September 2026 Edition, published · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › Finance › Planning and analysis › Financial modeling › Small business · September 2026 Edition

Financial modeling and scenario planning for small business buyers

Asked as “financial modeling software”, and as “scenario planning tool for finance”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 50 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
12%
Contested · LivePlan 10%
12Clockwork10LivePlan08Float70others

12% of first choices, contested.

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.

The 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
01Clockwork12%0%15accepted challenger
02LivePlan10%0%13accepted challenger
03Google Sheets Lab in the set8%31%13criticized challenger
04Fathom6%3%29accepted challenger
05Cube6%11%19accepted challenger
06Finmark6%12%16accepted challenger
07Jirav6%26%23criticized challenger
08Forecastr6%8%12accepted challenger
09Microsoft Excel6%36%22criticized challenger
10Datarails2%6%16accepted challenger
Show the three products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
13Anaplan0%87%15criticized challenger
11Causal0%10%10accepted challenger
12Runway0%10%10accepted challenger
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.

Google Sheets is made by Google, whose model Gemini 3.5 Flash is in the set. On the four share prompts that model made it the first choice one time of 4; the other eleven models three times of 44. Lab treatment is defined on the method page; the row is marked, not excluded.

Head to headHead-to-head pages are published for mid-market buyers, so these open on mid-market figures, not small business.
All twenty-one head-to-head pages: the top seven products, each against each

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
10
11
12
13
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative30%
Key
01Clockwork12%
02LivePlan10%
03Google Sheets8%
04Fathom6%
05Cube6%
06Finmark6%
07Jirav6%
08Forecastr6%
09Microsoft Excel6%
10Datarails2%
11Causal0%
12Runway0%
13Anaplan0%

What they warned about

One of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Perplexity Sonar, Grok 4.20, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2, 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.
Anaplan
87%
13 of 15 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 8 hard negative
“Avoid unless you have a dedicated finance team and $50M+ in revenue.... Anaplan starts around $30,000+/year” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
Microsoft Excel
36%
8 of 22 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Creating large, interconnected financial models from scratch in Excel is high-risk.” Qwen 3.7 Flash, negative prompt
Workday Adaptive Planning
86%
6 of 7 labels negative · 4 of 12 models · 5 hard negative
“Avoid unless you have a dedicated finance team and $50M+ in revenue.... Workday Adaptive is often $15,000–$20,000+/month” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
Jirav
26%
6 of 23 labels negative · 3 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Often quoted starting around $10,000/year ... requires a dedicated in-house finance professional” Gemini 3.5 Flash, budget prompt

What they cite

Twelve of the twelve models returned a source list in this edition: four return the pages they cited and eight the search results they consulted.

Sites the answers cite

66 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 913 links across 315 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

39 answers · 42 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Farseer30 answers · 33 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Cubesoftware29 answers · 41 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Drivetrain25 answers · 30 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Worldmetrics20 answers · 39 citations · 6 models
vendor site · Productive20 answers · 20 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Datarails18 answers · 19 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Clockwork17 answers · 28 citations · 10 models
16 answers · 17 citations · 8 models
vendor site · G213 answers · 18 citations · 8 models
12 answers · 12 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Skyvia12 answers · 12 citations · 9 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.

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 financial modeling software”, “financial modeling software”, “modeling tools”. 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 productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
Clockwork clockwork.ai12%2427,1007,1784634
LivePlan liveplan.com10%544,40095216,92832
BILL bill.com
Finmark 6%, BILL 4%
10%3742,740,0001,063,0011,783,039$199,231119
Float floatapp.com8%12060,500177,38711,1992
Google Sheets google.com8%1123,350,00053,7301,800,358,416$465,9445
Fathom fathomhq.com6%19090,5006,65774,881383
Cube cubesoftware.com6%30490,500152,613168,764134
Jirav jirav.com6%148720153,7802
Forecastr forecastr.com6%3880014
Microsoft Excel microsoft.com6%148135,0004,387145,358,109$12,455103

