GTM AI Index
Index Revenue operations September 2026 Edition

CRM

Asked as “CRM”, and as “customer relationship management system”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 51 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
Clear leader
41% of first choices, clear leader.

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 mid-market B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01HubSpot CRM41%19%54endorsed leader
02HubSpot Sales Hub18%0%11accepted challenger
03Zoho CRM10%13%54accepted challenger
04Salesforce Sales Cloud10%35%49criticized challenger
05Pipedrive2%9%46accepted challenger
06Freshsales2%10%30accepted challenger
07Less Annoying CRM2%0%11accepted challenger
08Nutshell2%0%11accepted challenger
Show the three products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
11Bitrix240%20%10accepted challenger
10Close0%8%13accepted challenger
09Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales0%7%29accepted 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% negative60%
Key
01HubSpot CRM41%
02HubSpot Sales Hub18%
03Zoho CRM10%
04Salesforce Sales Cloud10%
05Pipedrive2%
06Freshsales2%
07Less Annoying CRM2%
08Nutshell2%
09Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales0%
10Close0%
11Bitrix240%

02What they warned about

Five of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, Grok 4.1 Fast, Mistral Small, Qwen 3.7 Flash 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.
Salesforce Sales Cloud
35%
17 of 49 labels negative · 10 of 12 models · 5 hard negative
“**Don't buy Salesforce** unless you're an enterprise with admin expertise and budget for the true TCO.” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
HubSpot CRM
19%
10 of 54 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“CRMs to **Approach with High Caution**... **HubSpot**: Tops lists with 300+ negative G2 reviews (capped), Risk Score 100/100” Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt
Zoho CRM
13%
7 of 54 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“**Zoho CRM**: 300+ negative G2 reviews... Affordable but frustrating for growing teams.” Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt
Pipedrive
9%
4 of 46 labels negative · 4 of 12 models
“Avoid if you have marketing + sales + customer success teams... **Pipedrive** (7/100)” MiniMax M2.5, 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

