GTM AI Index
September 2026 Edition · The permanent record of this edition. The unqualified address always carries the latest edition.
Index Marketing Ecommerce marketing › Small business September 2026 Edition

Ecommerce marketing for small business buyers

Asked as “ecommerce marketing platform”, and as “marketing tool for an online store”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 52 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
Contested
17% of first choices, contested.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

01The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a small B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Klaviyo17%20%41accepted challenger
02HubSpot Marketing Hub17%22%27accepted challenger
03ActiveCampaign15%4%27accepted challenger
04Omnisend13%6%34accepted challenger
05Shopify12%18%34accepted challenger
06BigCommerce6%13%23accepted challenger
07WooCommerce6%14%22accepted challenger
08Square Online4%0%10accepted challenger
09Brevo2%4%24accepted challenger
10Wix2%18%11accepted challenger
11Mailchimp2%35%34criticized challenger
Show the one product at 0%, ordered by negative rate
12Google Analytics 40%0%11accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative30%
Key
01Klaviyo17%
02HubSpot Marketing Hub17%
03ActiveCampaign15%
04Omnisend13%
05Shopify12%
06BigCommerce6%
07WooCommerce6%
08Square Online4%
09Brevo2%
10Wix2%
11Mailchimp2%
12Google Analytics 40%

02What they warned about

Zero of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, Grok 4.1 Fast, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Klaviyo
20%
8 of 41 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“The platform most small businesses should be most wary of is Klaviyo — its 2025 active-profile billing change makes costs unpredictable and punishing” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
Mailchimp
35%
12 of 34 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“This is the primary example of a legacy giant changing its behavior in ways that hurt small budgets.... increasingly expensive for growing brands” Qwen 3.7 Flash, negative prompt
HubSpot Marketing Hub
22%
6 of 27 labels negative · 5 of 12 models
“the free plan has no marketing automation. To get automation, you need **Marketing Hub Professional at ~$890/month** plus a $3,000 onboarding fee” Kimi K2, direct prompt
Shopify
18%
6 of 34 labels negative · 4 of 12 models
“best if you can spend a bit more for the **fastest setup** ... but it is usually not the cheapest option” Perplexity Sonar, budget prompt

03What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: four of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

18 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 4 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 6 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 158 links across 103 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page. The other 8 models searched through a gateway that returned no source list on this edition.

vendor site · Shopify7 answers · 9 citations · 3 models
vendor site · BigCommerce6 answers · 7 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Stripe4 answers · 4 citations · 2 models
3 answers · 3 citations · 1 model
3 answers · 3 citations · 1 model
3 answers · 3 citations · 1 model
vendor site · Guideflow3 answers · 3 citations · 1 model
3 answers · 3 citations · 2 models
vendor site · MRPeasy3 answers · 3 citations · 1 model
vendor site · Salesforce3 answers · 3 citations · 1 model
vendor site · Taboola3 answers · 3 citations · 1 model
3 answers · 3 citations · 2 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

