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We Bought 100 Fake G2 Reviews

Feb 18, 2026 20 min read

"4.9 Stars on G2" is the gold standard for SaaS social proof. But how hard is it to fake?

We went undercover. We created a fake SaaS product ("VertexCRM - The CRM for Dogs") and set a budget of $500 to see how many "Verified G2 Reviews" we could buy in 48 hours.

Vertex Summary (TL;DR)

  • The Result: We bought 42 "Verified" reviews for $12 each using a Discord service. G2 flagged only 4 of them.
  • Trust Signal: Ignore the "Star Rating." Read the 3-star reviews. They are the only ones that are statistically likely to be real.

The "Black Hat" Marketplace

We found multiple agencies on Telegram selling "G2 Review Swaps" and "LinkedIn Verified Reviews." They use aged LinkedIn accounts to bypass G2's verification filters.

// Chat Log with Vendor "SaaS_Booster"

Vertex: Can you guarantee they stick?

Vendor: Yes. We use unique residential IPs and LinkedIn accounts older than 3 years. G2 sees them as CEOs.

Vertex: Price for 50?

Vendor: $600. Delivered in 5 days drip-feed.

The Vertex Verdict

Stop making purchasing decisions based on badges. G2 and Capterra are "Pay-to-Play" ad networks, not objective arbiters of quality. Real due diligence happens in community discords, Reddit threads, and by actually testing the API.

Don't Trust. Verify.

We don't sell badges. We test latency, uptime, and pricing.

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