September 2026 Edition, published · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since.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

CRM for small business buyers

Asked as “CRM”, and as “customer relationship management system”, 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
50%
Clear leader
50HubSpot CRM22Pipedrive11Zoho CRM17others

50% of first choices, clear leader.

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
01HubSpot CRM50%12%60endorsed leader
02Pipedrive22%6%54accepted challenger
03Zoho CRM11%14%56accepted challenger
04Salesflare9%0%20accepted challenger
05Bigin by Zoho4%0%16accepted challenger
06Less Annoying CRM2%5%19accepted challenger
Show the four products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
09Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales0%82%11criticized challenger
10Salesforce Sales Cloud0%77%35criticized challenger
07Freshsales0%3%37accepted challenger
08EngageBay0%0%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.
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
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative70%
Key
01HubSpot CRM50%
02Pipedrive22%
03Zoho CRM11%
04Salesflare9%
05Bigin by Zoho4%
06Less Annoying CRM2%
07Freshsales0%
08EngageBay0%
09Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales0%
10Salesforce Sales Cloud0%

What they warned about

Four 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 and Kimi K2 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.
Salesforce Sales Cloud
77%
27 of 35 labels negative · 11 of 12 models · 7 hard negative
“Why to avoid: Despite being marketed as "small business friendly," it's consistently described as a "time-sucking nightmare" for SMBs” Mistral Small, negative prompt
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales
82%
9 of 11 labels negative · 9 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Why to avoid: Like Salesforce, Dynamics is incredibly powerful but highly rigid and complex.” Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt
HubSpot CRM
12%
7 of 60 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“flag enterprise-tier HubSpot as something small businesses should avoid if they do not need large-company features” Perplexity Sonar, negative prompt
Zoho CRM
14%
8 of 56 labels negative · 7 of 12 models
“reviewers sometimes mention pricing complexity, hidden fees, support quality, and setup/customization effort—so they’re worth a careful trial” GPT-5.4 mini, 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

17 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. 217 links across 96 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 · Reddit8 answers · 9 citations · 2 models
8 answers · 8 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Nutshell8 answers · 8 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Salesflare7 answers · 9 citations · 3 models
7 answers · 8 citations · 2 models
6 answers · 7 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Zapier6 answers · 6 citations · 2 models
5 answers · 5 citations · 2 models
5 answers · 5 citations · 1 model
5 answers · 5 citations · 2 models
vendor site · YouTube4 answers · 7 citations · 1 model
vendor site · Salesforce4 answers · 5 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 crm”, “crm”. 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
HubSpot parent site
HubSpot CRM 50%, HubSpot Sales Hub 0%, HubSpot Sales Starter 0%
50%687368,0009,776
Pipedrive pipedrive.com22%36049,500598418,149$55978
Zoho parent site
Zoho CRM 11%
11%33149,500660
Salesflare salesflare.com9%26720923,8041
Zoho bigin.com
Bigin by Zoho 4%
4%74210331,9800
Less Annoying CRM lessannoyingcrm.com2%396,600157,6486
Close close.com2%120368,0001,940,083168,266$2,18818
Freshsales freshworks.com
Freshsales 0%, Freshworks CRM 0%
0%1381,60038111,586$14,486113
EngageBay engagebay.com0%40880867,5701
Copper copper.com0%17

