September 2026 Edition, published · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since.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 › Referrals › Small business · September 2026 Edition

Referral and partner programs for small business buyers

Asked as “referral program software”, and as “partner ecosystem and referral tracking tool”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 46 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
17%
Contested · PartnerStack 15%
17Referral Rock15PartnerStack11Smile.io57others

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
01Referral Rock17%9%32accepted challenger
02PartnerStack15%55%20criticized challenger
03Smile.io11%10%10accepted challenger
04ReferralCandy9%15%33accepted challenger
05Referral Factory9%10%30accepted challenger
06FirstPromoter9%8%13accepted challenger
07GrowSurf2%6%16accepted challenger
08InviteReferrals2%0%11accepted challenger
09Tapfiliate2%9%11accepted challenger
Show the three products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
12Talkable0%90%10criticized challenger
11Friendbuy0%63%19criticized challenger
10Viral Loops0%17%12accepted 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-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
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative30%
Key
01Referral Rock17%
02PartnerStack15%
03Smile.io11%
04ReferralCandy9%
05Referral Factory9%
06FirstPromoter9%
07GrowSurf2%
08InviteReferrals2%
09Tapfiliate2%
10Viral Loops0%
11Friendbuy0%
12Talkable0%

What they warned about

Zero 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, 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.
Friendbuy
63%
12 of 19 labels negative · 9 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“geared toward enterprise e-commerce brands with high budgets. They often require 12-month contracts, have implementation fees” MiniMax M2.5, negative prompt
PartnerStack
55%
11 of 20 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“What to Avoid... PartnerStack — Starts in the thousands with a revenue-share model; built for enterprise SaaS” DeepSeek V4 Flash, paraphrase prompt
Talkable
90%
9 of 10 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“Why to avoid: Enterprise-only pricing (starting around $800+/month), no published pricing on their website, and no free trial.” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
ReferralCandy
15%
5 of 33 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Built for e-commerce/Shopify, not B2B. Success fees ... can get expensive.” DeepSeek V4 Flash, 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

22 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. 293 links across 124 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 · Referral Rock10 answers · 15 citations · 4 models
vendor site · ReferralCandy9 answers · 12 citations · 4 models
vendor site · Tremendous8 answers · 8 citations · 3 models
7 answers · 13 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Capterra7 answers · 8 citations · 3 models
vendor site · FirstPromoter6 answers · 8 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Extole6 answers · 7 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Affise6 answers · 6 citations · 3 models
vendor site · CustomerGauge6 answers · 6 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Open Loyalty6 answers · 6 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Tapfiliate6 answers · 6 citations · 2 models
5 answers · 7 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 referral program software”, “referral program software”. 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
Referral Rock referralrock.com
Referral Rock 17%, Referral Rocket 2%
20%2227201018,59912
PartnerStack partnerstack.com15%4014,4006827,49516
Smile.io smile.io11%108260268,962$1,46812
ReferralCandy referralcandy.com9%188590318,870286
Referral Factory referral-factory.com9%15748025,11531
FirstPromoter firstpromoter.com9%94590979712
Kiflo PRM kiflo.com4%1452001,941$4575
GrowSurf growsurf.com2%9626002,0780
InviteReferrals invitereferrals.com2%1611002,878
Rewardful rewardful.com2%1051,600133,6454,37822

