, Engage, or mature coaching. Gong’s team to-do views are part of Engage and carry package and language limits. ## Frequently asked questions ### Which is better: Gong or Circleback? Gong is a sales system. Circleback is a meeting system the whole company can use. ### Which is less expensive, Gong or Circleback? Gong: Custom quote: per-user licenses plus a platform fee. Circleback: Free; Pro from $15/user/month annually; Business from $25/user/month annually; Enterprise $35/user/month, billed annually. Compare the paid seats, included usage, recording access, and admin features you actually need. ### Can Gong and Circleback record without a bot? Gong: Meeting bot, native Zoom recording, telephony, and mobile capture. Circleback: Any meeting, with the same speaker-labeled result. The useful check is whether your required capture mode keeps video, a recording, and speaker names. ### Which is better for a whole company? First ask who gets each note automatically; otherwise useful context stays with the recorder. Then compare permissions, retention, and enforced defaults. Gong: Permissioned call, snippet, and folder sharing. Circleback: Conditional automatic sharing with workspace safeguards. ### Can I access and move the full meeting data? Circleback is built for people and AI agents: the complete meeting record available in the product is also available through API, MCP, and CLI. Gong: Mature APIs, exports, data cloud, and a focused MCP server. Compare transcript, export, plan, and retention limits. ### How was this comparison researched? We use first-party pricing pages, product pages, help docs, and release notes for both products. The sources are linked below. ## Methodology Circleback reviews first-party pricing pages, product pages, help docs, and release notes. Prices and capabilities move, so check the linked sources when a detail is important to your decision. Every feature dimension links to the exact first-party documents used for that claim. Ratings describe documented breadth, not an overall score or winner. This page is a disclosed Circleback-authored direct comparison. There are no paid placements or affiliate rankings. ## First-party sources ### Gong sources - [Gong pricing](https://www.gong.io/pricing): Custom pricing structure, per-user licenses, platform fee, and package model. - [Gong web-conferencing capture](https://help.gong.io/docs/web-conferencing-integrations): Bot capture across providers and native bot-free recording for eligible Zoom meetings. - [Gong transcript API](https://help.gong.io/apidocs/retrieve-transcripts-of-calls-by-date-or-callids-v2callstranscript-2): Documented call-transcript endpoint, pagination, filters, and authorization scope. - [Gong API overview](https://help.gong.io/docs/what-the-gong-api-provides): Calls, full transcripts, analyzed conversation data, users, activity, and CRM-linked API capabilities. - [Gong MCP server](https://help.gong.io/docs/about-gong-mcp-server): Read-only account/deal questions and brief generation for external AI clients. - [Gong MCP setup](https://help.gong.io/docs/create-an-integration-to-connect-to-the-mcp-server): Paid-seat requirement, personal or shared authorization, OAuth setup, and official MCP endpoint. - [Gong AI credits](https://help.gong.io/docs/about-gong-credits): Shared annual credit pool and consumption behavior for MCP, AI APIs, and continuous AI processing. - [Gong transcript downloads](https://help.gong.io/docs/view-a-call-transcript): Per-call transcript download and synchronized transcript behavior. - [Gong media downloads](https://help.gong.io/docs/download-a-call-or-snippet): Permissioned audio, video, and snippet downloads on any Gong plan. - [Gong plans and seats](https://help.gong.io/docs/plans-and-seats): Foundation platform and Enable, Forecast, Engage, and Data Cloud packages. - [Gong mobile recording](https://help.gong.io/docs/record-meetings-on-mobile): iOS and Android in-person recording behavior and quality considerations. - [Gong speaker identification](https://help.gong.io/docs/how-gong-identifies-speakers): Speaker separation, same-room generic labels, platform behavior, and optional voice identification. - [Gong data retention](https://help.gong.io/docs/data-retention-policy): Standard and custom retention behavior. - [Gong language support](https://help.gong.io/docs/what-languages-are-supported-in-gong): More than 70 transcription languages, AI translation, and the AI capabilities that remain English-only. - [Gong call and folder sharing](https://help.gong.io/docs/enable-call-and-folder-sharing): Company permissions for external call sharing and internal shared folders. - [Gong automation rules](https://help.gong.io/docs/introduction-to-automation-rules): Plan availability, supported triggers and actions, and future-only rule application. - [Gong recommended to-dos](https://help.gong.io/docs/gong-recommended-to-dos): Engage eligibility, AI meeting follow-ups, source timestamps, due dates, completion rules, seven-day expiry, and language limits. - [Gong team to-do management](https://help.gong.io/docs/working-with-todos): Personal and manager task views, filters, due dates, bulk completion, CRM context, and execution controls. ### Circleback sources - [Circleback product guide](https://circleback.ai/llms.txt): Capture modes, apps, search, automations, integrations, recordings, MCP, CLI, webhooks, and security resources. - [Circleback pricing](https://circleback.ai/pricing): Current plan prices, included features, Business controls, Enterprise options, and free viewer seats. - [Circleback recording guide](https://support.circleback.ai/en/articles/11090138-getting-started-with-recording): Desktop, mobile, bot, and import capture paths for online and in-person conversations. - [Circleback optional recording storage](https://support.circleback.ai/en/articles/10581965-configure-whether-meeting-recordings-are-saved): Keep notes, action items, transcript, and insights while disabling stored audio and video. - [Circleback mobile and Apple Watch apps](https://circleback.ai/mobile): iOS, Android, and Apple Watch capture for in-person meetings and conversations. - [Circleback public API](https://circleback.ai/docs/api): Programmatic access to the complete meeting record available in Circleback, including notes, action items, transcripts, recordings, people, and companies. - [Circleback MCP documentation](https://support.circleback.ai/en/articles/13249081-circleback-mcp): Read-only access from ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, Codex, and other MCP clients to meetings, transcripts, action items, people, companies, calendar, email, and tags. - [Circleback CLI documentation](https://support.circleback.ai/en/articles/14677613-circleback-cli): Command-line and JSON access to meetings, speaker-labeled transcripts, action items, calendars, email, people, companies, and cross-meeting action-item search. - [Circleback Assistant connectors](https://support.circleback.ai/en/articles/13615023-ask-circleback-assistant): Search and take action in connected work apps from Circleback Assistant. - [Circleback automatic sharing](https://support.circleback.ai/en/articles/10460582-automatically-share-meetings-with-your-workspace): Conditional sharing by meeting title, participants, invitee emails or domains, and tags to people, teams, or the workspace. - [Circleback enforced workspace settings](https://support.circleback.ai/en/articles/11095989-default-and-enforced-workspace-settings): Admin-controlled defaults for sharing access, recording storage, joining preferences, and other meeting settings. - [Circleback security and data processing](https://circleback.ai/dpa): Retention responsibilities, subprocessors, and United States primary processing operations. - [Circleback security overview](https://support.circleback.ai/en/articles/10460553-security): Encryption at rest and in transit, SOC 2 Type II, no-training commitment, GDPR support, HIPAA compliance and BAA availability, EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework certification, and an external infrastructure pentest. - [Circleback security portal](https://security.circleback.ai/): Compliance materials, security controls, subprocessors, and an external infrastructure pentest report. - [Circleback action items in Linear](https://support.circleback.ai/en/articles/13622158-integrate-with-linear): Automatically create Linear issues from meeting action items and preserve the matched assignee.