September 2026 Edition, published · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › GTM › Partner and channel › Channel marketing · September 2026 Edition

Channel partner and local marketing

Asked as “through-channel marketing platform”, and as “partner marketing and local marketing tool”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 48 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
15%
Contested · Channelscaler 12%
15JourneyBee12Channelscaler08Brevo65others

15% 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 mid-market B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01JourneyBee15%0%15accepted challenger
02Channelscaler12%21%29accepted challenger
03Unifyr8%26%35criticized challenger
04Channeltivity6%6%16accepted challenger
05PartnerStack6%18%11accepted challenger
06ZINFI Unified Partner Management4%20%25accepted challenger
07Mindmatrix2%16%19accepted challenger
08HubSpot Marketing Hub2%29%14criticized challenger
09Impartner PRM2%44%34criticized challenger
Show the one product at 0%, ordered by negative rate
10Ansira0%20%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.
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
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative30%
Key
01JourneyBee15%
02Channelscaler12%
03Unifyr8%
04Channeltivity6%
05PartnerStack6%
06ZINFI Unified Partner Management4%
07Mindmatrix2%
08HubSpot Marketing Hub2%
09Impartner PRM2%
10Ansira0%

What they warned about

One of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, 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.
Impartner PRM
44%
15 of 34 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 5 hard negative
“Beware the enterprise trap — platforms like Impartner ($25K+/year) ... completely unsuitable for a limited budget” DeepSeek V4 Flash, budget prompt
Unifyr
26%
9 of 35 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Unifyr (formerly Zift) — Enterprise custom pricing” Kimi K2, budget prompt
Channelscaler
21%
6 of 29 labels negative · 4 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Channelscaler ($50K+/year) are excellent but completely unsuitable for a limited budget” DeepSeek V4 Flash, budget prompt
HubSpot Marketing Hub
29%
4 of 14 labels negative · 4 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“General marketing automation tools (HubSpot, Marketo): Not designed for partner-facing localized campaigns” Mistral Small, direct 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. 312 links across 143 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.

9 answers · 24 citations · 4 models
vendor site · Improvado8 answers · 12 citations · 2 models
vendor site · ZINFI7 answers · 15 citations · 4 models
6 answers · 8 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Ansira6 answers · 6 citations · 3 models
vendor site · xAmplify5 answers · 13 citations · 1 model
vendor site · JourneyBee5 answers · 8 citations · 3 models
vendor site · PartnerPortal.io5 answers · 7 citations · 2 models
5 answers · 5 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Forrester4 answers · 7 citations · 2 models
4 answers · 4 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Cometly4 answers · 4 citations · 2 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 through-channel marketing platform”, “through-channel marketing 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
JourneyBee journeybee.io15%535004,243
Channelscaler channelscaler.com12%1412603948$27913
Unifyr unifyr.com8%15121022,87795
Brevo brevo.com8%44040,50032781,741$17,847106
Channeltivity channeltivity.com6%9921002,179
PartnerStack partnerstack.com6%4014,4006827,49516
ZINFI Unified Partner Management zinfi.com4%23710070,6393
xAmplify xamplify.com4%1111001,01509
Birdeye birdeye.com4%35522,2003806,787,611$1,735110
PartnerPortal.io partnerportal.io4%893001,437

