RFP response software
Asked as “RFP response software”, and as “proposal management software”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B software company. 57 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, six models each. Added to the September 2026 Edition; its answers are read by the distilled judge (ai-indexes-judge-qwen3-14b), not the claude-opus-5 judge of the earlier categories: how the two compare.
Standing · first-choice share
25%
Contested · PandaDoc 16%
25Loopio16PandaDoc14Responsive46others
25% of first choices, contested.
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
Show the two products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
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.
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
10Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative40%
Key
01Loopio25%
Loopio25%02PandaDoc16%
PandaDoc16%03Responsive14%
Responsive14%04DeepRFP7%
DeepRFP7%05Proposify5%
Proposify5%06AutoRFP.ai2%
AutoRFP.ai2%071up2%
1up2%08Qwilr2%
Qwilr2%09Upland Qvidian0%
Upland Qvidian0%10Inventive AI0%
Inventive AI0%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.
Proposify28%
9 of 32 labels negative · 9 of 6 models · 5 hard negative
“General proposal tools like Proposify and PandaDoc: These excel at sales proposals but fall short for true RFPs.” Grok 4.20, negative prompt
PandaDoc31%
11 of 35 labels negative · 8 of 6 models · 5 hard negative
“General proposal tools like Proposify and PandaDoc: These excel at sales proposals but fall short for true RFPs.” Grok 4.20, negative prompt
Loopio16%
9 of 56 labels negative · 7 of 6 models · 1 hard negative
“**Loopio** specifically called out as "not AI-native"—built in 2014 with AI added around 2021” Kimi K2, negative prompt
Responsive20%
9 of 46 labels negative · 7 of 6 models · 1 hard negative
“Be Cautious With: Responsive (formerly RFPIO) ... This is the most criticized major platform based on consistent negative feedback” Qwen 3.7 Flash, 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
78 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. 1003 links across 166 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.
vendor site · Responsive38 answers · 69 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Guideflow37 answers · 41 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Inventive36 answers · 58 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Loopio31 answers · 43 citations · 14 models
30 answers · 63 citations · 12 models
vendor site · SiftHub28 answers · 35 citations · 12 models
26 answers · 26 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Storyflow21 answers · 24 citations · 11 models
vendor site · AutoRFP.ai20 answers · 28 citations · 9 models
vendor site · BidSparq20 answers · 25 citations · 8 models
vendor site · GetApp17 answers · 19 citations · 9 models
vendor site · DeepRFP16 answers · 21 citations · 11 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.
27 answers · 11 models
26 answers · 12 models
22 answers · 9 models
21 answers · 11 models
20 answers · 8 models
16 answers · 7 models
14 answers · 6 models
14 answers · 9 models
13 answers · 10 models
12 answers · 8 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 rfp response software”, “rfp response software”. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loopio loopio.com | 25% | 220 | 3,600 | 80 | 4,640 | 26 | ||
| PandaDoc pandadoc.com | 16% | 527 | 60,500 | 510 | 425,196 | $42,516 | 119 | |
| Responsive responsive.io | 14% | 213 | 12,100 | 210,141 | 37,620 | 16 | 5 | |
| PowerRFP powerrfp.com | 9% | 19 | 10 | 0 | 79 | 2 | ||
| DeepRFP deeprfp.com | 7% | 38 | 170 | 0 | 677 | |||
| BreezeDocs breezedocs.ai Breeze Docs 5%, BreezeDocs 2% | 7% | 12 | ||||||
| Proposify proposify.com | 5% | 274 | 3,600 | 28 | 38,103 | 27 | ||
| Tribble tribble.ai | 4% | 21 | 8 | |||||
| Expedience Proposal Software | 4% | |||||||
| AutoRFP.ai autorfp.ai | 2% | 76 | 70 | 0 | 38,771 | 2 | 2 |
Google's top ten for the two searches hold 13 sites; 4 of them are among the sites the models cited here (autorfp.ai, inventive.ai, responsive.io, sifthub.io). The first result for “best rfp response software” is kantiv.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 RFP response software for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which proposal management software would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top RFP response tools and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best RFP response software for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating a RFP response software. What should we look at?”Negative“Which RFP response tools 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 |
|---|
Normalization in this category
Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.
ShowHide
Category-scoped readings
Inventive read as Inventive AI
Unresolved, counted raw
BidMagic
BidScript
Bidhive
Civio AI
DocMerge
Google Docs/Sheets
GovWin IQ
Perceptis AI
ProposalKit / Proposal Central
ProposalPro
RFP.co
RFP360.AI
RFPMonkey
RequestFX
SmartDocs
Sweetspot
Tenderos
Thalamus
Tradogram
Workday Sourcing
Zip
Zyno RFP
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.