Every category where a model named Circle for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant
Community platforms	Customer	15%	3 of 74	23%	43	accepted challenger
Customer education and LMS	Customer	0%	57 of 81	100%	1	under 10 labels · led by TalentLMS at 33%

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for Circle yet. The next is due October 1, 2026. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated Circle across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Twelve models, six prompts per category.

Model	First choice	Alternative	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	0	2	1	0	3
GPT-5.4 mini	1	0	0	0	1
Gemini 3.5 Flash	1	2	0	1	4
Perplexity Sonar	0	2	1	2	5
Grok 4.1 Fast	0	0	1	1	2
Mistral Small	0	3	0	2	5
DeepSeek V4 Flash	1	2	0	2	5
Llama 4 Maverick	0	0	1	0	1
Qwen 3.7 Flash	2	1	2	0	5
Kimi K2	2	2	1	2	7
GLM 4.7 FlashX	0	1	0	1	2
MiniMax M2.5	1	3	0	0	4

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct23 labels6

Paraphrase20 labels7

Comparative22 labels8not counted in share

Budget-constrained27 labels7

Scale-constrained12 labels5

Negative21 labels1not counted in share

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative125 labels in all, every segment counted; 25 of the 34 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“Start with Circle if you want a polished, low-maintenance experience that covers marketing, support, and engagement.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · Community · paraphrase prompt · first choice

“If you have ~$90/month and no developers, Circle offers the best value for a professional customer community.” Kimi K2 · Community · budget prompt · first choice

“the best customer community platform is usually Circle if you want a polished, all-in-one branded community” GPT-5.4 mini · Community · budget prompt · first choice

“### 1. The All-Rounder: Circle ... If you only have one person doing Community Ops, choose Circle” Qwen 3.7 Flash · Community · direct prompt · first choice

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

“Avoid Creator-First Platforms (e.g., Circle, Mighty Networks, Skool)” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Community · direct prompt · hard negative

“Avoid: Paid SaaS like Circle ($89/mo)” Grok 4.1 Fast · Community · budget prompt · hard negative

“Very polished UX, but support/billing concerns are notable... Circle for post-cancellation billing issues” DeepSeek V4 Flash · Community · negative prompt · soft negative

“Circle or Mighty Networks, though both are meaningfully more expensive than Discord/Discourse” Perplexity Sonar · Community · budget prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Circle, over the 125 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Circle was named but was not.

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Bettermode85 of 12526Compare →

Discourse75 of 12513Not in the top three

Mighty Networks69 of 1251Not in the top three

Higher Logic Vanilla59 of 12511Compare →

Discord45 of 1259Not in the top three

Salesforce Experience Cloud42 of 1251Not in the top three

Gainsight Customer Communities39 of 1256Not in the top three

Khoros30 of 1253Not in the top three

Facebook Groups30 of 1252Not in the top three

Skool29 of 1252Not in the top three

A head-to-head page exists where both products are in a category's top three. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Circle. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, four of the twelve in this edition, so these counts come from 20 of the 125 answers that named Circle and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

higherlogic.com15

gartner.com14

bettermode.com13

cxtoday.com13

guideflow.com12

circle.soYour site11

learn.g2.com10

thecmo.com9

zendikt.com9

gitnux.org8

103 of the 114 domain citations in answers naming Circle came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

gartner.com/reviews/market/b2b-customer-community-platforms14

cxtoday.com/community-social-engagement/customer-community-platforms-202613

bettermode.com/blog/all-in-one-community-platform12

guideflow.com/blog/customer-community-software12

higherlogic.com/blog/online-community-software12

learn.g2.com/best-online-community-management-software9

thecmo.com/tools/customer-community-software9

zendikt.com/top-10-community-software9

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Names read as Circle

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Circle; a claim can dispute any of them.

Circle.so 4

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when Circle's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as Circle, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

It does not get any change to labels, shares or verdicts, any preview, or any say over which quotes appear. A verification link goes to your work email; an address at circle.so is approved on the spot, any other address is reviewed by hand.

Your name and company appear on the claimed page, or the company alone if you ask below. A title and a LinkedIn address appear there too if you give them, and are left off if you do not. Your email address is never published.