CRM
Asked as “CRM”, and as “customer relationship management system”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B software company. 44 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, six models each.
Standing · first-choice share
59%
Clear leader
59HubSpot CRM23HubSpot Sales Hub05Zoho CRM14others
59% of first choices, clear leader.
Since September 2026▲+22Since September 2026: 41% → 63%, +22 points. Past the 12-point floor: movement. Read over the models both editions asked.HubSpot CRM held the lead, +22 points on 41%, past the floor.
The standing
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all six models, for a mid-market B2B software company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrantSince September 2026
01
HubSpot CRM59%15%60endorsed leader▲+22Since September 2026: 41% → 63%, +22 points. Past the 12-point floor: movement. Read over the models both editions asked.41% → 63%
HubSpot CRM59%15%60endorsed leader▲+22Since September 2026: 41% → 63%, +22 points. Past the 12-point floor: movement. Read over the models both editions asked.41% → 63%02
HubSpot Sales Hub23%0%13accepted challenger▲+3Since September 2026: 18% → 21%, +3 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.18% → 21%
HubSpot Sales Hub23%0%13accepted challenger▲+3Since September 2026: 18% → 21%, +3 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.18% → 21%03
Zoho CRM5%16%61accepted challenger▼−7Since September 2026: 10% → 3%, −7 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.10% → 3%
Zoho CRM5%16%61accepted challenger▼−7Since September 2026: 10% → 3%, −7 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.10% → 3%04
Freshsales2%0%23accepted challenger▲+1Since September 2026: 2% → 3%, +1 point. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.2% → 3%
Freshsales2%0%23accepted challenger▲+1Since September 2026: 2% → 3%, +1 point. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.2% → 3%05
Less Annoying CRM2%0%11accepted challenger▲+1Since September 2026: 2% → 3%, +1 point. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.2% → 3%
Less Annoying CRM2%0%11accepted challenger▲+1Since September 2026: 2% → 3%, +1 point. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.2% → 3%Show the four products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
07
Salesforce Sales Cloud0%26%58criticized challenger▼−10Since September 2026: 10% → 0%, −10 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.10% → 0%
Salesforce Sales Cloud0%26%58criticized challenger▼−10Since September 2026: 10% → 0%, −10 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.10% → 0%09
monday CRM0%20%10accepted challenger=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.0% → 0%
monday CRM0%20%10accepted challenger=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.0% → 0%06
Pipedrive0%11%44accepted challenger▼−2Since September 2026: 2% → 0%, −2 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.2% → 0%
Pipedrive0%11%44accepted challenger▼−2Since September 2026: 2% → 0%, −2 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.2% → 0%08
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales0%6%36accepted challenger=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.0% → 0%
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales0%6%36accepted challenger=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.0% → 0%The floor is 12 points of share, measured: how far the models move a leader on their own when the same questions are asked twice with nothing changed. A larger change is movement; a smaller one is noise, and both are shown. How the floor is measured
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.
Head to head
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 →
010203040506070809Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative70%
Key
01HubSpot CRM59%
HubSpot CRM59%02HubSpot Sales Hub23%
HubSpot Sales Hub23%03Zoho CRM5%
Zoho CRM5%04Freshsales2%
Freshsales2%05Less Annoying CRM2%
Less Annoying CRM2%06Pipedrive0%
Pipedrive0%07Salesforce Sales Cloud0%
Salesforce Sales Cloud0%08Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales0%
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales0%09monday CRM0%
monday CRM0%What they warned about
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 Cloud26%
15 of 58 labels negative · 10 of 6 models · 1 hard negative
“**Avoid Salesforce** unless you're an enterprise with dedicated admin resources.” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
HubSpot CRM15%
9 of 60 labels negative · 9 of 6 models
“Many users report feeling locked into the ecosystem because migrating away from HubSpot is technically difficult and expensive.” Qwen 3.7 Flash, negative prompt
Zoho CRM16%
10 of 61 labels negative · 9 of 6 models
“While cheap, the individual apps within Zoho feel disjointed. Users often describe the UI as cluttered or dated” Qwen 3.7 Flash, negative prompt
Pipedrive11%
5 of 44 labels negative · 5 of 6 models
“Be cautious if you do not want pipeline and sales pattern data used for vendor benchmarking/analytics.” Muse Glimmer 30B, negative prompt
What they cite
Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: fourteen of the six in this edition.