Google's top ten for the three searches hold 21 sites; 3 of them are among the sites the models cited here (cubesoftware.com, drivetrain.ai, fathomhq.com). The first result for “best financial modeling software” is intl.finebi.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
ModelDirect“What is the best financial modeling software for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which scenario planning tool for finance would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top modeling tools for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best financial modeling software for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating a financial modeling software. What should we look at?”Negative“Which modeling tools should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Drivetrain
Five alternativesCube, Fathom, Jirav, LivePlan, Mosaic
CubeChanged
One alternativeFathom
Fathom, LivePlan
One alternativeLucidchart
against: Erwin Data Modeler
Budgyt, LivePlan
Three alternativesCube, Fathom, Microsoft Excel
no first choiceagainst: Microsoft Excel
GPT-5.4 miniDatarails, Fathom
Two alternativesLiveFlow, Planful
against: Workday Adaptive Planning
ClockworkChanged
Two alternativesCube, Jirav
no first choiceMicrosoft Excel
One alternativeGoogle Sheets
against: Smartsheet
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashClockwork
Four alternativesCausal, Jirav, LiveFlow, Runway
ClockworkHeld
Three alternativesCausal, Dryrun, Runway
Clockwork
Two alternativesCausal, Datarails
Google Sheets
Three alternativesClockwork, Fathom, Sturppy
against: Causal, Jirav, Mosaic, Runway
LiveFlow
Four alternativesCausal, Clockwork, Parallel, Runway
against: Anaplan, Fathom, Jirav, Planful, Syft Analytics, Workday Adaptive Planning
against: Anaplan, OneStream, Oracle Hyperion, Workday Adaptive Planning
Perplexity SonarClockwork
Two alternativesDatarails, LiveFlow
CubeChanged
Two alternativesCentage Planning Maestro, Futrli
no first choiceFloat, LiveFlow
Six alternativesClockwork, Datarails, Finmark, Google Sheets, Jirav, Microsoft Excel
no first choicenothing named
Grok 4.20Jirav
Four alternativesCube, Datarails, Finmark, LivePlan
against: Anaplan, Microsoft Excel
Profit FrogChanged
Two alternativesFathom, Runway
against: Anaplan, Centage Planning Maestro, Vena
no first choiceGoogle Sheets, Microsoft Excel
Two alternativesFathom, LiveFlow
against: Anaplan
no first choiceagainst: Anaplanagainst: Anaplan, ChatGPT, ER/Studio, Erwin Data Modeler, Finmark, Gemini, Google Sheets, Hugging Face, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power BI, Oracle tools, SAP PowerDesigner, Tableau
Mistral SmallBILL, Forecastr
One alternativeFathom
ClockworkChanged
One alternativeFutrli
no first choiceMicrosoft Excel
Three alternativesCompass AI, Finmark, Jirav
no first choiceagainst: Google Sheets, Microsoft Excelagainst: Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel
DeepSeek V4 FlashFinmark
Three alternativesCoefficient, Fathom, Forecastr
against: Anaplan, Cube, Jirav, Vena
FloatChanged
Two alternativesClockwork, Fathom
against: Excel/Google Sheets, Jirav
no first choiceGoogle Sheets
Five alternativesAdlega, EasyFinancialModels, LiveFlow, Productive, Upmetrics
against: Cube, Finmark, Forecastr, Jirav, Prophix One
no first choice
Six alternativesCube, Forecastr, Jirav, Microsoft Excel, Pigment, Vena
against: Anaplan, Prophix One
against: @RISK, Anaplan, Capital IQ, Crystal Ball, Datarails, Excel/Google Sheets, FactSet, Macabacus, Oracle Hyperion, Prophix One, Vena, Workday Adaptive Planning
Llama 4 MaverickForecastr
Two alternativesBILL, Farseer
no first choiceChangedMicrosoft Excelno first choiceno first choiceagainst: Make, n8n
Qwen 3.7 FlashExcel/Google Sheets
Four alternativesCube, Flare Finance, Float, LivePlan
ClockworkChanged
One alternativeFathom
against: Microsoft Excel
no first choiceExcel/Google Sheets
Three alternativesCube, Finmark, Forecastr
Agilix, Cube, Fathom, Float
Four alternativesClari, InsightSquared, Microsoft Power BI, Tableau
against: Anaplan, Oracle Hyperion
against: Azure DevOps, IBM Blueworks Live, Jira, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power BI, Monday.com, NetSuite, Oracle BPM, Oracle Hyperion, SAP BusinessObjects, SAP Signavio, Tableau
Kimi K2BILL, Fathom
Four alternativesCausal, Google Sheets / Excel, Jirav, LivePlan
Jirav, LivePlanChanged
Three alternativesDryrun, Fathom, Pulse
no first choiceEasyFinancialModels, Google Sheets
Three alternativesCausal, Finmark, LiveFlow
Jirav
Five alternativesCube, Datarails, Fathom, Finmark, Forecastr
against: Anaplan, Pigment
against: ARIS, Anaplan, Bizagi, Camunda, Excel/Google Sheets, IBM BPM, IBM Planning Analytics, Keen, Liftlab, Oracle BPM, Prophix One, Recast, SAP BPC, Workday Adaptive Planning
GLM 4.7 FlashXFinmark
Six alternativesBudgyt, Cube, Datarails, Excel/Google Sheets, Fathom, Forecastr
against: Jirav
LivePlanChanged
Two alternativesBrixx, Futrli
no first choiceLivePlan
Two alternativesFathom, Microsoft Excel
against: Float
no first choiceagainst: Erwin Data Modeler, Macabacus, Quantrix Modeler
MiniMax M2.5Finmark, Forecastr
Four alternativesDatarails, LiveFlow, PlanGuru, Vena
LivePlanChanged
Three alternativesBrixx, Fathom, Jirav
no first choiceExcel/Google Sheets, Float
Two alternativesFathom, Jirav
no first choiceagainst: Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel
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.
