September 2026 Edition, published · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › GTM › Customer › In-app messaging › Small business · September 2026 Edition

In-app messaging and customer communications for small business buyers

Asked as “in-app messaging platform”, and as “customer communications tool for product messaging”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 54 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
17%
Contested · Crisp 9%
17OneSignal09Crisp07Intercom67others

17% 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
01OneSignal17%4%27accepted challenger
02Crisp9%0%13accepted challenger
03Intercom7%58%52criticized challenger
04Stream Chat6%0%12accepted challenger
05Userpilot6%22%23accepted challenger
06Gleap4%0%18accepted challenger
07UserGuiding4%6%18accepted challenger
08Appcues4%21%24accepted challenger
09Product Fruits4%0%11accepted challenger
10CometChat2%0%12accepted challenger
11Customer.io2%17%12accepted challenger
Show the two products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
13Braze0%56%16criticized challenger
12Pendo0%30%10criticized 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.
Head to headHead-to-head pages are published for mid-market buyers, so these open on mid-market figures, not small business.
All twenty-eight head-to-head pages: the top eight 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
01OneSignal17%
02Crisp9%
03Intercom7%
04Stream Chat6%
05Userpilot6%
06Gleap4%
07UserGuiding4%
08Appcues4%
09Product Fruits4%
10CometChat2%
11Customer.io2%
12Pendo0%
13Braze0%

What they warned about

One of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, Grok 4.20, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, 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.
Intercom
58%
30 of 52 labels negative · 10 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Avoid enterprise tools like Sendbird ($399+/mo early) or Intercom ($29+/seat)” Grok 4.20, budget prompt
Braze
56%
9 of 16 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 5 hard negative
“Why avoid: Custom pricing starting at $60,000+ per year with no free tier” GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt
MoEngage
88%
7 of 8 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 5 hard negative
“What to Avoid - Braze/MoEngage: Enterprise-focused, expensive ($20K+/year)” Mistral Small, direct prompt
Chameleon
56%
5 of 9 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Chameleon: Requires frontend dev and has a steep learning curve, with pricing ranging from $13,200 to $109,325 per year.” Llama 4 Maverick, negative prompt

What they cite

Four of the twelve models returned a source list in this edition: four return the pages they cited.

Sites the answers cite

20 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 4 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 248 links across 134 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page. The other 8 models searched through a gateway that returned no source list on this edition.

vendor site · Userpilot9 answers · 10 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Product Fruits8 answers · 9 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Reddit7 answers · 7 citations · 2 models
6 answers · 6 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Helply5 answers · 7 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Chatbase5 answers · 5 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Knock5 answers · 5 citations · 1 model
vendor site · Pushwoosh5 answers · 5 citations · 1 model
vendor site · Refiner4 answers · 5 citations · 2 models
4 answers · 4 citations · 1 model
vendor site · Front4 answers · 4 citations · 4 models
vendor site · GetVero4 answers · 4 citations · 3 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 in-app messaging platform”, “in-app messaging platform”. 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
OneSignal onesignal.com17%3224,40013329,726386
Crisp crisp.chat
Crisp 9%, Crisp.chat 2%
11%8660,50036,27629,6852
Intercom intercom.com7%39233,1007,16564,348$3,304120
Stream Chat getstream.io6%485,40055281,47967
Userpilot userpilot.com6%2471,6001062,08461
tawk.to tawk.to6%412,9006313,4447
Gleap gleap.ai4%34804611
UserGuiding userguiding.com4%11139009,8192
Appcues appcues.com4%1981,9002618,5062
Product Fruits productfruits.com4%814802346,52110

