September 2026 Edition, published · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › GTM › GTM data and infrastructure › CDP › Small business · September 2026 Edition

Customer data platforms for small business buyers

Asked as “customer data platform”, and as “CDP”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 51 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
39%
Contested · HubSpot CDP 20%
39Segment20HubSpot CDP16RudderStack25others

39% 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
01Segment39%23%61endorsed leader
02HubSpot CDP20%4%24accepted challenger
03RudderStack16%8%36accepted challenger
04Hightouch6%17%42accepted challenger
05Brevo6%0%14accepted challenger
06Klaviyo Data Platform2%10%29accepted challenger
07Customer.io2%0%12accepted challenger
Show the four products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
11Adobe Real-Time CDP0%96%23criticized challenger
09Tealium Customer Data Hub0%80%15criticized challenger
08mParticle0%80%10criticized challenger
10Salesforce Data Cloud0%79%28criticized 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 six head-to-head pages: the top four 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
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative50%
Key
01Segment39%
02HubSpot CDP20%
03RudderStack16%
04Hightouch6%
05Brevo6%
06Klaviyo Data Platform2%
07Customer.io2%
08mParticle0%
09Tealium Customer Data Hub0%
10Salesforce Data Cloud0%
11Adobe Real-Time CDP0%

What they warned about

Two of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, 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.
Adobe Real-Time CDP
96%
22 of 23 labels negative · 10 of 12 models · 17 hard negative
“you want to avoid enterprise-level CDPs like Adobe Real-Time CDP or Salesforce Data Cloud, which can easily cost over $100,000 annually” Gemini 3.5 Flash, paraphrase prompt
Salesforce Data Cloud
79%
22 of 28 labels negative · 10 of 12 models · 13 hard negative
“Salesforce Data Cloud - Requires 8-16 weeks minimum implementation, mid-six-figure annual costs, and deep Salesforce ecosystem lock-in” Mistral Small, negative prompt
Segment
23%
14 of 61 labels negative · 10 of 12 models
“Twilio Segment-like setups — can be excellent, but small businesses should verify whether they're buying a simpler SMB fit or an enterprise motion” GPT-5.4 mini, negative prompt
Tealium Customer Data Hub
80%
12 of 15 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 9 hard negative
“traditional enterprise Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) like Tealium, Adobe Real-Time CDP, or Salesforce Data Cloud are usually poor choices” Gemini 3.5 Flash, comparative 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

19 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. 275 links across 110 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 · InsiderOne11 answers · 11 citations · 3 models
10 answers · 17 citations · 3 models
10 answers · 17 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Hightouch8 answers · 11 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Improvado8 answers · 9 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Coffee7 answers · 9 citations · 3 models
6 answers · 8 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Bloomreach6 answers · 6 citations · 4 models
vendor site · Gartner6 answers · 6 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Reddit5 answers · 6 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Albato5 answers · 5 citations · 1 model
vendor site · Brevo5 answers · 5 citations · 1 model

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 customer data platform”, “customer data 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
Twilio segment.com
Segment 39%
39%460135,0004,3439,0860
HubSpot parent site
HubSpot CDP 20%, HubSpot Marketing Hub 2%, HubSpot Breeze Intelligence 2%, HubSpot Customer Platform 2%
25%991368,0009,776
RudderStack rudderstack.com16%1661,9004246,13250
Hightouch hightouch.com6%39912,100434127,772237
Brevo brevo.com6%44040,50032781,741$17,847106
Klaviyo Data Platform klaviyo.com2%41201200,057$57220
Customer.io customer.io2%2182,90017415,750$6,920112
Coffee coffee.ai2%27
Insider insiderone.com2%12527,100356,01381,93815
ActiveCampaign activecampaign.com0%43718,100307235,709$1,42432

