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

Loyalty, advocacy and referrals for small business buyers

Asked as “customer loyalty and referral platform”, and as “customer advocacy and referral program tool”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 46 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
Contested
33% 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
01Smile.io33%10%41endorsed leader
02Referral Rock30%4%28endorsed leader
03Referral Factory11%0%29accepted challenger
04CustomerGauge7%18%11accepted challenger
05ReferralCandy2%26%35criticized challenger
Show the six products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
11Influitive0%75%12criticized challenger
10Ambassador0%64%11criticized challenger
09Friendbuy0%38%13criticized challenger
08Yotpo0%37%19criticized challenger
07LoyaltyLion0%32%25criticized challenger
06GrowSurf0%12%16accepted 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
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative50%
Key
01Smile.io33%
02Referral Rock30%
03Referral Factory11%
04CustomerGauge7%
05ReferralCandy2%
06GrowSurf0%
07LoyaltyLion0%
08Yotpo0%
09Friendbuy0%
10Ambassador0%
11Influitive0%

02What they warned about

Four of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. GPT-5.4 mini, Perplexity Sonar, Grok 4.1 Fast, Mistral Small, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, 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.
Influitive
75%
9 of 12 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Avoid enterprise tools like Influitive/Ambassador/PartnerStack ($1k+/mo, custom quotes)—too pricey for small teams.” Grok 4.1 Fast, paraphrase prompt
ReferralCandy
26%
9 of 35 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“more geared toward e-commerce and consumer giveaway-style referrals, not long-cycle B2B” DeepSeek V4 Flash, paraphrase prompt
Ambassador
64%
7 of 11 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“often with **$50K+ price floors** ... simply not designed for (or accessible to) small businesses” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
Friendbuy
38%
5 of 13 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“High-Friction Enterprise Platforms with Opaque Pricing & Long Contracts (e.g., Friendbuy, SaaSquatch, Annex Cloud) ... generally ill-suited for growing businesses” Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative 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

