Gong excels as a comprehensive conversation intelligence platform specifically built for sales teams, offering robust call analytics, coaching insights, and deal intelligence features. Its main strengths include easy setup, seamless integration with existing sales tools, and powerful AI-driven insights that help improve rep performance and sales outcomes. However, it comes with significant drawbacks including high costs (typically $5,000+ platform fee plus $1,400-1,600 per user annually), occasional transcription delays and inaccuracies, and privacy features that can sometimes obscure useful call information.

Gong is best suited for established sales organizations with substantial budgets that need deep conversation intelligence and coaching capabilities. The platform requires annual commitments and enterprise-level investment, making it most appropriate for mid to large-sized sales teams that can justify the cost through improved deal closure rates and sales performance. While it offers extensive integrations, users may find themselves needing additional tools to actually execute on the insights Gong provides, as it focuses more on analysis than action automation.

Read.ai positions itself as a meeting analytics and sentiment analysis tool that joins video calls to provide real-time insights on speaker engagement, talk time, and meeting dynamics. Its strengths include detailed meeting metrics, high-quality transcriptions with sentiment markers, powerful search capabilities across all meeting recordings, and more accessible pricing starting with a free tier. The main limitations include processing delays of up to an hour, occasional transcription inaccuracies with accents or fast speech, and restriction to video conferencing platforms only.

Read.ai works best for managers, team leads, and organizations focused on improving meeting effectiveness and communication patterns across various departments, not just sales. Its lower price point and free tier make it accessible to smaller teams and startups, though the focus on analytics over actionability means users often need separate tools to act on meeting insights. Despite offering integrations with productivity tools like Notion and Confluence, the platform's limited automation capabilities leave a gap between generating insights and actually implementing follow-up actions from meetings.

Comparison table

What users say about Gong and Read.ai

Based on user reviews, Gong appears to receive generally positive feedback from users who appreciate its practical features for sales teams. Users highlight that Gong's sharing features are excellent for quickly distributing call recordings to clients and prospects without administrative hassle, and the platform proves effective for capturing summaries, tracking key moments, and maintaining CRM updates during sales calls. The AI notetaker functionality has earned strong user ratings, suggesting users find real value in its core meeting documentation capabilities.

In contrast, Read.ai user reviews paint a more mixed picture, with significant concerns about user satisfaction and retention. While some reviewers acknowledge that Read.ai offers decent transcription capabilities and adequate meeting note generation, others describe it as a tool that feels vague despite being quick and efficient. Most concerning for potential users is the platform's extremely low 1.6 out of 5-star rating on Trustpilot, with users warning against signing up due to issues like automatic meeting integration that occurs even when users only intend to read shared notes.

High cost compared to alternatives

One of the primary reasons users switch away from Gong is its expensive pricing structure. The platform requires a significant financial commitment with annual platform fees around $5,000 for small teams, plus approximately $1,400-$1,600 per user per year. Additional onboarding services can add another $7,500 to the total cost. Unlike many competitors that offer monthly payment options or lower-cost alternatives, Gong only provides custom enterprise pricing with no public pricing tiers, making it difficult for smaller organizations to justify the investment.

Technical performance issues

Users frequently encounter frustrating technical problems that impact their daily workflow. Many report experiencing lags and delays in call processing, meaning their recorded meetings and calls aren't immediately available for review and analysis. Additionally, transcription accuracy issues plague the platform, with users noting that the AI sometimes produces inaccurate transcripts of their important sales conversations and meetings. These technical shortcomings can significantly impact productivity and decision-making when teams rely on timely, accurate conversation intelligence.

Privacy features that limit functionality

While Gong includes privacy protection features like automatic phone number redaction, these safeguards sometimes work too aggressively and hide useful information from calls. Users find that important context and details get obscured by the platform's privacy controls, reducing the value they can extract from their recorded conversations. This creates a frustrating trade-off where users must choose between maintaining privacy compliance and accessing the full insights they need to improve their sales performance and customer interactions.