Google's top ten for the two searches hold 10 sites; 6 of them are among the sites the models cited here (affise.com, extole.com, referral-factory.com, referralcandy.com, referralrock.com, tremendous.com). The first result for “best referral program software” is referral-factory.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 referral program software for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which partner ecosystem and referral tracking tool would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top referral program tools for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best referral program software for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating a referral program software. What should we look at?”Negative“Which referral program tools should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5no first choice
One alternativeReferral Rock
PartnerStackChanged
One alternativeimpact.com
Open Loyalty
Three alternativesGrowSurf, Referral Factory, Referral Rock
Blossu, ReferralCandy
Two alternativesGenius Referrals, GrowSurf
no first choicenothing named
GPT-5.4 miniReferral Factory
One alternativeReferly
against: impact.com
PartnerStackChanged
One alternativeCrossbeam
Rewardful
Two alternativesFriendbuy, Post Affiliate Pro
against: Everflow, PartnerStack
ReferralCandy
One alternativeReferral Rock
against: Friendbuy
no first choiceagainst: Get The Referral, Referral Rock, Talkable
Gemini 3.5 FlashReferral Factory
Three alternativesFirstPromoter, GrowSurf, Referral Rock
Kiflo PRMChanged
Three alternativesCello, PartnerPortal.io, Referral Rock
against: PartnerStack
FirstPromoter, ReferralCandy
Three alternativesCello, Referral Factory, Viral Loops
UpPromote
Four alternativesFirstPromoter, ReferralCandy, Rewardful, Siren Affiliates
against: GrowSurf
Boon, FirstPromoter
Six alternativesERIN, GrowSurf, Hellora, ReferralCandy, Social Snowball, Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals
against: Ambassador, Extole, Friendbuy, ReferralCandy, SaaSquatch, Talkable
Perplexity SonarReferral Factory
Two alternativesCello, Referral Rock
PartnerStackChanged
One alternativeimpact.com
Referral Factory
Six alternativesFriendbuy, InviteReferrals, Referral Rock, ReferralCandy, Tapfiliate, Viral Loops
Referral Factory, Smile.io
Two alternativesInviteReferrals, Tapfiliate
no first choiceagainst: Friendbuy, Talkable
Grok 4.20GrowSurf
Two alternativesCello, Referral Rock
against: PartnerStack, ReferralCandy
RewardfulChanged
One alternativeTapfiliate
against: PartnerStack
ReferralCandy
Four alternativesGrowSurf, Referral Factory, Referral Rock, Viral Loops
Referral Rocket
Three alternativesGrowSurf, KickoffLabs, ReferralCandy
against: Referral Factory
Referral Rock
Three alternativesERIN, Referral Factory, ReferralCandy
against: Ambassador, Birdeye Referrals, Extole, Friendbuy, Get The Referral, LoyaltyLion, Mention Me, Referral Rock, Talkable
Mistral SmallReferral Rock
Four alternativesCello, FirstPromoter, Introw, Referral Factory
Cello, FirstPromoterChanged
Three alternativesPartnerStack, Referral Factory, Rewardful
ReferralCandy
Six alternativesFriendbuy, InviteReferrals, Referral Factory, Referral Rock, Tapfiliate, Viral Loops
ReferralCandy
Four alternativesGenius Referrals, InviteBox, InviteReferrals, Viral Loops
Referral Rock
Three alternativesGrowSurf, InviteReferrals, Rewardful
against: PartnerStack
against: Home Depot Pro Referral, Mindbody, ReferralExchange, SC Conjured Referral Program, Zillow referral programs
DeepSeek V4 FlashReferral Rock
Three alternativesGrowSurf, Rewardful, Tapfiliate
against: Friendbuy, PartnerStack, ReferralCandy
TapfiliateChanged
Two alternativesReferral Rock, Rewardful
against: Impartner PRM, PartnerStack, TUNE, impact.com
GrowSurf, ReferralCandy
Three alternativesReferral Rock, Tapfiliate, Viral Loops
against: Friendbuy, SaaSquatch, Talkable, Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals
Smile.io
Two alternativesReferralCandy, RewardsWP
against: Extole, Friendbuy, Talkable, Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals
no first choice
Six alternativesAmbassador, Referral Factory, Referral Rock, ReferralCandy, Smile.io, Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals
against: Ambassador, Extole, Friendbuy, Mention Me, Mindbody, Smile.io, Talkable, Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals
Llama 4 Maverickno first choicePartnerStackChanged
Two alternativesB2B Referral Management, ReferU2
Referral Factory
Two alternativesLootly, ReferralCandy
FirstPromoter
Two alternativesInviteReferrals, Referral Factory
no first choiceagainst: Friendbuy, ReferralHero, Superfiliate, Talkable
Qwen 3.7 FlashReferral Rock
Two alternativesAmbassador, GrowSurf
against: Influitive
Ambassador, PartnerStackChangedagainst: impact.comGrowSurf, ReferralCandy
Two alternativesSmile.io, UpPromote
against: Bilt, PartnerStack
Giftbit, Tremendous
Two alternativesAffiliatly, Vyper
against: ReferralCandy
no first choicenothing named
Kimi K2Referral Rock
Three alternativesFirstPromoter, Rewardful, Tapfiliate
against: PartnerStack
PartnerStackChanged
Four alternativesKiflo PRM, PartnerPortal.io, Pipedrive, Salesforce PRM
Referral Factory, Referral Rock, ReferralCandy, Rewardful, Viral Loops
Three alternativesFirstPromoter, GrowSurf, Prefinery
Smile.io
Three alternativesFirstPromoter, InviteBox, ReferralCandy
against: Viral Loops
FirstPromoter, ReferralCandy
Three alternativesReferral Factory, Referral Rock, Smile.io
against: CJ Affiliate, Extole, FirstPromoter, Friendbuy, PartnerStack, Referral Factory, ReferralCandy, Viral Loops, impact.com
GLM 4.7 FlashXReferral Rock
Three alternativesGenius Referrals, Referral Factory, Referral Rocket
against: CustomerGauge
PartnerStackChanged
Four alternativesInviteReferrals, Kiflo PRM, Referral Rock, Viral Loops