21 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. 217 links across 105 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 · Open Loyalty10 answers · 17 citations · 2 models
6 answers · 9 citations · 2 models
6 answers · 7 citations · 2 models
6 answers · 6 citations · 2 models
5 answers · 7 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Klaviyo5 answers · 5 citations · 2 models
4 answers · 5 citations · 2 models
vendor site · CustomerGauge4 answers · 5 citations · 2 models
vendor site · HubSpot4 answers · 4 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Guideflow4 answers · 4 citations · 1 model
4 answers · 4 citations · 1 model
vendor site · Voucherify4 answers · 4 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 customer loyalty and referral platform for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which customer advocacy and referral program tool would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top loyalty, advocacy and referral platforms for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best customer loyalty and referral platform for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating a customer loyalty and referral platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which loyalty, advocacy and referral platforms should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Referral Rock
Three alternativesCustomerGauge, PartnerStack, Referral Factory
Referral RockHeld
Four alternativesBase, Influitive, ReferenceEdge, SlapFive
Smile.io, Yotpo
Three alternativesLoyaltyLion, Open Loyalty, ReferralCandy
against: Extole
Loop.fans
Four alternativesJoy Loyalty, Loopy Loyalty, Smile.io, Stamped
no first choiceagainst: Ackroo, Paytronix, TapMango, Yotpo
GPT-5.4 miniReferral Factory
Two alternativesInfluitive, Preferred Patron Loyalty
against: LoyaltyLion, Smile.io
Referral RockChanged
Three alternativesGainsight Customer Communities / Customer Advocacy, Influitive, PartnerStack
LoyaltyLion
Three alternativesFriendbuy, Smile.io, Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals
against: Extole
Gratisfaction
Two alternativesPreferred Patron Loyalty, Referral Factory
against: Okendo, Smile.io
no first choiceagainst: Extole, Friendbuy, Mention Me, ReferralCandy, Talkable
Gemini 3.5 FlashReferral Rock
Four alternativesCustomerGauge, GrowSurf, Lootly, Referral Factory
Referral RockHeld
Three alternativesDeeto, FirstPromoter, Referral Factory
against: Influitive
Smile.io
Six alternativesBrandChamp, FirstPromoter, LoyaltyLion, ReferralCandy, Rewardful, Rocksalt
Smile.io
Five alternativesBoomerangme, Growave, Joy Loyalty, Loyally.ai, Square Loyalty
Smile.io
Six alternativesGrowSurf, LoyaltyLion, Referral Factory, Referral Rock, Rewardful, Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals
against: Oracle CrowdTwist, Salesforce Loyalty Management
against: Annex Cloud, Friendbuy, Open Loyalty, SaaSquatch, Talon.One, Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals
Perplexity SonarCustomerGauge
Three alternativesLoyaltyLion, Smile.io, Yotpo
Referral FactoryChanged
One alternativeReferral Rock
against: Base, Influitive
Smile.io
Five alternativesLoopy Loyalty, LoyaltyLion, Open Loyalty, Voucherify, Yotpo Loyalty
Smile.io
Four alternativesLoopy Loyalty, Loyalty Gator, Loyalzoo, Square Loyalty
no first choiceagainst: Antavo, Comarch
Grok 4.1 FastFirstPromoter, Rewardful
Three alternativesGrowSurf, Referral Rock, Viral Loops
against: CustomerGauge, PartnerStack
Referral RockChanged
Two alternativesGrowSurf, Referral Factory
against: Ambassador, Influitive, PartnerStack
ReferralCandy, Smile.io
Seven alternativesGrowSurf, LoyaltyLion, NiceJob, Referral Factory, Referral Rock, Viral Loops, Yotpo Loyalty
Smile.io
Three alternativesJoy, Loyally.ai, ReferralCandy
against: Yotpo Loyalty
no first choiceagainst: Ambassador, Annex Cloud, GrowSurf, LoyaltyLion, Referral Rock, SaaSquatch, Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals, impact.com
Mistral SmallCello
Two alternativesCustomerGauge, Referral Factory
against: ReferralCandy
CustomerGaugeChanged
Three alternativesGrowSurf, Open Loyalty, Referral Factory
Glue, Loyalzoo
Thirteen alternativesBirdeye, Friendbuy, GrowSurf, Guideflow, Referral Candy, Referral Factory, Referral Rock, Smile.io, Square Loyalty, UserEvidence, Vyper, Yotpo, Zinrelo
BON Loyalty, Smile.io
Five alternativesJoy Loyalty, Loyally.ai, Loyalzoo, Loyverse POS, ReferralCandy
Smile.io
Three alternativesBubblehouse, LoyaltyLion, Yotpo
against: Fiserv, Global Payments / TSYS, Honey, Nuvei, Yelp
DeepSeek V4 FlashReferral Rock
Two alternativesGrowSurf, InviteReferrals
against: Ambassador, CustomerGauge, LoyaltyLion, ReferralCandy, Smile.io, Yotpo
Referral RockHeld
One alternativeReferral Factory
against: Influitive, PartnerStack, ReferralCandy, UpViral, Vyper
NiceJob, ReferralCandy, Smile.io
Six alternativesGrowave, Loyally.ai, Referral Factory, Rewardful, Rivo, Toki
against: Birdeye, Higher Logic, LoyaltyLion, Podium
Smile.io
Four alternativesClavaa, Joy Rewards, Loopy Loyalty, ReferralCandy
against: LoyaltyLion
Smile.io
Four alternativesLoyaltyLion, Marsello, Rivo, Yuko
against: Antavo, Talon.One, Yotpo, Zinrelo
against: Ambassador, Belly, Extole, Fivestars, Friendbuy, Loyalty Gator, LoyaltyLion, Mention Me, Perka, Plenti, Punchh, Yelp Advertising, Yotpo
Llama 4 MaverickCustomerGauge
Three alternativesLootly, Referral Factory, ReferralCandy
Referral FactoryChanged
Two alternativesCustomerGauge, Higher Logic
Referral Factory
Five alternativesAmbassador, Mention Me, NextBee, Open Loyalty, ReferralCandy
Smile.io
Four alternativesGlue Loyalty, Loyalty Gator, Loyalzoo, Square Online
no first choiceagainst: Influitive, LoyaltyLion, ReferralCandy, Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals
Qwen 3.7 FlashPartnero
Two alternativesFirstPromoter, Referral Rock
against: GrowSurf, ReferralHero
Referral RockChanged
Two alternativesGrowSurf, Viral Loops
against: Ambassador, Guideflow, Influitive, Zuberance
UpPromote
Three alternativesAmbassador, GrowthSurge, Smile.io
against: ReferralCandy, Yotpo
Smile.io
Five alternativesLoyalzoo, Loyverse POS, ReferralCandy, Square Rewards, UpPromote
Smile.io
Four alternativesAmbassador, Exponent, ReferralCandy, Yotpo
against: Smile.io, Yotpo
Kimi K2Referral Rock
Three alternativesGrowSurf, Referral Factory, Smile.io
Referral RockHeld
Two alternativesGrowSurf, Referral Factory
against: Ambassador, Influitive, ReferralCandy
Smile.io
Four alternativesLoyaltyLion, Referral Rock, ReferralCandy, Yotpo Loyalty
against: Influitive
