CRM
Asked as “CRM”, and as “customer relationship management system”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B software company. 51 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, six models each.
01The 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 rateLabelsQuadrant
Show the three products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
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.
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 →
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05
06
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08
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10
11Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative60%
Key
01HubSpot CRM41%
HubSpot CRM41%02HubSpot Sales Hub18%
HubSpot Sales Hub18%03Zoho CRM10%
Zoho CRM10%04Salesforce Sales Cloud10%
Salesforce Sales Cloud10%05Pipedrive2%
Pipedrive2%06Freshsales2%
Freshsales2%07Less Annoying CRM2%
Less Annoying CRM2%08Nutshell2%
Nutshell2%09Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales0%
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales0%10Close0%
Close0%11Bitrix240%
Bitrix240%02What 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 Cloud35%
17 of 49 labels negative · 10 of 6 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 CRM19%
10 of 54 labels negative · 8 of 6 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 CRM13%
7 of 54 labels negative · 7 of 6 models · 3 hard negative
“**Zoho CRM**: 300+ negative G2 reviews... Affordable but frustrating for growing teams.” Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt
Pipedrive9%
4 of 46 labels negative · 4 of 6 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 six in this edition.
Sites the answers cite
17 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 4 of 6 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 2 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.
3 answers · 1 model
3 answers · 1 model
3 answers · 1 model
2 answers · 1 model
2 answers · 1 model
2 answers · 1 model
2 answers · 1 model
2 answers · 1 model
2 answers · 1 model
2 answers · 2 models
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 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
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
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.
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.