Google's top ten for the two searches hold 16 sites; 5 of them are among the sites the models cited here (cdp.com, gartner.com, hightouch.com, insiderone.com, reddit.com). The first result for “best customer data platform” is gartner.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 customer data platform for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which CDP would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top customer data platforms for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best customer data platform for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating a customer data platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which customer data platforms should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5HubSpot CDP
Two alternativesRudderStack, Segment
against: mParticle
HubSpot CDP, SegmentChanged
Three alternativesKlaviyo Data Platform, Mailchimp, Salesforce Data Cloud
BlueConic, Segment
One alternativeBloomreach
Insider, Segment
One alternativeKlaviyo Data Platform
no first choicenothing named
GPT-5.4 miniHightouch
Two alternativesSegment, Tealium Customer Data Hub
HubSpot Customer PlatformChanged
Four alternativesHightouch, Pipedrive, RudderStack, Segment
RudderStack
Three alternativesBloomreach, Hightouch, Segment
Hightouchagainst: Segmentno first choiceagainst: Adobe Real-Time CDP, Oracle Unity, Salesforce Data Cloud, Segment, Tealium Customer Data Hub, Treasure Data, Uniphore
Gemini 3.5 FlashHubSpot Breeze Intelligence, HubSpot CDP
Four alternativesCensus, Dreamdata, Hightouch, Segment
against: Adobe Real-Time CDP, Salesforce Data Cloud, Tealium Customer Data Hub
HubSpot CDPChanged
Three alternativesCensus, Hightouch, Ortto
against: Adobe Real-Time CDP, Salesforce Data Cloud, Segment
Hightouch
Four alternativesCustomer.io, Klaviyo Data Platform, RudderStack, Segment
against: Adobe Real-Time CDP, Salesforce Data Cloud, Tealium Customer Data Hub
RudderStack
Five alternativesActiveCampaign, Hightouch, HubSpot CDP, Klaviyo Data Platform, PostHog
against: Adobe Real-Time CDP, Amperity, Segment, Tealium Customer Data Hub
RudderStack, Segment
Four alternativesCensus, Customer.io Data Pipelines, Hightouch, PostHog
against: Adobe Real-Time CDP, Salesforce Data Cloud, Tealium Customer Data Hub
against: ActionIQ, Adobe Real-Time CDP, Amperity, Census, Hightouch, MessageGears, Oracle Unity, RudderStack, SAP Customer Data Platform, Salesforce Data Cloud, Segment, Treasure Data, mParticle
Perplexity SonarHubSpot CDP, Segment
Two alternativesBrevo, Hightouch
against: Salesforce Data Cloud
BrevoChanged
One alternativeSegment
against: Salesforce Data Cloud
Segment
Four alternativesBrevo, Klaviyo Data Platform, RudderStack, Salesforce Data Cloud
Brevo, Klaviyo Data Platform
Two alternativesRudderStack, Segment
no first choiceagainst: Adobe Real-Time CDP, Amperity, Hightouch, Klaviyo Data Platform, Segment, Tealium Customer Data Hub
Grok 4.20Segment
Two alternativesHubSpot CDP, RudderStack
against: mParticle
SegmentHeld
One alternativeHubSpot CDP
against: Adobe Real-Time CDP, Salesforce Data Cloud
RudderStack, Segment
Three alternativesBloomreach, Brevo, Hightouch
HubSpot CDP, Segment
One alternativeRudderStack
against: Adobe Real-Time CDP, Salesforce Data Cloud
Segment
Two alternativesBrevo, Hightouch
against: Adobe Real-Time CDP, Salesforce Data Cloud
against: Adobe Real-Time CDP, Blueshift, Hightouch, Salesforce Data Cloud, Segment, Treasure Data
Mistral SmallSegment
Four alternativesBlueConic, Hightouch, Lytics, Salesforce Data Cloud
HubSpot CDPChanged
Two alternativesActiveCampaign, Segment
Segment
Three alternativesCoffee, Hightouch, Klaviyo Data Platform
Segment
Two alternativesHightouch, RudderStack
no first choiceagainst: ActionIQ, Adobe Real-Time CDP, Amperity, BlueConic, Lytics, Salesforce Data Cloud, Segment, Tealium Customer Data Hub, mParticle
DeepSeek V4 FlashHubSpot CDP
Three alternativesHightouch, RudderStack, Segment
SegmentChanged
Three alternativesCustomer.io, Hightouch, Planhat
against: Adobe Real-Time CDP, Amperity, Salesforce Data Cloud, Tealium Customer Data Hub
Customer.io, Klaviyo Data Platform
Three alternativesHightouch, RudderStack, Segment
RudderStack, Segment
Three alternativesCensus, Hightouch, Klaviyo Data Platform
Hightouch, RudderStack, Segment
One alternativeCustomer.io
against: Adobe Real-Time CDP, Bloomreach, Lytics, Salesforce Data Cloud, Tealium Customer Data Hub, Treasure Data, mParticle
against: Adobe Real-Time CDP, Amperity, Hightouch, Segment, Tealium Customer Data Hub, Treasure Data, mParticle
Llama 4 Maverickno first choiceno first choiceHeldno first choiceRudderStack, Segment
Two alternativesBrevo, Zoho CRM
no first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashBrevo, Customer.io
Two alternativesDotdigital, Hightouch
against: Adobe Real-Time CDP, Salesforce Data Cloud, Tealium Customer Data Hub
SegmentChanged
Three alternativesHightouch, RudderStack, Salesforce Data Cloud
Brevo
Three alternativesKlaviyo Data Platform, RudderStack, Segment
Segment
Three alternativesHightouch, Lytics, Nvecta
no first choice
Three alternativesHubSpot CDP, Looker Studio, Supermetrics
against: Adobe Experience Cloud, RudderStack, Salesforce Data Cloud
against: Adobe Real-Time CDP, Census, Epsilon OneID, Hightouch, Klaviyo Data Platform, RudderStack, Salesforce Data Cloud, Segment
Kimi K2HubSpot CDP
Four alternativesActiveCampaign, RudderStack, Segment, Userlist
HubSpot Marketing HubChanged
Two alternativesActiveCampaign, Segment
Segment
Four alternativesCustomer.io, Hightouch, Klaviyo Data Platform, RudderStack
RudderStack
Two alternativesJitsu, Segment
no first choiceagainst: Adobe Real-Time CDP, Amperity, Bloomreach, BlueConic, Optimove, SAS, Salesforce Data Cloud, Segment, Tealium Customer Data Hub, mParticle
GLM 4.7 FlashXHubSpot CDP
Three alternativesCustomer.io, Iterable, Segment
against: Adobe Marketo Engage, Braze
SegmentChanged
Three alternativesHightouch, HubSpot Marketing Hub, Salesforce Data Cloud
Brevo
Two alternativesHubSpot Marketing Hub, Klaviyo Data Platform
against: Hightouch, Segment
Coffee, Segment
Two alternativesAscent360, Hightouch
against: Blueshift
