G2 builds segment grids using employee bands: Small Business is 50 or fewer, Mid-Market is 51 to 1,000, and Enterprise is 1,001 or more. A product needs at least 10 reviews in a category to appear, so a segment grid can show a very different picture from the overall one.
The three bands
G2's documentation defines the segments by employee count:
- Small Business: 50 employees or fewer
- Mid-Market: 51 to 1,000
- Enterprise: 1,001 and above
If your company sits in one band, look at that band's grid first. A tool that is popular with small teams may have few reviews from large ones, and the reverse is also true. Security tooling is a clear case, because a ten person startup and a bank buy for very different reasons.
Minimums that shape what you see
A live Grid on a category page needs at least three products with 10 or more reviews and updates daily. A published Grid report needs at least six products with 10 or more reviews and at least 150 reviews overall. Each product needs 10 or more reviews in the category to be placed.
Two things follow. First, a young or narrow category may have no grid at all, which says nothing about quality. Second, a product with nine reviews is invisible on the grid however good it is.
The Momentum Grid
G2 also publishes a Momentum Grid that favors year over year growth. A product can first appear on it one year after its first Grid report. This is a growth signal, and a fast growing product can still be a poor fit for your stack. Read it as a hint about where users are moving, not as a quality ranking.
Why size changes what matters
A small team usually wants quick setup and low upkeep. A large one usually needs single sign-on, audit trails, role based access and support commitments. Reviews from one band rarely speak to the needs of the other. If a tool's reviews come mostly from small teams, you learn little about how it handles hundreds of repositories and dozens of owners.
Also remember that employee count is a blunt measure. A forty person company that builds financial software may have stricter requirements than a two thousand person company that builds internal tools. Use the band as a starting filter, then read for requirements like yours.
How to use the segment view in a security purchase
- Pick the segment that matches your headcount.
- Note which products show up there and which do not.
- Read the reviews from companies near your size.
- Write down what they say about onboarding time, support and integrations.
- Run your own trial regardless.
Segment views reduce one kind of mismatch, company size. They do not reduce technical mismatch. Languages, build systems and compliance needs still need testing. Our SCA evaluation scorecard gives a way to record that.
Where Safeguard fits
Safeguard offers SBOM and dependency scanning, reachability analysis, and compliance and evidence automation. A free scan is available at gold.safeguard.sh/scan if you want to try it on your own repository.
Quick check
My category has no grid. Does that mean the tools are weak?
No. A live Grid needs at least three products with 10 or more reviews, so small categories often have none.
Is the Momentum Grid a quality ranking?
No. G2 describes it as favoring year over year growth, which measures movement, not fit.
Sources
Last reviewed: 19 October 2026.