04How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ModelDirect“What is the best ecommerce marketing platform for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which marketing tool for an online store would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top ecommerce marketing platforms for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best ecommerce marketing platform for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating an ecommerce marketing platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which ecommerce marketing platforms should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5no first choice
Three alternativesBigCommerce, HubSpot Marketing Hub, WooCommerce
against: Adobe Commerce, Shopify
HubSpot Marketing HubChanged
Two alternativesActiveCampaign, Mailchimp
Shopify
Two alternativesBigCommerce, Wix
Mailchimp
Four alternativesGoogle Shopping, Kit, Klaviyo, Meta Ads
no first choiceagainst: Squarespace, Wix
GPT-5.4 miniBigCommerce, Shopify
One alternativeHubSpot Marketing Hub
HubSpot Marketing HubChanged
One alternativeMailchimp
Omnisend
Four alternativesKlaviyo, Mailchimp, Shopify Email, Shopify Messaging
against: Constant Contact
Brevo, Omnisendagainst: HubSpot Marketing Hub, Klaviyono first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashActiveCampaign, HubSpot Marketing Hub
Five alternativesBigCommerce, Klaviyo, Omnisend, Shopify, WooCommerce
ActiveCampaignChanged
Three alternativesBrevo, HubSpot Marketing Hub, Klaviyo
Omnisend
Three alternativesBrevo, Klaviyo, Shopify Email
against: Mailchimp
Omnisend
Four alternativesBrevo, MailerLite, Sender, Shopify Email
against: Klaviyo
Klaviyo
Four alternativesActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, Omnisend, Sendlane
against: Salesforce Marketing Cloud
against: Adobe Experience Cloud, HubSpot Marketing Hub, Mailchimp, Oracle Eloqua, Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Perplexity SonarShopify
One alternativeBigCommerce B2B Edition
against: WooCommerce
HubSpot Marketing HubChanged
Two alternativesActiveCampaign, Mailchimp
against: Adobe Marketo Engage, ZoomInfo
Shopify, Wix
Five alternativesKlaviyo, Mailchimp, Omnisend, Square Online, Squarespace
against: BigCommerce
Square Online, Wix
One alternativeWooCommerce
against: Shopify
no first choiceagainst: Adobe Commerce, Amazon/marketplace-first selling, BigCommerce, Meta (Facebook) Ads, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, WooCommerce, commercetools
Grok 4.1 FastActiveCampaign
Three alternativesDrip, Klaviyo, Omnisend
against: HubSpot Marketing Hub
HubSpot Marketing HubChanged
One alternativeActiveCampaign
against: Mailchimp
Omnisend, Privy
One alternativeKlaviyo
against: Mailchimp
Omnisend
Two alternativesBrevo, Mailchimp
against: Klaviyo
Klaviyo
Four alternativesActiveCampaign, Attentive, Drip, Omnisend
against: Google Ads, Klaviyo, Marketing 360, Meta/Facebook, Yelp Ads
Mistral SmallShopify
Four alternativesActiveCampaign, BigCommerce B2B Edition, HubSpot Marketing Hub, WooCommerce
ActiveCampaignChanged
Two alternativesDrip, HubSpot Marketing Hub
Omnisend, Shopify
Three alternativesActiveCampaign, Klaviyo, Wix
against: Mailchimp
BigCommerce
Six alternativesBuffer, Google Analytics 4, Mailchimp, Omnisend, Shopify, WooCommerce
Klaviyo, Omnisend
Two alternativesActiveCampaign, Brevo
against: Mailchimp, Omnisend, ReviewMeta, Trustpilot
DeepSeek V4 FlashBigCommerce, Shopify
Three alternativesHubSpot Marketing Hub, Klaviyo, Mailchimp
ActiveCampaignChanged
Five alternativesBrevo, Buffer, Canva, Google Analytics 4, Google Search Console
against: HubSpot Marketing Hub
Omnisend
Six alternativesDrip, Google Analytics 4, Judge.me, Klaviyo, Shopify Email, Smile.io
against: LoyaltyLion, Mailchimp
Omnisend
Four alternativesBrevo, Klaviyo, MailerLite, Shopify Email
against: Mailchimp
Klaviyo, Omnisend
Two alternativesActiveCampaign, Drip
against: Braze, HubSpot Marketing, Iterable, Mailchimp, Salesforce Marketing Cloud
against: ActiveCampaign, BigCommerce, Constant Contact, GetResponse, Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Shopify, Squarespace, Wix
Llama 4 Maverickno first choiceHubSpot Marketing HubChanged
One alternativeMailchimp
Shopify
Four alternativesBigCommerce, Square Online, Squarespace, Wix
no first choiceno first choiceagainst: Weebly
Qwen 3.7 FlashActiveCampaign
Two alternativesBigCommerce, HubSpot Marketing Hub
against: Klaviyo, Omnisend
HubSpot Marketing HubChanged
Two alternativesActiveCampaign, MailerLite
Klaviyo
Four alternativesBrevo, Drip, Mailchimp, Omnisend
Klaviyo
Seven alternativesBuffer, Canva, Google Analytics 4, MailerLite, Omnisend, Shopify, Wix
against: Ahrefs, Semrush
Klaviyo
Four alternativesAttentive, Customer.io, HubSpot Marketing Hub, Omnisend
against: Adobe Experience Cloud, Adobe Marketo Engage, Mailchimp
against: Amazon Ads, Brevo, GetResponse, Mailchimp, eBay
Kimi K2ActiveCampaign
Three alternativesBigCommerce, Brevo, Standard Shopify
against: HubSpot Marketing Hub, Shopify
ActiveCampaign, HubSpot Marketing HubChanged
Two alternativesApollo.io, Brevo
against: 6sense, Adobe Marketo Engage, Demandbase, Klaviyo
Omnisend
Six alternativesActiveCampaign, Brevo, Drip, Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Sender
Square Online, WooCommerce
Seven alternativesBigCommerce, Buffer, Canva, Google Analytics 4, Google Search Console, Mailchimp, Omnisend
against: Shopify
Shopify
Two alternativesBigCommerce, Wix
against: Bazaarvoice, HubSpot Marketing Hub, Klaviyo, Shift4Shop, Shopify, Squarespace Commerce, Volusion, Wix eCommerce
GLM 4.7 FlashXKlaviyo
Three alternativesActiveCampaign, BigCommerce, Shopify
HubSpot Marketing HubChanged
One alternativeMailchimp
Shopify
Six alternativesBigCommerce, Ecwid, Square Online, Squarespace Commerce, Wix eCommerce, WooCommerce
Wix eCommerce
Five alternativesBuffer, Google Analytics 4, Mailchimp, Shift4Shop, WooCommerce
Klaviyo
Three alternativesActiveCampaign, HubSpot Marketing Hub, Omnisend
against: Adobe Commerce, Allegro, Amazon Ads, Ecwid, Etsy, PrestaShop, Squarespace Ecommerce, Volusion V1, Weebly Ecommerce, WooCommerce, Zen Cart, eBay, osCommerce
MiniMax M2.5WooCommerce
Two alternativesBigCommerce B2B Edition, Shopify
HubSpot Sales HubChanged
Three alternativesApollo.io, Hey Sid, SocialBee
Klaviyo
Three alternativesHubSpot Marketing Hub, Mailchimp, Shopify
Shopify, WooCommerce
Three alternativesBig Cartel, Gumroad, Square Online
Klaviyo, Omnisend
One alternativeBrevo
against: Click Profit, Ecommerce Empire Builders
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