Sites the answers cite
72 of 84 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 14 of 6 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 890 links across 297 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page. None of the 36 answers across every segment cited this index's own page for the category.
vendor site · Salesflare20 answers · 24 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Nutshell19 answers · 21 citations · 9 models
18 answers · 22 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Pipedrive14 answers · 23 citations · 8 models
14 answers · 18 citations · 8 models
13 answers · 13 citations · 7 models
12 answers · 14 citations · 7 models
vendor site · HubSpot12 answers · 13 citations · 8 models
vendor site · HubSpot11 answers · 15 citations · 5 models
11 answers · 14 citations · 8 models
11 answers · 13 citations · 7 models
11 answers · 12 citations · 7 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.
13 answers · 8 models
11 answers · 7 models
11 answers · 6 models
9 answers · 6 models
9 answers · 7 models
8 answers · 6 models
8 answers · 7 models
8 answers · 6 models
8 answers · 5 models
8 answers · 5 models
Search against answers
Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best crm”, “crm”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
| Company and products | Share | Own site cited | Name searches, Google | AI search demand, est. | Organic visits | Paid search a month, est. | Google ads, last 30 days | Best Google position |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot parent site HubSpot CRM 59%, HubSpot Sales Hub 23% | 82% | 693 | 368,000 | 9,776 | ||||
| Zoho parent site Zoho CRM 5% | 5% | 332 | 49,500 | 660 | ||||
| Freshsales freshworks.com Freshsales 2%, Freshworks CRM 0% | 2% | 110 | 1,600 | 38 | 111,586 | $14,486 | 113 | |
| Less Annoying CRM lessannoyingcrm.com | 2% | 35 | 6,600 | 15 | 7,648 | 6 | ||
| Zoho bigin.com Bigin by Zoho 2% | 2% | 56 | 210 | 33 | 1,980 | 0 | ||
| Coevera coevera.com | 2% | 5 | 50 | 0 | 4,906 | |||
| Nutshell nutshell.com | 2% | 11 | 22,200 | 4,189 | 25,099 | 37 | ||
| Vtiger vtiger.com | 2% | 4 | ||||||
| Pipedrive pipedrive.com | 0% | 370 | 49,500 | 598 | 418,149 | $55 | 97 | 8 |
| Salesforce parent site Salesforce Sales Cloud 0% | 0% | 275 | 550,000 | 60,632 |
Google's top ten for the two searches hold 13 sites; 3 of them are among the sites the models cited here (forbes.com, hubspot.com, pipedrive.com). The first result for “best crm” is salesforce.com.
How 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.ShowHide
How 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.
ShowHideModelDirect“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 Opus 5no first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Claude Opus 4.8no first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
GPT-6 Astrano first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
GPT-5.6 Solno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.1 Prono first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Perplexity Sonar Prono first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against
The 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
Zero rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
| Prompt | Model | Version string | Time (UTC) | Searched | Sources | Latency |
|---|
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.
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Normalization in this category
Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.
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Category-scoped readings
HubSpot read as HubSpot CRM
HubSpot Smart CRM read as HubSpot CRM
Monday Sales CRM read as monday CRM
SAP read as SAP Sales Cloud
Salesforce read as Salesforce Sales Cloud
Salesforce (Sales Cloud/Agentforce) read as Salesforce Sales Cloud
Salesforce (Standard Edition) read as Salesforce Sales Cloud
Zoho read as Zoho CRM
monday Sales CRM read as monday CRM
Unresolved, counted raw
Agent CRM
Blackbaud CRM
Bloomerang CRM
Day.ai
Followup CRM
Freshsales Sprout
Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM
Neon CRM
Odoo CRM
Prospect CRM
SMART CRM
Surefire CRM
ZohoCRM
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.