17 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. 138 links across 86 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 · Salesforce4 answers · 6 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Salesflare4 answers · 5 citations · 1 model
vendor site · Monday.com4 answers · 5 citations · 1 model
vendor site · HubSpot4 answers · 4 citations · 3 models
4 answers · 4 citations · 1 model
vendor site · Nutshell3 answers · 4 citations · 1 model
vendor site · ClickUp3 answers · 3 citations · 1 model
vendor site · Rework3 answers · 3 citations · 1 model
3 answers · 3 citations · 1 model
3 answers · 3 citations · 1 model
vendor site · folk2 answers · 3 citations · 1 model
2 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 CRM for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which customer relationship management system would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top CRMs and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best CRM for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating a CRM. What should we look at?”Negative“Which CRMs should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5no first choiceno first choiceHeldagainst: Salesforce Sales Cloudno first choiceHubSpot CRM, Zoho CRMno first choicenothing named
GPT-5.4 miniHubSpot Sales Hub, Salesforce Sales Cloud
One alternativeMicrosoft Dynamics 365 Sales
HubSpot CRMChanged
Two alternativesMicrosoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Zoho CRM
against: Salesforce Sales Cloud
HubSpot CRM, Salesforce Sales Cloud
Three alternativesMicrosoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM
HubSpot CRM
Four alternativesFreshsales, Pipedrive, Salesforce Free Suite, Zoho CRM
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashHubSpot CRM
Three alternativesPipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
HubSpot Sales HubChanged
Three alternativesPipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
Salesforce Sales Cloud
Four alternativesHubSpot CRM, Monday Sales CRM, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM
Bigin by Zoho, Zoho CRM
Four alternativesFreshsales, HubSpot CRM, Less Annoying CRM, Pipedrive
against: Odoo, Salesforce Sales Cloud, SuiteCRM
HubSpot CRM, Salesforce Sales Cloud
One alternativeMicrosoft Dynamics 365 Sales
against: Act!, ClickUp, Highrise, HubSpot CRM, Keap, Maximizer, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Monday.com, Notion, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
Perplexity SonarHubSpot Sales Hub
Four alternativesCoevera, Freshsales, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
HubSpot CRMChanged
Four alternativesNutshell, Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
no first choiceHubSpot CRM
Three alternativesBigin by Zoho, Freshsales, Zoho CRM
no first choicenothing named
Grok 4.1 FastHubSpot CRM, Pipedrive
Three alternativesFreshsales, Salesflare, Zoho CRM
against: Salesforce Sales Cloud
HubSpot CRMChanged
Three alternativesNutshell, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM
against: Salesforce Sales Cloud
no first choice
Four alternativesHubSpot CRM, Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM
Three alternativesBitrix24, HubSpot CRM, Less Annoying CRM
against: Pipedrive
HubSpot CRM, Salesforce Sales Cloud
Two alternativesMicrosoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Reworkd
against: Bitrix24, Freshsales, HubSpot CRM, Insightly, Kommo, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
Mistral SmallHubSpot Sales Hub
Three alternativesFreshsales, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Salesflare
against: Salesforce Sales Cloud
SalesflareChanged
Five alternativesFreshsales, HubSpot CRM, HubSpot Sales Hub, Nutshell, Pipedrive
Salesforce Sales Cloud
Nine alternativesBitrix24, ClickUp, EngageBay, HubSpot CRM, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Monday.com, Pipedrive, Zendesk Sell, Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM
Three alternativesBitrix24, EngageBay, Freshsales
against: HubSpot CRM
no first choiceagainst: HubSpot CRM, Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud
DeepSeek V4 FlashHubSpot CRM
Four alternativesAttio, Pipedrive, Salesflare, Zoho CRM
against: Salesforce Sales Cloud
HubSpot CRMHeld
Three alternativesMicrosoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM
against: Salesforce Sales Cloud
no first choice
Eight alternativesClose, Copper, HubSpot CRM, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Monday Sales CRM, Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
HubSpot CRM
Four alternativesBigin by Zoho, EngageBay, Freshsales, Zoho CRM
Dynamics 365, HubSpot CRM, Salesforce Sales Cloud
One alternativeZoho CRM
against: Bitrix24, Freshsales, HubSpot CRM, Keap, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
Llama 4 MaverickCoevera
Three alternativesFreshsales, NetSuite, Salesflare
CoeveraHeldno first choiceNutshell
Four alternativesBitrix24, Freshsales, HubSpot CRM, Zoho CRM
no first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashHubSpot Sales Hub
Seven alternativesClose, Coevera, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM, Zoho One
HubSpot CRM, HubSpot Sales HubChanged
Five alternativesFreshsales, Monday.com, Nutshell, Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud
no first choice
Six alternativesClose, HubSpot CRM, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
HubSpot CRM
Three alternativesBitrix24, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM
against: AgileCRM
no first choiceagainst: Act!, GoldMine, HubSpot CRM, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Salesforce Sales Cloud, SugarCRM, Zoho CRM
Kimi K2HubSpot Sales Hub
Four alternativesFreshsales, Pipedrive, Salesflare, Zoho CRM
against: Salesforce Sales Cloud
HubSpot Sales HubHeld
Three alternativesPipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
no first choice
Five alternativesHubSpot CRM, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
Freshsales, Zoho CRM
One alternativeBitrix24
against: HubSpot CRM
HubSpot CRM, Salesforce Pro Suite
One alternativeMicrosoft Dynamics 365 Sales
against: HubSpot CRM, Keap, Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
GLM 4.7 FlashXHubSpot CRM
Seven alternativesClose, Monday.com, Nutshell, Pipedrive, Pipeline CRM, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
HubSpot CRMHeld
Four alternativesMicrosoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
no first choice
Eight alternativesAttio, Close, Copper, HubSpot CRM, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
HubSpot CRM
Four alternatives1CRM, Pipedrive, Salesflare, Zoho CRM
no first choiceagainst: HubSpot CRM, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
MiniMax M2.5HubSpot Sales Hub
Three alternativesMicrosoft Dynamics 365 Sales, NetSuite, Zoho CRM
HubSpot CRM, Salesforce Sales CloudChangedno first choiceBigin by Zoho, Less Annoying CRM
Three alternativesEngageBay, HubSpot CRM, Zoho CRM
no first choiceagainst: Close, Freshsales, GoHighLevel, HubSpot CRM, Monday.com, Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM, ZoomInfo
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 01:34no04 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 01:08yes14 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 01:29yes2226 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 01:24yes205 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 03:23yes07 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 00:51yes08 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 04:45yes016 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 00:25yes01 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 00:35yes027 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:58yes032 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-14 23:01yes035 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 00:10yes012 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 03:30no04 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 00:32yes45 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 00:26yes1222 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 00:26yes206 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 04:04yes08 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-14 23:13yes08 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-14 23:15yes027 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 01:34yes01 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 04:04yes020 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 04:48yes030 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 00:50no027 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 03:03no08 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 00:39yes87 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 02:44yes56 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 04:03yes719 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 01:21yes209 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 01:30yes04 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 02:06yes06 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 03:08yes015 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 01:30yes02 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-14 23:57yes030 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 01:54yes025 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 02:11yes054 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-14 23:35yes011 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 02:31no04 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 00:46yes14 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 01:38yes1222 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 03:33yes196 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-14 22:55yes09 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 01:44yes07 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 01:21yes021 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:24yes02 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:01no030 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:05yes031 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 00:09yes016 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 02:58yes09 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-14 23:06no05 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 03:02no08 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 04:45yes920 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-14 23:04yes208 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 02:00yes09 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-14 23:59no08 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 01:12yes023 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 04:36yes02 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-14 23:18yes029 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 02:52yes036 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 02:19yes014 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 03:30yes018 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 01:10no03 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-14 23:35no04 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 01:57yes1630 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 00:33yes205 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 01:08yes010 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 04:12yes010 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 00:48yes067 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 05:04yes02 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 03:04yes041 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:39yes046 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-14 23:06yes062 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-14 22:59yes019 s

