# Referral Rock vs Open Loyalty: which do AI models recommend for loyalty, September 2026

GTM AI Recommendation Index, September 2026 Edition, Loyalty, advocacy and referrals. Three of twelve models named Referral Rock first on the direct prompt; one named Open Loyalty. Page: https://gtm-ai-index.com/marketing/loyalty-advocacy-and-referrals/referral-rock-vs-open-loyalty/

| | First-choice share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels | Models naming it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Referral Rock | 22% | #2 of 18 | 0% | 23 | 9 of 12 |
| Open Loyalty | 2% | #8 of 18 | 0% | 14 | 9 of 12 |

## The direct prompt, model by model

- Gemini 3.5 Flash: referral rock first (first choices: Referral Rock) (alternatives: Annex Cloud, Influitive, PartnerStack, SaaSquatch)
- Kimi K2: referral rock first (first choices: Referral Rock, Zinrelo) (alternatives: Kademi, PartnerStack)
- MiniMax M2.5: referral rock first (first choices: GrowSurf, Referral Rock) (alternatives: FirstPromoter, Kademi, Zinrelo)
- Perplexity Sonar: open loyalty first (first choices: CustomerGauge, Open Loyalty) (alternatives: Talon.One)
- Claude Haiku 4.5: neither first, one named (first choices: CustomerGauge) (alternatives: GrowSurf, Referral Rock, Salesforce Loyalty Management, Zinrelo)
- Grok 4.1 Fast: neither first, one named (first choices: Influitive) (alternatives: Ambassador, Referral Rock, TrueLoyal)
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: neither first, one named (first choices: Ambassador) (alternatives: CustomerGauge, PartnerStack, Referral Rock)
- Llama 4 Maverick: neither first, one named (alternatives: GrowSurf, Referral Rock)
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: neither first, one named (first choices: True Loyal) (alternatives: Annex Cloud, Open Loyalty, Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals)
- GPT-5.4 mini: neither named (first choices: Ambassador) (alternatives: CustomerGauge, Referral Factory, Salesforce Loyalty Management)
- Mistral Small: neither named (first choices: GrowSurf) (alternatives: PartnerStack, True Loyal)
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: neither named (first choices: Influitive) (alternatives: Ambassador, CustomerGauge)

## What the models said about Referral Rock

- "Top Pick: Referral Rock ... highly regarded for mid-market B2B companies because it is built to handle the complexity of longer B2B sales cycles" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, direct prompt, first choice)
- "For most mid-sized B2B companies, I'd recommend starting with Referral Rock for its focused referral capabilities and reasonable pricing" (Mistral Small, paraphrase prompt, first choice)

## What the models said about Open Loyalty

- "Open Loyalty is the best-fit option among the results for mid-market and enterprise companies" (Perplexity Sonar, direct prompt, first choice)
- "API-first, composable toolkit for custom builds" (Perplexity Sonar, comparative prompt, alternative)

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all twelve models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category. Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category. Published under CC BY 4.0; the output is the models' output, and nothing here is a recommendation by the index.