no first choiceagainst: ActionIQ, Adobe Real-Time CDP, Amplitude, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, Salesforce Data Cloud, Segment, mParticle
MiniMax M2.5RudderStack, Segment
One alternativeBlueConic
SegmentChanged
One alternativeBlueConic
Segment
Four alternativesBrevo, Hightouch, Klaviyo Data Platform, RudderStack
against: Adobe Real-Time CDP, Salesforce Data Cloud
RudderStack
Four alternativesCensus, Hightouch, Jitsu, Segment
no first choiceagainst: Adobe Real-Time CDP, Hightouch, HubSpot CDP, Klaviyo Data Platform, Salesforce Data Cloud, Segment
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-4-5-202510012026-09-14 23:58no05 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 04:36yes35 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 01:54yes2726 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 05:04yes209 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 02:10yes010 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 02:51yes011 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 02:17yes022 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 01:40yes02 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 05:04yes029 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:33yes041 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 04:25yes047 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 03:01yes015 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 00:24no04 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-14 23:59no04 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 02:13yes722 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 00:20yes206 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 01:46yes08 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 04:14yes07 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 03:00yes034 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 03:59yes02 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-14 23:59yes024 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 01:24yes028 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-14 23:50yes025 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 02:07yes017 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 01:58yes1411 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 02:51yes59 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 04:49yes2033 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-14 23:39yes208 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)2026-09-15 00:18yes08 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 04:04yes08 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-14 23:33yes053 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 04:40yes02 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 05:08yes033 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 00:15yes050 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 00:29yes069 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 03:05yes026 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 00:15yes87 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 02:04yes24 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 01:38yes2025 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-14 23:50yes206 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)2026-09-15 01:31yes08 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-14 23:15yes09 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 05:05yes016 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:16yes01 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 04:15yes034 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 22:57yes025 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 02:14yes013 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 01:33yes022 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 02:27no06 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 00:11no010 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 02:28yes1828 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-14 23:06yes209 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 04:38yes09 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 02:50yes010 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 00:29yes036 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:37yes02 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 00:30no038 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 01:39yes030 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-14 23:33yes036 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 03:53yes017 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 04:49yes1511 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-14 23:23yes35 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 00:05yes1324 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 04:45yes205 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)2026-09-15 02:39yes09 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 01:02yes012 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 02:22yes067 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 01:47yes01 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-14 23:18yes029 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 01:46yes047 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-14 23:31yes0151 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 02:50yes026 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
Adobe read as Adobe Real-Time CDP
HubSpot read as HubSpot CDP
HubSpot (with Breeze) read as HubSpot CDP
HubSpot CRM read as HubSpot CDP
HubSpot Data Hub read as HubSpot CDP
Klaviyo read as Klaviyo Data Platform
Microsoft read as Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights
Oracle read as Oracle Unity
Salesforce read as Salesforce Data Cloud
Tealium read as Tealium Customer Data Hub
Tealium AudienceStream read as Tealium Customer Data Hub
Twilio read as Segment
Unresolved, counted raw
Ascent360
Customer.io Data Pipelines (formerly Jitsu)
Epsilon OneID
Microsoft CDP
server-side Google Tag Manager
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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