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

Ecommerce platforms for small business buyers

Asked as “ecommerce platform”, and as “online store platform”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 51 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
Shopify
Contested
33% of first choices, contested.
ShowinginAll 73 categories in the September 2026 Edition →

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.
Small businessShopify33%ContestedThis pageMid-marketBigCommerce B2B Edition27%ContestedStanding →EnterpriseAdobe Commerce34%ContestedStanding →

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
01Shopify33%12%68endorsed leader
02BigCommerce31%7%60endorsed leader
03WooCommerce14%16%61accepted challenger
04Square Online8%4%24accepted challenger
05Wix eCommerce4%36%11criticized challenger
Show the four products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
09Adobe Commerce0%65%17criticized challenger
08Wix0%33%18criticized challenger
07Squarespace0%16%19accepted challenger
06Ecwid0%15%20accepted 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.
Head to head
BigCommerce B2B Edition vs BigCommerceBigCommerce B2B Edition vs WooCommerceBigCommerce vs WooCommerce

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
W05
06
07
08
09
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative50%
Key
01Shopify33%
02BigCommerce31%
03WooCommerce14%
04Square Online8%
05Wix eCommerce4%
06Ecwid0%
07Squarespace0%
08Wix0%
09Adobe Commerce0%

02What they warned about

Four of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Grok 4.1 Fast, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, 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.
WooCommerce
16%
10 of 61 labels negative · 9 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Most small businesses find the ongoing maintenance, security risks, and hidden costs outweigh the benefits” Claude Haiku 4.5, negative prompt
Adobe Commerce
65%
11 of 17 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Avoid enterprise like Adobe Commerce, Salesforce, or full BigCommerce B2B Edition ($1k+/mo)—overkill/costly for small.” Grok 4.1 Fast, direct prompt
Volusion
100%
7 of 7 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“Frequently called the "worst" in reviews due to outdated software, frequent crashes, bugs, unresponsive support” Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt
Weebly
100%
6 of 6 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“platforms that may be considered cautious or avoided by small businesses include Weebly due to its high transaction fees and limited features” Llama 4 Maverick, 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

18 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. 5 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 161 links across 93 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.

shopify.com
vendor site · Shopify10 answers · 13 citations · 3 models
bigcommerce.com
vendor site · BigCommerce7 answers · 10 citations · 3 models
forbes.com
6 answers · 7 citations · 2 models
guideflow.com
vendor site · Guideflow5 answers · 6 citations · 2 models
stripe.com
vendor site · Stripe5 answers · 5 citations · 1 model
learn.g2.com
4 answers · 4 citations · 1 model
woocommerce.com
vendor site · WooCommerce4 answers · 4 citations · 1 model
commercepundit.com
3 answers · 3 citations · 2 models
expertmarket.com
3 answers · 3 citations · 1 model
linkedin.com
vendor site · LinkedIn3 answers · 3 citations · 1 model
mrpeasy.com
vendor site · MRPeasy3 answers · 3 citations · 2 models
help.shopify.com
vendor site · Shopify2 answers · 3 citations · 1 model

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.