Noise floor in this category

Flips between the edition run and its calibration repeat. Six prompts per model is a small sample; the index-wide floor is the number to trust.

Claude Haiku 4.5
2 of 2 flipped
GPT-5.4 mini
3 of 4 flipped
Gemini 3.5 Flash
5 of 5 flipped
Perplexity Sonar
0 of 3 flipped
Grok 4.1 Fast
4 of 6 flipped
Mistral Small
2 of 4 flipped
DeepSeek V4 Flash
1 of 4 flipped
Llama 4 Maverick
3 of 3 flipped
Qwen 3.7 Flash
3 of 4 flipped
Kimi K2
4 of 4 flipped
GLM 4.7 FlashX
3 of 4 flipped
MiniMax M2.5
3 of 5 flipped

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
HubSpot read as HubSpot CRM
HubSpot (Free/Starter tiers) read as HubSpot CRM
HubSpot (Smart CRM) read as HubSpot CRM
Oracle read as Oracle Sales
SAP read as SAP Sales Cloud
Salesforce read as Salesforce Sales Cloud
Salesforce (Sales Cloud — Professional or Enterprise) read as Salesforce Sales Cloud
Salesforce (Sales Cloud) read as Salesforce Sales Cloud
Zoho read as Zoho CRM
Unresolved, counted raw
1CRM
AgileCRM
Campaigns by Pipedrive
Highrise
Kommo (amoCRM)
Maximizer
Pipedrive Power
Pipeline CRM
Pipeliner
Reworkd
Salesforce Free Suite
Salesforce Pro Suite
SuperOffice
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
← CPQCRM data quality →