05The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 03:35no05 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 01:48yes45 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 02:31yes1625 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-14 23:04yes206 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 00:03yes06 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 01:26yes09 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-14 23:00yes036 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 02:47yes01 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 02:08yes099 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 04:43yes036 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 04:48yes031 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 00:43yes015 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-14 23:44no04 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 02:57yes43 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 04:45yes821 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-14 23:18yes205 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 04:42yes05 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 04:34yes05 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-14 23:26yes015 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 22:57yes02 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 03:26no037 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 03:29yes029 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 02:21yes012 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 01:43yes09 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 02:48yes1311 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 01:27yes57 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 00:50yes1824 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 02:48yes2012 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 03:54yes08 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 01:49yes012 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 02:44yes021 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 03:18yes02 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:32yes045 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 03:58yes046 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 03:49yes021 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 04:44yes035 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 02:50no04 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 00:50yes24 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 02:47yes719 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 01:31yes205 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 02:21yes010 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 02:42yes07 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-14 23:25yes025 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 00:13yes02 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 04:11yes037 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 04:42yes041 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 04:10yes055 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 01:25yes024 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-14 23:57no07 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 03:11no05 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 01:10yes627 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 03:37yes208 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-14 23:31yes010 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 02:47yes012 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 02:34yes038 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 01:30yes02 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:23no037 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 03:21yes038 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-14 23:08yes052 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 00:33yes018 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-14 22:54yes109 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 00:33no04 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 01:36yes922 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 04:40yes205 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 01:27yes08 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 05:03yes013 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-14 23:10yes073 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:27yes02 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:01yes049 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 00:18yes061 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 01:28yes046 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 01:53yes023 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

Category-scoped readings
Amazon read as Amazon Ads
HubSpot read as HubSpot Marketing Hub
HubSpot (Professional Tiers) read as HubSpot Marketing Hub
TikTok read as TikTok Ads
Unresolved, counted raw
Adobe Experience Cloud
Adobe Experience Cloud (Marketo)
Amazon/marketplace-first selling
CapCut / InShot
Pepperi
ReviewMeta
SAP
Shopify's built-in tools
Squarespace Ecommerce
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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