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 19:41yes97 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 19:52yes27 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 19:04yes1722 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 19:27yes205 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 20:29yes2718 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 20:49yes54 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 18:06yes2649 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 19:51yes52 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 21:01no062 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 19:24yes822 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 18:53yes1733 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 18:39yes1427 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 20:50yes1410 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 19:41yes35 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 19:56yes1421 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 18:25yes205 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 18:01yes3017 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 20:34yes53 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 17:57yes2828 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 20:20yes53 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 20:30yes1030 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 21:05yes1436 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 18:11yes1482 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 20:48yes1330 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 19:30yes1713 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 19:07yes310 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 19:55yes1624 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 19:41yes208 s
ComparativeGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 20:42yes2314 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 19:00yes89 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 18:43yes1626 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 19:59yes74 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 18:28yes530 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 20:50yes1024 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 19:13yes1288 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 19:56yes521 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 18:51yes97 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 18:00yes46 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 21:56yes1653 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 18:51yes207 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 19:29yes3714 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 19:12yes54 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 21:02yes2017 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 18:16yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 18:47yes522 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 18:37yes1021 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 20:13yes1515 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 20:38yes956 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 19:55no05 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 20:13no06 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 21:20yes945 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 20:49yes209 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 18:20yes138 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 20:38no08 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 20:04yes1220 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 20:07yes54 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 18:52no027 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 17:55yes1226 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 20:59yes1468 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 20:53yes1033 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 19:53yes1710 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 19:58no04 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 21:53yes1453 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 20:30yes198 s
Negative framingGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 18:13yes3718 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 19:25yes56 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-17 19:44yes2380 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 19:24yes54 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 20:35yes1538 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 19:12yes2737 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 20:22yes2747 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 20:45yes1283 s

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
Adaptive Insights read as Workday Adaptive Planning
Centage read as Centage Planning Maestro
Clockwork.ai read as Clockwork
Excel read as Microsoft Excel
Prophix read as Prophix One
Quantrix read as Quantrix Modeler
QuickBooks Online read as QuickBooks
Workday (for profitability modeling) read as Workday Adaptive Planning
diagrams.net read as draw.io
Unresolved, counted raw
@RISK
Agilix
Azure DevOps
Bizagi
Crystal Ball
Enloop
Finamodel
FinancialAHA
Flare Finance
Gliffy
IBM BPM
InsightSquared
Jeda.ai
Keen
Liftlab
Northbeam
Oracle tools
Prescient AI
Profit Frog
Recast
Triple Whale
WPS Spreadsheets
WallStreetMojo
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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