Google's top ten for the two searches hold 15 sites; 3 of them are among the sites the models cited here (pushwoosh.com, refiner.io, userpilot.com). The first result for “best in-app messaging platform” is userpilot.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 in-app messaging platform for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which customer communications tool for product messaging would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top in-app messaging platforms for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best in-app messaging platform for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating an in-app messaging platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which in-app messaging platforms should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Drift, Intercom
Three alternativesCrisp, Freshchat, Zendesk Messaging
DriftChanged
Four alternativesFreshchat, Front, Helply, Intercom
Slack
Two alternativesGoogle Chat, Microsoft Teams
no first choiceno first choicenothing named
GPT-5.4 miniIntercom
Three alternativesAppcues, Chameleon, Userpilot
Customer.ioChanged
One alternativeIntercom
Intercom
Two alternativesFront, Zendesk Messaging
Crisp
One alternativeIntercom
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashCrisp, Product Fruits
Four alternativesCometChat, Help Scout, Stream Chat, UserGuiding
against: Appcues, Intercom, Userpilot
UserlistChanged
Four alternativesCustomer.io, Loops, Product Fruits, Userflow
CometChat, Userpilot
Five alternativesAppcues, Chameleon, Refiner, Stream Chat, TalkJS
against: Sendbird
Crisp.chat, Stream Chat, tawk.to
Four alternativesChaskiq, CometChat, Firebase Realtime Database, Papercups
against: Intercom, Zendesk Messaging
Stream Chat, Userflow
Six alternativesAppcues, CometChat, Crisp, Frigade, TalkJS, Userpilot
against: Intercom, Pendo
against: Airship, Appcues, Braze, Chameleon, Firebase In-App Messaging, Intercom, Iterable, Messenger, Pendo, Standard WhatsApp, Telegram
Perplexity SonarIntercom
Three alternativesGleap, OneSignal, Userpilot
Zoho DeskChanged
Three alternativesFront, Helply, Pylon
OneSignal
Five alternativesAppcues, Firebase In-App Messaging, Gleap, Intercom, Userpilot
OneSignal
One alternativeUserGuiding
against: Intercom
no first choiceagainst: Airship, Braze, CleverTap, Customer.io, Intercom, Userpilot
Grok 4.20CometChat, Crisp
Two alternativesStream Chat, Tidio
against: Intercom
ActiveCampaign, HubSpotChangedagainst: Freshdesk, Front, Intercom, Missive, Zoho DeskSlack
Six alternativesChanty, Discord, Intercom, Microsoft Teams, OneSignal, Pumble
Stream Chat, Tencent RTC Chat
Two alternativesFirebase In-App Messaging, OneSignal
against: Intercom, Pushwoosh, Sendbird, Userpilot
no first choice
Five alternativesAppcues, CometChat, Intercom, Pushwoosh, Userpilot
against: Airship, Braze, CleverTap, Facebook Messenger, Intercom, Iterable, MoEngage, Signal, Telegram, WeChat, WhatsApp Business API, iMessage
Mistral SmallOneSignal
Two alternativesGleap, Userpilot
against: Appcues, Braze, Chameleon, Intercom, MoEngage, Pendo
Front, MailchimpChanged
Three alternativesFreshdesk, Help Scout, HubSpot Service Hub
Microsoft Teams Essentials
Four alternativesDiscord, Mattermost, Rocket.Chat, Slack
Pumble
Three alternativesChanty, Microsoft Teams, Zoho Cliq
against: Slack
no first choiceagainst: Consumer Telegram, Discord, Microsoft Teams, Signal, Slack, WhatsApp Business API, Zoom Webinars
DeepSeek V4 FlashCrisp, Product Fruits
Four alternativesHelpCrunch, Stream Chat, Tencent RTC Chat, UserGuiding
against: Appcues, Chameleon, Intercom, Userpilot
ActiveCampaignChanged
Two alternativesBrevo, Customer.io
against: HubSpot, Intercom
OneSignal
Seven alternativesAppcues, CometChat, Gleap, Intercom, Knock, Sendbird, Userpilot
OneSignal, Tencent RTC Chat
Four alternativesCometChat, Gleap, Stream Chat, UserGuiding
against: Intercom, Sendbird
Appcues, Chameleon, UserGuiding, Userpilot
Six alternativesCometChat, Intercom, OneSignal, Pushwoosh, Sendbird, Stream Chat
against: Airship, Braze, CleverTap, MoEngage
against: Airship, Braze, CleverTap, Discord, Freshchat, Intercom, Iterable, MoEngage, Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp Business API, Zendesk Messaging, iMessage
Llama 4 Maverickno first choice
Two alternativesGleap, OneSignal
against: Intercom, Userpilot
no first choiceHeldno first choiceOneSignal
One alternativeGleap
against: Intercom
no first choiceagainst: Chameleon, Pushwoosh, UserGuiding
Qwen 3.7 FlashGleap
Two alternativesOneSignal, Product Fruits
against: Intercom
UserpilotChanged
Two alternativesIntercom, Resend
against: Appcues
Sendbird, Stream Chat
One alternativeOneSignal
against: PubNub, Twilio Conversations
UserGuiding, tawk.to
Two alternativesCrisp, Tidio
against: Intercom
no first choiceagainst: Facebook Messenger, Intercom, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Oracle Service Cloud, Salesforce Service Cloud, Shopify Inbox, Zendesk Messaging
Kimi K2OneSignal
Four alternativesAppcues, Intercom, Pendo, Userpilot
FrontChanged
Three alternativesAnnounceKit, Freshdesk, HubSpot Service Hub
against: Intercom, Plain, Pylon, Zendesk Messaging
Gleap, OneSignal
Two alternativesCustomer.io, UserGuiding
against: Intercom
OneSignal
Two alternativesFirebase Cloud Messaging, Gleap
against: Intercom
no first choiceagainst: Bird, Discord, Drift, Facebook Messenger, Intercom, Podium, Signal, Telegram, Twilio Conversations, WhatsApp Business API, Zendesk Messaging, iMessage
GLM 4.7 FlashXCrisp
Two alternativesFreshdesk, Tidio
against: Intercom
HubSpot Marketing HubChanged
One alternativeActiveCampaign
against: Intercom
Slack
Eight alternativesAppcues, CometChat, Discord, Intercom, Microsoft Teams, Stream Chat, Twilio Conversations, Zoho Cliq
tawk.to
Four alternativesLiveChat, Sendbird, Smartsupp, Tidio
Appcues, OneSignal, Userpilotagainst: Braze, CleverTap, MoEngageagainst: Braze, Customer.io, Insider, Iterable, Klaviyo, Maestra, MoEngage, WebEngage