Limited in-person and local recording capabilities

One significant reason users switch away from Read.ai is its inability to support in-person meetings or local recording. Read.ai requires joining a video call digitally through its AI assistant, making it unsuitable for face-to-face meetings unless they're conducted on a conferencing app. Additionally, the platform only uses cloud recording, with no local or offline recording mode available. This limitation can be problematic for users who frequently conduct in-person meetings or prefer to have local control over their recordings for security or connectivity reasons.

Processing delays and technical limitations

Users often become frustrated with Read.ai's call processing delays, where recordings and analysis can take up to an hour to become available after a meeting ends. This delay significantly impacts productivity for users who need immediate access to meeting insights or transcriptions. Additionally, users report occasional inaccuracies in AI transcripts and summaries, particularly when speakers have accents or speak quickly. The platform also lacks a native mobile app for recording, limiting users to only viewing shared summaries via links on mobile devices, which restricts flexibility for users who need full mobile functionality.

Overwhelming interface and limited automation

Read.ai's interface presents numerous metrics that can overwhelm users, making it difficult to quickly extract the most relevant insights. While the platform provides extensive analytics on speaker talk time, pace, and sentiment scores, this abundance of data can create information overload rather than streamlined insights. Furthermore, Read.ai has limited automation capabilities compared to other solutions - while it automates insight generation and can auto-share meeting summaries, it doesn't execute more advanced tasks like sending follow-up emails or updating CRM records beyond basic summary text exports. This restricted automation engine may not meet the needs of users seeking comprehensive workflow integration.

Using Gong

Does Gong work for in-person meetings?

Yes, Gong supports capturing in-person (face-to-face) meetings via its mobile app, which is useful for live meetings or field sales situations.

What do users say about the quality of Gong transcriptions?

Users report occasional transcription inaccuracies and some experience lags or delays in call processing. However, Gong is also highly praised for providing rich call analytics including transcripts that help improve rep performance.

How does Gong help users follow up on action items?

Gong includes an automation engine with AI-driven workflows that can automatically generate follow-up tasks. The system can trigger deal alerts, analyze emails, and provide AI recommendations to streamline sales processes.

Does Gong integrate with software like Hubspot, Salesforce, or Linear?

Yes, Gong has extensive integrations with over 250 tools, including CRM systems like Salesforce and HubSpot, as well as communication and productivity tools like Slack, Zoom, Google Meet, and Calendly.

Using Read.ai

Does Read.ai work for in-person meetings?

No, Read.ai requires joining a video call digitally and is not designed for in-person meetings unless they are conducted through a conferencing app.

Does Read.ai require a meeting bot to join the meeting?

Yes, Read.ai works by having the "Read Assistant" join Zoom, Teams, or Google Meet calls as a participant to record and analyze the meeting.

What do users say about the quality of Read.ai transcriptions?

Users generally find the summaries and transcripts to be high-quality and include helpful sentiment markers. However, some users report that transcripts and summaries can occasionally be inaccurate, especially when speakers have accents or speak quickly.

How does Read.ai help users follow up on action items?

Read.ai generates smart meeting summaries and action items after calls. It can auto-share meeting summaries to participants and sync summaries to tools like Notion, Salesforce, HubSpot, Jira, and Confluence through integrations.

Does Read.ai integrate with software like Hubspot, Salesforce, or Linear?

Yes, Read.ai integrates with both HubSpot and Salesforce, along with other tools like Notion, Jira, and Confluence. These integrations are available on Pro+ plans and allow for auto-syncing of meeting summaries. The platform also offers Zapier and webhooks for custom workflows.

Another alternative: Circleback

Circleback provides best-in-class AI-powered meeting notes and automations. We support over 100 languages and automatic participant identification in both in-person and online meetings.

• Automatically-identified and assigned action items

• AI-enabled search across all meetings

• Automations with 100+ app integrations

• Industry-leading security with SOC 2 Type II, EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, and HIPAA compliance

• Ability to capture both online and in-person meetings with desktop and mobile apps