# Business banking for small business buyers: what AI models recommend, November 2026

Gane Index, November 2026 Edition. Asked as "business bank account for a company" and as "banking platform for a startup", six framings each, to fourteen models with search on, on behalf of a small B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/treasury/business-banking/2026-11/smb

**Standing:** Mercury leads with 41% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 51 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [Mercury](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/mercury/index.md) | 41% | 11% | 54 |
| 2 | [Bluevine](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/bluevine/index.md) | 24% | 7% | 60 |
| 3 | [Novo](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/novo/index.md) | 8% | 10% | 29 |
| 4 | [NBKC](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/nbkc/index.md) | 8% | 0% | 12 |
| 5 | [American Express Business Checking](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/american-express-business-checking/index.md) | 6% | 0% | 13 |
| 6 | [Axos Bank Basic Business Checking](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/axos-bank-basic-business-checking/index.md) | 2% | 13% | 15 |
| 7 | [Lili](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/lili/index.md) | 2% | 20% | 10 |
| 8 | [Brex](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/brex/index.md) | 2% | 28% | 18 |
| 13 | [Relay](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/relay/index.md) | 0% | 6% | 35 |
| 14 | [Chase Business Banking](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/chase-business-banking/index.md) | 0% | 26% | 54 |
| 15 | [Found](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/found/index.md) | 0% | 12% | 16 |
| 27 | [Bank of America](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/bank-of-america/index.md) | 0% | 35% | 23 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 88 products named; products with the same share are tied, and the order among them carries no meaning. The table lists those with at least 10 labels.

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: Bluevine; alternatives Bank of America, Chase Business Banking, Lili, Mercury
- GPT-5.4 mini: Bluevine, Mercury; alternatives Chase Business Banking, Found, NBKC
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Mercury; alternatives Bluevine, Chase Business Banking, Relay
- Perplexity Sonar: American Express Business Checking; alternatives Airwallex, Bluevine, Chase Business Banking, Mercury
- Grok 4.20: Bluevine, Mercury; alternatives Bank of America Business Advantage Fundamentals, Chase Business Banking, Found, NBKC
- Mistral Small: Bluevine, NBKC, Novo; alternatives Chase Business Banking, Found
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Mercury; alternatives Bluevine, Chase Business Banking, Novo, Relay
- Llama 4 Maverick: American Express Business Checking; alternatives Axos Bank Basic Business Checking, Bluevine, HSBC Small Business Banking Account
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Novo; alternatives Bluevine, Chase Business Banking, NorthOne
- Kimi K2: Mercury; alternatives Bluevine, Chase Business Banking, Novo, Relay
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Novo; alternatives Bank of America Business Advantage Fundamentals, Bluevine, Chase Business Banking, Found
- MiniMax M2.5: Bluevine; alternatives Axos Bank Basic Business Checking, HSBC Small Business Banking Account, Mercury, NorthOne
- GPT-6 Luna: Mercury; alternatives Bluevine, Chase Business Banking, Relay
- Muse Glimmer 30B: American Express Business Checking, Bluevine; alternatives Axos Bank Basic Business Checking, Capital One, Chase Business Banking, Found

## Sources the answers cite

72 of 84 answers came back with a source list, from 14 of 14 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- nerdwallet.com: 40 answers, 52 citations
- forbes.com: 30 answers, 40 citations
- fitsmallbusiness.com: 23 answers, 37 citations
- rho.co: 21 answers, 33 citations
- xero.com: 20 answers, 22 citations
- bluevine.com: 16 answers, 21 citations
- chase.com: 15 answers, 20 citations
- money.com: 15 answers, 17 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://nerdwallet.com/business/banking/best/banks (22 answers)
- https://xero.com/us/guides/best-banks-for-small-businesses (19 answers)
- https://fitsmallbusiness.com/best-online-business-banks (18 answers)
- https://forbes.com/advisor/banking/checking/best-business-checking-accounts (16 answers)
- https://business.hsbc.uk/en-gb/products/small-business-bank-account (13 answers)
- https://business.com/categories/best-business-bank-accounts (12 answers)
- https://money.com/best-business-checking-accounts (11 answers)
- https://chase.com/business/banking/checking (9 answers)
- https://fitsmallbusiness.com/best-banks-for-startups (9 answers)
- https://smartasset.com/checking-account/best-banks-for-small-business (9 answers)

## Warned against

- Chase Business Banking: 14 of 54 labels negative. "Chase Business Complete has a $15 monthly fee, waived if you meet one of its qualifying conditions, including maintaining a $2,000 minimum daily balance" (GPT-6 Luna, budget prompt)
- Wells Fargo: 10 of 19 labels negative. "Many business‑focused publications now explicitly advise small businesses to avoid Wells Fargo until its reputation and service quality improve." (GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt)
- Bank of America: 8 of 23 labels negative. "Large National Chains (Chase, Bank of America, PNC)... they often misalign with the agile needs of small businesses." (Qwen 3.7 Flash, negative prompt)
- Mercury: 6 of 54 labels negative. "it does not pay interest on checking and is optimized for larger, venture-path companies rather than a very tight-budget bootstrapped small business" (Muse Glimmer 30B, budget prompt)

## Movement since October 2026

Floor: 10 points of share, measured on the calibration repeat.
Same leader: Mercury at 41%.

- Relay: 9% to 0%, −9. Inside the floor by 1 point · rank 4 → 13 of 88.
- Bluevine: 16% to 24%, +8. Inside the floor by 2 points · rank 2 of 88, unchanged.
- Mercury: 35% to 41%, +6. Inside the floor by 4 points · rank 1 of 88, unchanged.
- NBKC: 2% to 8%, +6. Inside the floor by 4 points · rank 14 → 4 of 88.
- Chase Business Banking: 4% to 0%, −4. Inside the floor by 6 points · rank 5 → 14 of 88.
- Novo: 11% to 8%, −3. Inside the floor by 7 points · rank 3 of 88, unchanged.
- American Express Business Checking: 4% to 6%, +2. Inside the floor by 8 points · rank 7 → 5 of 88.
- Lili: 0% to 2%, +2. Inside the floor by 8 points · rank 19 → 7 of 88.
- Brex: 4% to 2%, −2. Inside the floor by 8 points · rank 6 → 8 of 88.
- Found: 2% to 0%, −2. Inside the floor by 8 points · rank 13 → 15 of 88.
- U.S. Bank: 2% to 0%, −2. Inside the floor by 8 points · rank 10 → 42 of 88.
- Axos Bank Basic Business Checking: 2% to 2%, ±0. Inside the floor by 10 points · rank 12 → 6 of 88.

## Record

- Method: https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/methodology
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Gane Index, November 2026 Edition, www.gane.ai/index/finance.