ReferralCandy, Tapfiliate
Two alternativesInviteReferrals, Referral Factory
against: Friendbuy
Smile.io
Four alternativesAffiliatly, Referral Rocket, Tremendous, Viral Loops
against: Referral Factory, Referral Rock, Tapfiliate
no first choicenothing named
MiniMax M2.5Referral Rock
Three alternativesAmbassador, HelloReferrals, Referral Factory
Kiflo PRMChanged
One alternativeReferral Rock
against: PartnerStack
Referral Rock
Two alternativesReferral Factory, ReferralCandy
InviteReferrals, Smile.io
Two alternativesOpen Loyalty, ReferralCandy
no first choiceagainst: Friendbuy, Logical Commander, Superfiliate, Talkable
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 02:18yes76 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 00:35yes34 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 00:41yes2517 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-14 23:28yes206 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 02:38yes09 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 00:54yes010 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-14 23:39yes040 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:47yes02 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 03:03yes019 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 02:59yes026 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 01:07yes013 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-14 23:50yes015 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 04:12yes88 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 02:45yes44 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 22:59yes1822 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 03:18yes204 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 02:35yes08 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 02:22yes09 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 01:30yes034 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 04:18yes02 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:59yes039 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 00:51yes021 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 04:03yes0106 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-14 23:07yes019 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 01:32yes68 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 04:02yes514 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 03:57yes2621 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 01:59yes2010 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 04:05yes08 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 04:04yes010 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 04:27yes016 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 04:44yes02 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:11no043 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 03:10yes054 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 01:34yes032 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 01:29yes027 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 02:01yes87 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 04:14yes26 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 23:40yes2223 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 02:21yes206 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 02:54yes07 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 04:26yes05 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 04:39yes015 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 22:52yes02 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 04:59yes034 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 00:36yes022 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 02:42yes029 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 04:17yes010 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 01:17no05 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 01:56no05 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 00:54yes1020 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 00:42yes207 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 01:07yes07 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 04:29no04 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 04:56yes014 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:21yes02 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 02:23no038 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:47yes033 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 03:32yes0109 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 03:33yes018 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-14 22:57yes1410 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 04:59yes56 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 04:07yes1020 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 02:44yes206 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 00:19yes09 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 02:12yes010 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 03:34yes051 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 03:08yes02 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 02:27yes033 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 22:57yes038 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 01:07yes016 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-14 23:29yes012 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
Impartner read as Impartner PRM
Kiflo read as Kiflo PRM
Yotpo read as Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals
Unresolved, counted raw
B2B Referral Management
Bilt
Home Depot Pro Referral
Inguro
Logical Commander
Phenom
ReferU2
Referral Hero
ReferralExchange
Zillow referral programs
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
← PRMABM →