ClientSuccess vs Retain
ClientSuccess
clientsuccess.comRetain
retain.soSide by side
| Figure | ClientSuccess | Retain |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | $79/mo |
| Free plan | — | — |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 3 | 4 |
| Spec score · Customer Health Score Software | 7.3 (#16) | 7.7 (#11) |
| Spec score · Proactive Customer Retention Software | 7.2 (#13) | 7.7 (#6) |
| Integrations | Listed integrations include Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Pipedrive, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Gmail, Outlook, Zendesk, Jira, Pendo, Mixpanel, Zapier, and Stripe. | Retain can receive product events through its SDK or API, forward events from PostHog, read subscription data from Stripe or Polar, and send configured alerts to Slack or Discord. |
| Security | ClientSuccess states it is SOC 2 Type II certified and makes audit reports available to customers and prospects under NDA. | Retain says data is encrypted in transit with TLS, passwords are hashed, production access is restricted and authenticated, and workspace data access is scoped; it does not currently hold SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification. |
Plans
ClientSuccess
- Enterprise PackagePriced on request
- Growth PackagePriced on request
- Startup PackagePriced on request
Retain
- Pro$79 a month
- Growth$199 a month
- Scale$449 a month
- EnterprisePriced on request
In their own words
ClientSuccess
ClientSuccess is a web-based customer success platform for managing relationships, reducing churn, and growing customer revenue. Its health score combines revenue, usage, adoption, feedback, engagement, and sentiment into a 360-degree customer view. Journey tools cover onboarding, collaborative tasks, playbooks, goals, and lifecycle automation. SmartCS can generate customer emails, summarize health feedback and NPS results, and turn meeting notes into summaries with next steps and sentiment. Shared portals, repeatable project templates, and document or asset collection support onboarding. Integrations include Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Pipedrive, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Gmail, Outlook, Zendesk, Jira, Pendo, Mixpanel, Zapier, and Stripe. A read-only MCP server connects data to Claude and other AI assistants within user permissions. There is no free plan or self-serve trial. Pricing is on request and depends on customer success managers, modules, team size, contract length, and integrations. Implementation is usually 4–6 weeks, or 8–12 weeks for larger enterprises.
Retain
Retain analyzes product usage and payment signals to score customer health, identify churn risk, and explain what is driving that risk. Its AI examines more than 10 behavior signals, including feature use, onboarding, trends, quiet days, and billing. Scores run from 0 to 100, correspond to risk levels, and are recalculated daily from current behavior. Teams can compare retention by signup month, plan, channel, or account size, and identify a Best Retention Trigger shared by successful customers. Retain groups accounts by lifecycle stage, sends contextual risk alerts, and prepares win-back messages based on customer changes. Product events can arrive through its SDK or API or be forwarded from PostHog; subscription information can come from Stripe or Polar. Alerts can be configured for Slack or Discord. It also exposes seven MCP tools to AI clients including Claude, Cursor, Codex, Gemini, and Perplexity: five read data and two change alert state. Retain is aimed at B2B SaaS companies past product-market fit with high-value customers and lean customer-success or account-management teams. There is no free plan; a 14-day trial is available. Monthly plans start at $79 a month for up to 150 active accounts.