MiniMax M2.5Gleap, OneSignal
One alternativeProduct Fruits
against: Intercom
IntercomChanged
Three alternativesHelp Scout, Helply, Tidio
OneSignal
Three alternativesGleap, UserGuiding, Userpilot
against: Intercom
OneSignal
Two alternativesCometChat, Gleap
against: Intercom
no first choiceagainst: Braze, Chameleon, CleverTap, Intercom, MoEngage, OneSignal
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-4-5-202510012026-09-15 03:48no04 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 02:15yes44 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 04:39yes1923 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 01:26yes206 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)2026-09-15 03:32yes08 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 01:45yes07 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 04:57yes034 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:06yes02 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 02:43yes030 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 03:24yes025 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 00:46yes020 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 03:42yes013 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 00:04yes1216 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 01:32yes35 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 04:22yes820 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 00:49yes205 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)2026-09-15 00:29yes010 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 04:32yes06 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-14 23:09yes034 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 03:57yes01 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-14 23:37no025 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 03:59yes067 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 02:30yes022 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 01:40yes022 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 01:23yes1612 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 04:43yes46 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 23:29yes1124 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 04:13yes209 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)2026-09-14 23:23yes09 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 02:29yes08 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-14 23:17yes031 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 01:09yes02 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:04no040 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:16yes031 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-14 23:22yes079 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 04:43yes036 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 03:43no04 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 03:08yes23 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 23:31yes819 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 00:36yes205 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)2026-09-14 23:45yes09 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 00:16yes07 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-14 23:23yes016 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 03:50yes01 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 03:42yes052 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:08yes024 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 01:19yes020 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-14 23:28yes013 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 00:13no06 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 04:35no08 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 23:29yes1021 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 03:11yes206 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)2026-09-15 02:32yes09 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-14 23:30no05 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-14 23:04yes021 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 00:27yes01 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 00:14no029 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 04:37yes027 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-14 23:35yes027 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 05:02yes014 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 00:43yes138 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 04:29yes55 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 00:52yes1323 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 01:46yes205 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)2026-09-14 23:10yes08 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-14 23:58yes011 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 02:44yes024 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 04:42yes02 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-14 23:56no043 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 01:05yes083 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 02:34yes033 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 04:11yes027 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
GetStream (Stream) read as Stream Chat
GetStream Chat read as Stream Chat
Segment read as Twilio Segment / Engage
Stream read as Stream Chat
Stream (GetStream) read as Stream Chat
Tencent RTC read as Tencent RTC Chat
Twilio read as Twilio Conversations
Twilio (Programmable Chat) read as Twilio Conversations
WhatsApp read as WhatsApp Business API
WhatsApp (Meta) read as WhatsApp Business API
WhatsApp (standard or Business app) read as WhatsApp Business API
Zendesk read as Zendesk Messaging
Unresolved, counted raw
Chaskiq
Consumer Telegram
Firebase Realtime Database
Microsoft Teams Essentials
Papercups
Shopify Inbox
Standard WhatsApp
ThriveDesk
Userlike
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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