Google's top ten for the two searches hold 14 sites; 6 of them are among the sites the models cited here (ansira.com, g2.com, improvado.io, technologyadvice.com, xamplify.com, zinfi.com). The first result for “best through-channel marketing platform” is ansira.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 through-channel marketing platform for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which partner marketing and local marketing tool would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top through-channel marketing platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best through-channel marketing platform for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating a through-channel marketing platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which through-channel marketing platforms should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5no first choice
Five alternativesChannelscaler, PartnerStack, Structured, Unifyr, ZINFI Unified Partner Management
no first choiceHeldno first choiceKiflo PRM
Two alternativesMailchimp, Zoho's marketing suite
no first choicenothing named
GPT-5.4 miniHubSpot Marketing Hub
One alternativeAdobe Marketo Engage
PartnerStack, The Ansira PlatformChanged
One alternativeImpartner PRM
no first choiceImpartner PRM
Three alternativesChannelscaler, HubSpot Marketing Hub, Unifyr
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashChannelscaler
Three alternativesMindmatrix, ZINFI Unified Partner Management, xAmplify
against: Channeltivity, Impartner PRM
Channeltivity, MindmatrixChanged
Two alternativesPartnerStack, Unifyr
Structured, Unifyr
Four alternativesImpartner PRM, Mindmatrix, SproutLoud, ZINFI Unified Partner Management
GoTu Grow by Extu
Three alternativesKiflo PRM, SproutLoud, xAmplify
against: Impartner PRM, Structured, Unifyr
no first choiceagainst: Impartner PRM, Mindmatrix, SproutLoud, Unifyr
Perplexity SonarUnifyr
Three alternativesChanneltivity, HubSpot Marketing Hub, JourneyBee
JourneyBeeChanged
Three alternativesChannelscaler, Channeltivity, Partner Fleet
no first choiceBrevo
Two alternativesMailchimp, Unifyr
against: HubSpot Marketing Hub
no first choicenothing named
Grok 4.20Channelscaler
Four alternativesChanneltivity, JourneyBee, Mindmatrix, Unifyr
against: Impartner PRM, ZINFI Unified Partner Management
ChanneltivityChanged
Two alternativesBrightLocal, Google Business Profile
against: Impartner PRM, PartnerStack, Yext
Ansira
Six alternativesBrandMuscle, Channeltivity, Magentrix PRM, SproutLoud, Unifyr, ZINFI Unified Partner Management
against: Impartner PRM
xAmplify
Two alternativesSwipeBuilder, ZINFI Unified Partner Management
against: ActiveCampaign, Brevo, HubSpot Marketing Hub, Impartner PRM, Mindmatrix, Unifyr
no first choiceagainst: Ansira, Unifyr, ZINFI Unified Partner Management
Mistral SmallJourneyBee, Unifyr
One alternativeChannelscaler
against: Adobe Marketo Engage, HubSpot Marketing Hub
JourneyBeeChanged
Four alternativesActiveCampaign, ChannelSailer, HubSpot Marketing Hub, Tapfiliate
Insider
Seven alternativesActiveCampaign, Adobe Marketo Engage, Braze, HubSpot Marketing Hub, Klaviyo, Omnisend, Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Brevo, Omnisend
Two alternativesActiveCampaign, HubSpot Marketing Hub
against: Channelscaler, Unifyr
no first choiceagainst: ActiveCampaign, Cherrington Media LLC, Impartner PRM, Klaviyo, Mavely, Mindmatrix PRM, Smartly, Structured Web, ZINFI Unified Partner Management
DeepSeek V4 FlashJourneyBee
Three alternativesChannelscaler, Mindmatrix, Unifyr
against: Impartner PRM
Birdeye, PartnerStackChanged
Five alternativesBrightLocal, Channelscaler, Crossbeam, Impartner PRM, Semrush Local
against: Yext
Impartner PRM, Unifyr, ZINFI Unified Partner Management
Five alternativesAnsira, BrandMuscle, Channelscaler, Salesforce PRM, SproutLoud
JourneyBee, PartnerPortal.io
Two alternativesKiflo PRM, Mindmatrix
against: Channelscaler, Impartner PRM
no first choiceagainst: Channelscaler, HubSpot Marketing Hub, Impartner PRM, Salesforce-based PRM/through-channel, Unifyr, WordsStream, ZINFI Unified Partner Management
Llama 4 MaverickHey Sid
Two alternativesAdRoll ABM, HubSpot Marketing Hub
ChannelscalerChanged
One alternativeAnsira
no first choiceBrevo
Three alternativesAdRoll, Choozle, Skai
no first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashChannelscaler
Two alternativesImpartner PRM, PartnerCenterOne
JourneyBee, Surefire LocalChanged
Two alternativesBirdeye, Channelscaler
Impartner PRM
Four alternativesChanneltivity, HubSpot Partner Portal, Mapped Marketing, Unifyr
PartnerPortal.io
Two alternativesKiflo PRM, PartnerStack
against: impact.com
no first choiceagainst: Channelscaler, Hostaway, The Ansira Platform
Kimi K2Unifyr
Four alternativesChanneltivity, JourneyBee, ZINFI Unified Partner Management, xAmplify
against: Channelscaler, Impartner PRM, Salesforce PRM
Channelscaler, SE RankingChanged
Two alternativesSurefire Local, Tapfiliate
against: PartnerStack
Ansira, Unifyr
Three alternativesImpartner PRM, Mindmatrix, ZINFI Unified Partner Management
xAmplify
Two alternativesJourneyBee, ZINFI Unified Partner Management
against: Channelscaler, Impartner PRM, StructuredWeb, Unifyr
Channelscaler, ZINFI Unified Partner Management
One alternativexAmplify
against: Impartner PRM, Salesforce PRM
against: Ansira, Impartner PRM, Mindmatrix, Unifyr, ZINFI Unified Partner Management
GLM 4.7 FlashXUnifyr
Four alternativesChannelscaler, Channeltivity, Impartner PRM, Mindmatrix
Birdeye, BrightLocal, ChanneltivityChanged
Four alternativesGoogle Business Profile, Kiflo PRM, PartnerStack, monday CRM
no first choiceBrevo, Ryze AI
Two alternativesMailerLite, Tallium Marketing
no first choiceagainst: Adobe Marketo Engage, Zoho CRM
MiniMax M2.5JourneyBee
Four alternativesChanneltivity, Mindmatrix, Unifyr, ZINFI Unified Partner Management
PartnerStack, impact.comChanged