shopify.com/blog/best-ecommerce-platform-small-business
7 answers · 3 models
forbes.com/advisor/business/software/best-ecommerce-platform
5 answers · 2 models
bigcommerce.com/articles/ecommerce/small-business-ecommerce
4 answers · 2 models
guideflow.com/blog/best-ecommerce-platform-for-small-business
4 answers · 2 models
learn.g2.com/best-ecommerce-platforms
4 answers · 1 model
stripe.com/resources/more/ecommerce-platforms-for-small-businesses-a-guide-…
4 answers · 1 model
bigcommerce.com/articles/ecommerce/ecommerce-platforms
3 answers · 2 models
commercepundit.com/blog/affordable-e-commerce-platforms-for-small-businesses
3 answers · 2 models
expertmarket.com/website-builders/best-small-business-ecommerce-platform
3 answers · 1 model
mrpeasy.com/blog/best-ecommerce-platforms
3 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 ecommerce platform for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which online store platform would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top ecommerce platforms for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best ecommerce platform for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating an ecommerce platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which ecommerce platforms should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5WooCommerce
Two alternativesBigCommerce, Shopify
against: Adobe CommerceBigCommerce, WooCommerceChanged
One alternativeShopify
against: Salesforce Commerce CloudShopify
Four alternativesBigCommerce, Squarespace, Wix, WooCommerce
against: Adobe CommerceWix eCommerce
Two alternativesLaunchMyStore, WooCommerce
no first choiceagainst: Shopify, Squarespace, Storenvy, Wix, WooCommerce, Yahoo! Stores
GPT-5.4 miniShopify
Two alternativesBigCommerce, WooCommerce
BigCommerceChanged
Two alternativesShopify, WooCommerce
Shopify
Three alternativesBigCommerce, Wix eCommerce, WooCommerce
WooCommerce
One alternativeSquare Online
against: Shopifyno first choiceagainst: Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce, OpenCart, PrestaShop, Shopify, WooCommerce
Gemini 3.5 FlashShopify
Three alternativesBigCommerce, Wix Studio / Wix Business, WooCommerce
ShopifyHeld
Two alternativesBigCommerce, WooCommerce
Shopify
Four alternativesBigCommerce, Squarespace, Wix eCommerce, WooCommerce
WooCommerce
Three alternativesHostinger Website Builder, Shopify, Square Online
BigCommerce, Shopifyagainst: Adobe Commerce, Commerce Layer, Shopify Hydrogen, WooCommerceagainst: Adobe Commerce, OpenCart, Oracle Commerce, PrestaShop, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Shift4Shop, Volusion, Weebly, WooCommerce
Perplexity SonarShopify
Two alternativesBigCommerce, OroCommerce
against: WixShopifyHeld
One alternativeBigCommerce
against: OroCommerceShopify
Five alternativesBigCommerce, Square Online, Squarespace, Wix, WooCommerce
Square Online
Two alternativesShopify, WooCommerce
no first choiceagainst: Adobe Commerce, Big Cartel, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Squarespace Commerce, Volusion, Weebly, Wix eCommerce, commercetools
Grok 4.1 FastShopify
Two alternativesBigCommerce, WooCommerce
against: Adobe Commerce, Salesforce Commerce CloudBigCommerceChanged
Two alternativesShopify, WooCommerce
Shopify
Five alternativesBigCommerce, Square Online, Squarespace, Wix, WooCommerce
WooCommerce
Three alternativesBig Cartel, Ecwid, Square Online
against: ShopifyBigCommerce, Shopify
Two alternativesSquarespace, Wix
against: Square Online, WooCommerceagainst: Big Cartel, Ecwid, Shift4Shop, Squarespace Commerce, Volusion, Weebly, Wix eCommerce
Mistral SmallShopify
Three alternativesBigCommerce B2B Edition, SparkLayer, WooCommerce + B2B Plugins
against: EcwidBigCommerce, ShopifyChanged
One alternativeWooCommerce
against: Weebly, WixShopify
Six alternativesBigCommerce, Ecwid, Square Online, Squarespace Commerce, Wix eCommerce, WooCommerce
Square Online
Five alternativesBigCommerce, Ecwid, Payhip, Shopify, WooCommerce
no first choiceagainst: Adobe Commerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloudagainst: BigCommerce, Etsy, Gumroad, Shopify, Volusion, Wix eCommerce
DeepSeek V4 FlashBigCommerce, Shopify
One alternativeWooCommerce
against: Adobe Commerce, OroCommerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Shopify, commercetoolsBigCommerceChanged
Two alternativesShopify, WooCommerce
Shopify
Five alternativesBigCommerce, Ecwid, Square Online, Squarespace, WooCommerce
against: WixBig Cartel, Square Online
Six alternativesBigCommerce, Ecwid, Gumroad, Shopify, Wix, WooCommerce
BigCommerce, Shopify
One alternativeWooCommerce
against: Adobe Commerceagainst: BigCommerce, Magento 1.x, Magento 2/Adobe Commerce, PrestaShop, Shopify, Squarespace Commerce, Volusion V1, Wix, WooCommerce, Zen Cart, osCommerce
Llama 4 Maverickno first choiceShopifyChanged
Two alternativesAdobe Commerce, BigCommerce
no first choiceBig Cartel
Five alternativesEcwid, Gumroad, Shopify, Square Online, WooCommerce
no first choiceagainst: Weebly
Qwen 3.7 FlashBigCommerce
Two alternativesShopify, WooCommerce
BigCommerceHeld
Two alternativesShopify, WooCommerce
against: ShopifyShopify
Two alternativesBigCommerce, WooCommerce
Wix eCommerce
Four alternativesBig Cartel, Ecwid, Shopify, Squarespace
BigCommerce, Shopify
One alternativeWooCommerce
against: Adobe Commerce (Magento) Cloud, OpenCart, Volusion, Weebly Ecommerce, WooCommerce
Kimi K2BigCommerce
Two alternativesShopify, WooCommerce
BigCommerceHeld
Two alternativesShopify, WooCommerce
Shopify, Square Online, Wix
Three alternativesBigCommerce, Ecwid, WooCommerce
Big Cartel, Square Online
Three alternativesBigCommerce, Shopify, WooCommerce
Shopify
Two alternativesBigCommerce, WooCommerce
against: Squarespace, Wixagainst: BigCommerce, Magento 1.x, Shift4Shop, Volusion V1, WooCommerce, Zen Cart, osCommerce
GLM 4.7 FlashXShopify
Two alternativesBigCommerce, WooCommerce
BigCommerce, ShopifyChanged
Two alternativesEcwid, SparkLayer
Shopify