Google's top ten for the two searches hold 13 sites; 4 of them are among the sites the models cited here (forbes.com, reddit.com, salesforce.com, zapier.com). The first result for “best crm” is salesforce.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 CRM for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which customer relationship management system would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top CRMs for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best CRM for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating a CRM. What should we look at?”Negative“Which CRMs should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5no first choiceagainst: Salesforce Sales CloudHubSpot CRM, PipedriveChanged
Two alternativesMicrosoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Zoho CRM
against: Salesforce Sales Cloud
no first choiceHubSpot CRM, Zoho CRMagainst: Waveno first choiceagainst: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Salesforce Sales Cloud
GPT-5.4 miniHubSpot CRM
Three alternativesFreshsales, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM
against: Salesforce Sales Cloud
PipedriveChanged
Two alternativesBigin by Zoho, Salesforce CRM
HubSpot CRM
Three alternativesFreshsales, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM
HubSpot CRM
One alternativeZoho CRM
no first choiceagainst: LocaliQ, Zoho CRM
Gemini 3.5 FlashPipedrive
Five alternativesCopper, HubSpot CRM, NetHunt CRM, Nutshell, Zoho CRM
HubSpot CRMChanged
Three alternativesCopper, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM
Pipedrive
Four alternativesBigin by Zoho, HubSpot CRM, Less Annoying CRM, monday CRM
HubSpot CRM
Three alternativesBigin by Zoho, Freshsales, Less Annoying CRM
against: Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
Pipedrive
Five alternativesClickUp, Copper, HubSpot CRM, Monday.com, Zoho CRM
against: Salesforce Sales Cloud
against: HubSpot CRM, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Oracle NetSuite CRM, SAP Customer Experience, Salesforce Sales Cloud, SugarCRM, Zoho CRM
Perplexity SonarSalesflare
Five alternativesHubSpot CRM, HubSpot Sales Hub, Nutshell, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM
PipedriveChanged
Three alternativesHubSpot CRM, Salesflare, Zoho CRM
HubSpot CRM
Five alternativesBigin by Zoho, Freshsales, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM, monday CRM
HubSpot CRM
Three alternativesBigin by Zoho, Less Annoying CRM, Zoho CRM
no first choiceagainst: HubSpot CRM, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Salesforce Sales Cloud
Grok 4.20HubSpot CRM
Four alternativesFreshsales, Pipedrive, Salesflare, Zoho CRM
against: Salesforce Sales Cloud
HubSpot CRMHeld
Four alternativesFreshsales, Pipedrive, Salesflare, Zoho CRM
against: Salesforce Sales Cloud
HubSpot CRM
Five alternativesBigin by Zoho, Freshsales, Pipedrive, Salesforce CRM, Zoho CRM
HubSpot CRM, Zoho CRM
Four alternativesBigin by Zoho, Capsule CRM, Freshsales, Pipedrive
no first choiceagainst: HubSpot CRM, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, NetSuite, Oracle CX, SAP Sales Cloud, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
Mistral SmallPipedrive
Three alternativesFreshsales, HubSpot CRM, Zoho CRM
SalesflareChanged
Three alternativesEngageBay, HubSpot CRM, HubSpot Sales Hub
against: Salesforce Sales Cloud
Salesflare
Six alternativesBigin by Zoho, Freshsales, HubSpot CRM, Pipedrive, Salesforce CRM, Zoho CRM
HubSpot CRM
Four alternativesEngageBay, Less Annoying CRM, Zoho CRM, monday CRM
no first choiceagainst: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Salesforce Sales Cloudagainst: Close, Freshsales, HubSpot CRM, Insightly, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM, monday CRM
DeepSeek V4 FlashSalesflare
Four alternativesHubSpot CRM, HubSpot Sales Hub, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM
against: Salesforce Sales Cloud
HubSpot CRMChanged
Two alternativesPipedrive, Zoho CRM
HubSpot CRM
Four alternativesFreshsales, Pipedrive, Salesflare, Zoho CRM
against: Salesforce Sales Cloud
Zoho CRM
Five alternativesBigin by Zoho, EngageBay, Freshsales, HubSpot CRM, Less Annoying CRM
no first choiceagainst: HubSpot CRM, Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, SugarCRM, Zoho CRM
Llama 4 MaverickHubSpot CRM
Four alternativesFreshsales, Pipedrive, Salesflare, Zoho CRM
HubSpot CRMHeld
Three alternativesFreshsales, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM
no first choiceBigin by Zoho
One alternativeHubSpot's free plan
no first choiceagainst: Salesforce Sales Cloud
Qwen 3.7 FlashHubSpot CRM, Pipedrive
One alternativeZoho CRM
HubSpot CRMChanged
Three alternativesClose, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM
HubSpot CRM
Three alternativesFreshsales, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM
against: Salesforce Sales Cloud
HubSpot CRM
Two alternativesBigin by Zoho, Less Annoying CRM
Close, Pipedrive
Three alternativesFreshsales, HubSpot CRM, Zoho CRM
against: Salesforce Sales Cloud
against: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Oracle CX, SAP Sales Cloud, Salesforce Sales Cloud
Kimi K2HubSpot CRM, Salesflare
Three alternativesFreshsales, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM
PipedriveChanged
Two alternativesHubSpot CRM, Salesflare
against: Salesforce Sales Cloud
HubSpot CRM
Five alternativesBigin by Zoho, Freshsales, Pipedrive, Salesflare, Zoho CRM
against: Keap
Zoho CRM
Three alternativesBitrix24, EngageBay, HubSpot CRM
Pipedrive
Three alternativesFreshsales, HubSpot Sales Starter, Zoho CRM
against: Salesforce Sales Cloud
against: HubSpot CRM, Keap, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Oracle CX, SAP Sales Cloud, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
GLM 4.7 FlashXHubSpot CRM
Two alternativesPipedrive, Zoho CRM
HubSpot CRMHeld
Four alternativesMonday.com, Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
Salesflare
Five alternativesActiveCampaign, EngageBay, Freshsales, HubSpot CRM, Salesforce CRM
against: Pipedrive
HubSpot CRM, Zoho CRM