Four alternativesBirdeye, Bridge, Everflow, Google Business Profile
Impartner PRM, Unifyr
Four alternativesAnsira, JourneyBee, Mindmatrix, ZINFI Unified Partner Management
ZINFI Unified Partner Management
Three alternativesActiveCampaign, Brevo, xAmplify
no first choicenothing named
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 23:20yes148 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 03:47yes57 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 01:09yes2528 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-14 23:20yes204 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 04:50yes09 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 01:20yes08 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 00:57yes062 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:13yes02 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 00:52yes040 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 01:00yes032 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 02:57yes0147 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-14 23:04yes026 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 00:24no03 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 01:21yes39 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 03:04yes1821 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 04:45yes204 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 03:25yes06 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 01:21yes05 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-14 22:59yes019 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 01:07yes02 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 05:04yes036 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 00:09yes036 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-14 23:04yes033 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 04:07yes015 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-14 23:59yes1511 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 02:23yes37 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 23:14yes2823 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 03:19yes169 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 01:27yes010 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 00:32yes07 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-14 23:17yes016 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 04:02yes02 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 00:47no032 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 02:24yes034 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 03:02yes066 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 03:00yes026 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 04:23yes158 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-14 23:31no03 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 00:12yes1822 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 04:15yes205 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 01:04yes08 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 04:32yes08 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 01:51yes057 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 02:34yes01 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-14 23:23yes042 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 03:00yes067 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 02:10yes088 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-14 23:24yes022 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 03:16no05 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 04:44no011 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 01:10yes1129 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 03:28yes2010 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 04:30yes07 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 01:50yes07 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 00:42yes030 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 00:32yes019 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-14 23:10no027 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 01:08yes043 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-14 23:56yes033 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 05:02yes019 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 02:37yes167 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 01:59yes45 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 01:32yes2123 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 04:48yes206 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 01:57yes07 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 04:41yes011 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-14 23:54yes028 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 04:46yes02 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:54yes068 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:25yes048 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 01:44yes017 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 03:33yes019 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
HubSpot read as HubSpot Marketing Hub
Impartner read as Impartner PRM
Kiflo read as Kiflo PRM
Magentrix read as Magentrix PRM
Semrush read as Semrush Local
ZINFI read as ZINFI Unified Partner Management
ZINFI Technologies read as ZINFI Unified Partner Management
Zinfi read as ZINFI Unified Partner Management
Unresolved, counted raw
Ansira Incent
ChannelSailer (formerly Allbound)
Cherrington Media LLC
Ephesoft
GoTu Grow by Extu
Hostaway
HubSpot Partner Directory
LinkedIn
Mapped Marketing
PartnerCenterOne
Salesforce
Salesforce Partner Commerce
Salesforce-based PRM/through-channel
Structured Web
Tallium Marketing
Warmflow
WordsStream
Zoho's marketing suite
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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