# CRM: what AI models recommend, September 2026

Gane Index, September 2026 Edition. Asked as "CRM" and as "customer relationship management system", six framings each, to twelve models with search on, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/revops/crm/2026-09

This is the permanent record of the September 2026 Edition, published September 15, 2026 and superseded since. The current standing: https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/revops/crm/index.md

**Standing:** HubSpot CRM 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 | [HubSpot CRM](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/hubspot-crm/index.md) | 41% | 19% | 54 |
| 2 | [HubSpot Sales Hub](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/hubspot-sales-hub/index.md) | 18% | 0% | 11 |
| 3 | [Zoho CRM](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/zoho-crm/index.md) | 10% | 13% | 54 |
| 4 | [Salesforce Sales Cloud](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/salesforce-sales-cloud/index.md) | 10% | 35% | 49 |
| 7 | [Pipedrive](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/pipedrive/index.md) | 2% | 9% | 46 |
| 8 | [Freshsales](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/freshsales/index.md) | 2% | 10% | 30 |
| 9 | [Less Annoying CRM](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/less-annoying-crm/index.md) | 2% | 0% | 11 |
| 10 | [Nutshell](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/nutshell/index.md) | 2% | 0% | 11 |
| 14 | [Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/microsoft-dynamics-365-sales/index.md) | 0% | 7% | 29 |
| 15 | [Close](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/close/index.md) | 0% | 8% | 13 |
| 16 | [Bitrix24](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/bitrix24/index.md) | 0% | 20% | 10 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 70 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: no first choice
- GPT-5.4 mini: HubSpot Sales Hub, Salesforce Sales Cloud; alternatives Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: HubSpot CRM; alternatives Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
- Perplexity Sonar: HubSpot Sales Hub; alternatives Coevera, Freshsales, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
- Grok 4.20: HubSpot CRM, Pipedrive; alternatives Freshsales, Salesflare, Zoho CRM
- Mistral Small: HubSpot Sales Hub; alternatives Freshsales, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Salesflare
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: HubSpot CRM; alternatives Attio, Pipedrive, Salesflare, Zoho CRM
- Llama 4 Maverick: Coevera; alternatives Freshsales, NetSuite, Salesflare
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: HubSpot Sales Hub; alternatives Close, Coevera, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Pipedrive
- Kimi K2: HubSpot Sales Hub; alternatives Freshsales, Pipedrive, Salesflare, Zoho CRM
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: HubSpot CRM; alternatives Close, Monday.com, Nutshell, Pipedrive
- MiniMax M2.5: HubSpot Sales Hub; alternatives Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, NetSuite, Zoho CRM

## Sources the answers cite

17 of 72 answers came back with a source list, from 4 of 12 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- pcmag.com: 6 answers, 6 citations
- reddit.com: 5 answers, 14 citations
- youtube.com: 5 answers, 10 citations
- monday.com: 5 answers, 6 citations
- hubspot.com: 5 answers, 5 citations
- salesforce.com: 4 answers, 6 citations
- blog.salesflare.com: 4 answers, 5 citations
- nutshell.com: 4 answers, 5 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://pcmag.com/picks/the-best-crm-software (5 answers)
- https://superoffice.com/blog/best-sales-crm (4 answers)
- https://bigcontacts.com/blog/best-crm-for-b2b (3 answers)
- https://business.com/categories/crm-software (3 answers)
- https://clickup.com/blog/b2b-crm-software (3 answers)
- https://hubspot.com/comparisons/best-crm (3 answers)
- https://monday.com/blog/crm-and-sales/crm-software (3 answers)
- https://resources.rework.com/tools/crm/best-crm-software-2026 (3 answers)
- https://youtube.com/watch?v=Zq1kfwRWkmk (3 answers)
- https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/crm-examples (2 answers)

## Warned against

- Salesforce Sales Cloud: 17 of 49 labels negative. "Don't buy Salesforce unless you're an enterprise with admin expertise and budget for the true TCO." (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt)
- HubSpot CRM: 10 of 54 labels negative. "CRMs to Approach with High Caution... HubSpot: Tops lists with 300+ negative G2 reviews (capped), Risk Score 100/100" (Grok 4.20, negative prompt)
- Zoho CRM: 7 of 54 labels negative. "Zoho CRM: 300+ negative G2 reviews... Affordable but frustrating for growing teams." (Grok 4.20, negative prompt)
- Pipedrive: 4 of 46 labels negative. "Avoid if you have marketing + sales + customer success teams... Pipedrive (7/100)" (MiniMax M2.5, negative prompt)

## Record

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