Two alternativesLess Annoying CRM, Pipedrive
no first choiceagainst: HubSpot Sales Hub, Insightly, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM
MiniMax M2.5HubSpot CRM
Two alternativesPipedrive, Zoho CRM
HubSpot CRMHeld
Four alternativesCopper, Freshsales, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM
HubSpot CRM, Pipedrive
Three alternativesLess Annoying CRM, Salesflare, Zoho CRM
against: Salesforce Sales Cloud
Bigin by Zoho, Less Annoying CRM
Three alternativesFreshsales, Monday.com, Pipedrive
no first choice
Six alternativesCopper, Freshsales, HubSpot CRM, Less Annoying CRM, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM
against: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Salesforce Sales Cloud
against: ActiveCampaign, Capsule CRM, HubSpot CRM, Less Annoying CRM, Salesforce Sales Cloud, monday CRM
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 23:04no06 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-14 22:54no03 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 03:09yes1319 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 04:02yes205 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)2026-09-14 23:08yes06 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 01:27yes09 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-14 23:22yes027 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 00:03yes02 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 03:55yes016 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:57yes023 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 03:15yes066 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 00:05no06 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 00:59no04 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 04:19yes25 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 03:37yes1218 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-14 23:51yes204 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 02:54yes05 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-14 23:57yes06 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 03:57yes011 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 04:26yes02 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 00:05no027 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:25yes027 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 01:53no022 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-14 23:10no07 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 02:49yes89 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 01:04yes47 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 23:32yes1821 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 04:00yes207 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 04:00yes06 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 01:47yes08 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 02:32yes013 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:30yes01 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 00:10yes035 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 04:54yes030 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-14 23:25yes047 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-14 23:37yes015 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 03:09no04 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 00:50yes23 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 01:17yes1018 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 02:06yes205 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 02:23yes06 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-14 23:12yes08 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 03:03yes023 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 00:13yes02 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 00:55yes020 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 01:45yes027 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-14 23:03yes049 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 01:17yes010 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 01:00no06 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 02:03no06 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 03:08no015 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 04:48yes208 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 05:06yes09 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 04:15no08 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-14 23:49yes016 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 01:14yes03 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-14 22:52yes029 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 01:13yes064 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 04:19yes082 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 03:15no011 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 01:40yes1510 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 02:53yes56 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 04:10yes822 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 00:19yes206 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 01:20yes08 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 03:16yes012 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 02:37yes027 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 00:57yes02 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-14 23:17yes038 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 00:39yes054 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 03:59yes056 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 00:57yes031 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
Freshworks read as Freshsales
HubSpot read as HubSpot CRM
SAP read as SAP Sales Cloud
Salesforce read as Salesforce Sales Cloud
Salesforce (Starter) read as Salesforce Sales Cloud
Zoho read as Zoho CRM
Zoho (incl. Bigin) read as Zoho CRM
monday Sales CRM read as monday CRM
Unresolved, counted raw
Day.ai
Freshsales Sprout Plan
HubSpot's free plan
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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