Small business▲+5Since September 2026: 10% → 15%, +5 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
15%from 10% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 6 pointsRank 3 → 2 of 73
3 categories · RankedLob
294Judge labels
41First choices
52Negative labels
14 / 14Models named it
3Categories
October 2026 Edition. Every number here is derived from the raw labels under vendor table v2026-10-05.2, every buyer segment counted.
Best standing
43% in Direct mail for enterprise buyers
Rank 2 of 68 in the mid-market standingaccepted challenger
1 of 14 models made it the first choice on the direct prompt; 23% of its 57 labels there were negative.
What the models named instead of Lob →By buyer segmentStrongest at enterprise.
Small business2 of 75
12%49 labels
accepted challenger
Mid-market2 of 68
8%57 labels
accepted challenger
Enterprise1 of 56
43%71 labels
endorsed leader
In direct mail · each standing computed within its segment · bars are 0 to 100 · the accent bar is the product's own best reading
Standing by category
Every category where a model named Lob 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 | Since September 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marketing | 8% | 2 of 68 | 23% | 57 | accepted challenger | ▲+1Since September 2026: 9% → 10%, +1 point. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. | |
| Direct mail and gifting platforms | Marketing | 4% | 6 of 90 | 17% | 18 | accepted challenger | |
| Address verification tools | GTM data and infrastructure | 0% | 21 of 108 | 6% | 18 | accepted challenger |
Movement
Since September 2026, Lob held within the floor in all three categories: no change cleared 11 points.
Best category · Direct mail · by segment
Mid-market▲+1Since September 2026: 9% → 10%, +1 point. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
10%from 9% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 10 pointsRank 2 of 66, unchanged
Enterprise▲+9Since September 2026: 37% → 47%, +9 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
47%from 37% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 2 pointsRank 1 of 56, unchanged
All categories · Mid-market
| Category | September 2026 | Now | Change | Reading | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direct mail & gifting | 0% | 2% | newNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 2% now. | New this edition | Rank 6 of 90, unchanged |
| Direct mail | 9% | 10% | ▲+1Since September 2026: 9% → 10%, +1 point. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. | Within noise | Rank 2 of 68, unchanged |
| Address verification | 0% | 0% | newNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 0% now. | New this edition | Rank 21 of 108, unchanged |
Shares here are read over the models both editions asked, so they can differ by a point or two from the standing above, which counts every model in this edition.
The floor is 11 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. Movement is read over the twelve models both editions asked; GPT-6 Luna, Muse Glimmer 30B joined this edition and are in the standing but not yet in the comparison. How the floor is measured · The editions
By model
How each model treated Lob across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.ShowHide
By model
How each model treated Lob across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.
ShowHide| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Negative | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 2 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 8 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Grok 4.20 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 14 |
| Mistral Small | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 1 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 11 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| Kimi K2 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 9 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 0 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 7 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 7 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 1 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 10 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 2 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 9 |
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
Direct45 labels7
Paraphrase35 labels9
Comparative80 labels31not counted in share
Budget-constrained44 labels17
Scale-constrained38 labels8
Negative52 labels3not counted in share
First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative294 labels in all, every segment counted; 41 of the 75 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.
“1. Lob - Focus: API-driven platform for automating personalized direct mail ... Strengths: Nationwide Print Delivery Network” Mistral Small · Direct mail · comparative prompt · first choice
“Postal.io or Lob offer the best balance of features, pricing transparency, and scalability for mid-market B2B companies” Kimi K2 · Direct mail · direct prompt · first choice
“Lob — Best for API-First, Developer-Led Mail ... The category leader for API-first (REST API) programmatic direct mail.” DeepSeek V4 Flash · Direct mail · comparative prompt · first choice
“Best for: Developer-led, programmatic mail at scale ... API-first platform with a nationwide Print Delivery Network” Kimi K2 · Direct mail · comparative 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.
“Best Avoid If: You're not technical, need global reach, or budget-sensitive.” Grok 4.20 · Direct mail · negative prompt · hard negative
“Avoid pure mail-only (e.g., Lob, PostGrid) if gifting is key.” Grok 4.20 · Direct mail & gifting · direct prompt · hard negative
“Some users report it's "US-centric" with weak international coverage; direct mail focus means it's not ideal for identity verification.” DeepSeek V4 Flash · Address verification · negative prompt · soft negative
“Avoid Lob if your marketing team doesn't have engineering support, as there is no visual, marketer-friendly builder out of the box.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Direct mail · paraphrase prompt · soft negative
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as Lob, over the 294 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Lob was named but was not.ShowHide
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as Lob, over the 294 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Lob was named but was not.
ShowHideProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head
A head-to-head page exists where both products are among a category's top eight. 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 Lob. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.
Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, five of the fourteen in this edition, so these counts come from 289 of the 294 answers that named Lob and are not a share of its labels.
Domains cited
guideflow.com178
g2.com140
lob.comYour site135
postalytics.com108
postgrid.com105
worldmetrics.org102
gitnux.org98
thecmo.com98
cience.com68
wifitalents.com63
960 of the 1,095 domain citations in answers naming Lob came from somebody else's page.
Pages cited
Pages are listed as the models cited them.
Search and answers
lob.com ranks 9 on Google for the category's searches. In the answers, Lob takes 8% of first choices and Postalytics takes 44%.ShowHide
Search and answers
lob.com ranks 9 on Google for the category's searches. In the answers, Lob takes 8% of first choices and Postalytics takes 44%.