Smile.io
Two alternativesBON Loyalty, Rivo
against: Growave, ReferralCandy
Referral Factory, Referral Rock, Smile.io
Four alternativesKangaroo, LoyaltyLion, Loyalzoo, Yotpo Loyalty
against: Annex Cloud, Antavo, Oracle, Talon.One
against: Annex Cloud, Antavo, FOMO, Maestra, Marsello, Oracle Loyalty, S Loyalty and Rewards Program, SC Loyalty Rewards, Salesforce Loyalty Management, Talon.One, TrueLoyal, Zinrelo
GLM 4.7 FlashXCello
Two alternativesReferral Factory, Rewardful
Referral FactoryChanged
Three alternativesCustomerGauge, NiceJob, Referral Rock
Referral Factory, ReferralCandy
Three alternativesGrowSurf, Lootly, Open Loyalty
against: Influitive
Smile.io
Five alternativesFirstPromoter, Loyverse POS, ReferralCandy, Square Loyalty, Yotpo
no first choiceagainst: Friendbuy, LoyaltyLion, ReferralCandy, Yotpo
MiniMax M2.5Referral Rock, ReferralCandy
Two alternativesGrowSurf, Smile.io
Referral RockChanged
Three alternativesCustomerGauge, Friendbuy, Referral Factory
Loyally.ai, ReferralCandy, Viral Loops
Four alternativesLootly, Referral Factory, Referral Rock, Yotpo
against: Ambassador, Friendbuy, Talkable
Smile.io
One alternativeReferralCandy
no first choicenothing named
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 01:47yes88 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 01:20yes34 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 04:26yes2129 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 01:40yes175 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 04:12yes011 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 03:04yes010 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 02:49yes032 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 02:48yes01 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 02:11yes047 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 02:04yes028 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 02:33yes018 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 02:36yes039 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 03:32yes148 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 02:06no03 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 03:47yes1525 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 03:20yes194 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 03:25yes08 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 00:54yes05 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-14 22:54yes019 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 02:37yes01 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:40yes027 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 04:46yes016 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 04:20yes015 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 01:47yes019 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 03:26yes1413 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-14 23:03yes79 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 23:41yes2229 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 02:31yes2020 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 03:27yes08 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 01:31yes09 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 03:48yes024 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:59yes02 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 02:55no045 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 04:38yes044 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 00:59yes055 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 03:41yes017 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 00:34yes149 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 04:05yes45 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 04:31yes1721 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 01:56yes205 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 04:47yes07 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 01:47yes010 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-14 23:57yes035 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 00:51yes01 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 03:17yes038 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 03:28yes031 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 00:54yes023 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 03:31yes09 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 03:45no06 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 04:58no08 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 02:49yes1020 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 04:12yes208 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 01:38yes08 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 02:35yes07 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 00:49yes045 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 03:20yes02 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 03:24no037 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 04:59yes046 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 00:54yes049 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 01:32yes027 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 03:50yes3314 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-14 22:58yes45 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 01:45yes2821 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 04:28yes208 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 02:18yes012 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 00:07yes015 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 04:03yes036 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 03:50yes02 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 03:03no056 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 04:45yes072 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 05:00yes071 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 04:51yes020 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
None. Every name in this category resolved on its own.
Unresolved, counted raw
Ackroo
Belly
Boomerangme
Clavaa
Clover Loyalty
FOMO (Social Proof)
Fiserv (formerly First Data)
Gainsight Customer Communities / Customer Advocacy
Global Payments / TSYS
Glue
Glue Loyalty
Gratisfaction
GrowthSurge
Joy
Oracle
Oracle Loyalty
Perka
Plenti
Referral Candy
Rocksalt
S Loyalty and Rewards Program
SC Loyalty Rewards (Bold)
Square Rewards
Stackfield
Stackla
Toki
Yuko
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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