Seven alternativesBigCommerce, Ecwid, Salesforce Starter Suite, Square Online, Squarespace, Wix, WooCommerce
WooCommerce
Two alternativesShopify, Wix
against: Squarespaceno first choiceagainst: Volusion, Weebly, WooCommerce
MiniMax M2.5Zoho Commerce
Two alternativesBigCommerce, Shopify
Shopify Plus / Shopify with B2B AppsChanged
Three alternativesBigCommerce, Lightspeed Commerce, WooCommerce
Shopify, Square Online
One alternativeWooCommerce
BigCommerce, WooCommerce
Two alternativesShopify, Square Online
no first choiceagainst: Adobe Commerce, Ecwid, Squarespace Commerce, Volusion, Wix eCommerce, WooCommerce
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 01:40no04 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 03:43yes34 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 03:29yes1522 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 02:06yes204 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 01:17yes09 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 00:01yes09 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 01:41yes019 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:26yes02 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-14 23:12yes030 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 04:34yes031 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 00:47yes017 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 00:22yes015 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-14 23:27no04 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 02:39no02 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 02:20yes1521 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 05:04yes185 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 03:20yes04 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 02:50no03 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 03:09yes046 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 03:17yes01 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-14 23:48no025 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 02:38yes024 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 01:20yes050 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 00:14no011 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-14 23:33yes1310 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 00:28yes45 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 01:49yes1024 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 02:03yes178 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 03:17yes07 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 00:51yes09 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 04:13yes018 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 00:38yes02 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 02:54yes030 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:15yes031 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 00:42yes027 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 04:48yes024 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 01:44yes78 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 05:07yes24 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 02:26yes1024 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 00:48yes206 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 01:42yes06 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-14 23:06yes07 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-14 23:42yes022 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 00:12yes02 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:46yes020 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:17yes012 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 02:30yes0114 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 05:03yes010 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 01:07no07 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 03:57no05 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 01:39no015 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 03:26yes197 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 04:00yes08 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 01:46no05 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 01:12yes019 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 04:17yes03 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 03:56yes041 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:14yes025 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 02:17yes018 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 04:34no014 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-14 23:04yes158 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 03:16yes35 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 23:43yes2024 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 00:11yes2022 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 04:25yes014 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 05:00yes012 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 03:20yes041 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 00:47yes02 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:55yes022 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 03:14yes043 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 02:42yes020 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 03:12yes033 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
Salesforce read as Salesforce Commerce Cloud
Unresolved, counted raw
B2B for Shopify
BigCommerce B2B
Commerce Layer
Faire
LaunchMyStore
Lightspeed Commerce
Magento 2/Adobe Commerce
Salesforce Starter Suite
Shopify Hydrogen
Shopify Plus / Shopify with B2B Apps
Storenvy
Wholesale Club
Wholesale Suite
Wholesale for WooCommerce
Wix Studio / Wix Business
WooCommerce + B2B Plugins
WooCommerce Wholesale Suite
Yahoo! Stores
Zoho Commerce
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.

Also in revenue operations

The other categories of this function, with the leader in each.
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