ShowHideIn search
Google, US estimatesPosition for “direct mail automation platform”
–
not in the top ten
Position for “best direct mail automation platform”
9
- Searches for its name, Google
- 27,100 a month (“lob”)
- AI search demand for its name, est.
- 6,319 a month
- Organic visits to its site
- about 55,936 a month
- Searches its site ranks for
- 2,243 · 154 in the top three
- Sites linking to it
- 3,523
- Paid Google search
- No ads found in the estimate; that does not mean it runs none
In answers
This editionShare of first choices
8%
rank 2 of 68 in direct mail
Segment leader
44%
Postalytics
- First choices
- 41 across its categories
- Named in
- 294 answers
- Its own site cited
- in 289 of the answers that named it
Search figures are US estimates from DataForSEO, read September 28, 2026; AI search demand is its modeled, directional estimate, not a count of queries to any assistant. The answers are this edition's. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
What it publishes
ShowHide
What it publishes
ShowHideAddresses on lob.com
1,848
subdomains included
Content
1,354
counted in the table below
Documentation
132
Product · Integration
8 · 11
| Kind | Pages | Last 90 days | 2025-10 to 2026-09 | Latest | Categories named |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blog | 849 | 70 | 2026-09-29 | Direct mail, CRM | |
| Glossary or explainer | 203 | 12 | 2026-09-23 | Direct mail | |
| Conference or event | 71 | 1 | 2026-09-23 | Direct mail | |
| Template or tool | 61 | 4 | 2026-09-23 | ||
| Case study | 41 | undated | |||
| Report or ebook | 35 | undated | Direct mail | ||
| Webinar or virtual event | 30 | 14 | 2026-09-23 | ||
| Podcast or video | 28 | undated | |||
| Comparison | 18 | 11 | 2026-09-23 | ||
| News or press | 18 | undated | Direct mail |
Most recent
- 2026-09-29How agencies scale client mail programs without growing their ops team blog
- 2026-09-29Why lob is the best direct mail platform for compliance heavy programs blog
- 2026-09-28When patient mail outperforms digital outreach blog
- 2026-09-28Which insurance mail cannot afford to arrive late blog
- 2026-09-28Why lob is the best direct mail platform for insurance companies blog
- 2026-09-28How do you use direct mail for lead generation blog
How it is countedHide how it is counted
Every page lob.com exposes, subdomains included. Kind is read from the address and title. The last 90 days, the latest date and the twelve months count pages by when they were published, from the site's feeds, a date in the address, or the page's own publication date, read from up to a hundred of its most recently changed pages; a page that says only when it last changed is counted in its kind but not in when, so the recent counts are a floor, and a kind none of whose pages gives a publication date reads undated. An event counts as online when its address or title says so (webinar, on demand, virtual or online summit); a conference, summit, trade show, expo or roadshow that does not say so is counted as a conference or event, which on a vendor's site is mostly in person. Read September 29, 2026.
Names read as Lob
What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Lob; a claim can dispute any of them.
Lob / PrintNode 1
Follow Lob
An email the morning each edition publishes: where this product moved, where it held, and by how much against the noise floor. One address, confirmed by a click; a stop link in every email.
Already following? Everything you follow, with a stop for each.
The company
Lob is its own company.ShowHide
The company
Lob is its own company.
ShowHideIn its own words
Stated by the vendor, not checked- Positioning
- Direct mail automation platform with nationwide print delivery network for personalized, compliant direct mail at scale
- For
- For teams managing complex direct mail at scale
- Price stated
- Pricing lob.com
- Starting price
- free lob.com
- Free plan or trial
- Get started for free lob.com
- Certifications
- HIPAAGDPRCCPA/CPRAHIPAA-compliant mailing supportHIPAA-compliantCASS Address Verification
- Customers named
- 120waterBranchDocuPostCoverTreePearlyHousecall ProMabelVentureStack
- Not stated on the pages read
- Integrations, hosting
What Lob's own pages state, read September 28, 2026: lob.com, lob.com/pricing, trust.lob.com, lob.com/product/postal-iq, lob.com/case-studies. A claimed page can correct any of them.
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 Lob'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 Lob, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.
What a new claim receivesHide what a new claim receives
A new claim receives the current edition's vendor brief for Lob by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:
- where Lob is named, by buyer and by framing, and which cells hold its first choices;
- the claims the models make when they name it, ranked, with the strongest and the weakest quoted;
- its vocabulary against the segment leader's, and the pages the models cited;
- who was chosen in the answers that did not name Lob, and every reason the record gives;
- a battlecard for each top rival: the head-to-head split, why they win, and the reservation quoted against them;
- one page of published figures cleared to show a buyer.
Badges
Wins only: a badge exists where Lob is ranked in a category's top three this edition. Three sizes, one file each, light and dark; the code is under each.ShowHide
Badges
Wins only: a badge exists where Lob is ranked in a category's top three this edition. Three sizes, one file each, light and dark; the code is under each.
ShowHideLob is among the products AI models recommend first in Print this edition. Each badge says so in the buyer's words, names the edition, and links to the standing. The next edition issues a new badge; this one stays true as a record of October 2026.
Wide · 320 × 104 Website, beside other badges
Square · 240 × 240 LinkedIn, slides
Compact · 200 × 56 Email signature, footer
Badges read on light and dark pages. Alt text carries the claim, the category, the edition and the index, so it stays a citation where the image does not load.