Ecommerce platforms
Asked as “ecommerce platform”, and as “online store platform”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B software company. 21 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, six models each.
Standing · first-choice share
24%
Square OnlineContested · Stripe Billing 24%
24Square Online24Stripe Billing19Paddle33others
24% of first choices, contested.
The standing
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all six models, for a mid-market B2B software company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrantSince September 2026
01
BigCommerce B2B Edition10%17%24accepted challengernewNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 10% now.
BigCommerce B2B Edition10%17%24accepted challengernewNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 10% now.Show the two products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
04
Squarespace Commerce0%20%10accepted challengernewNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 0% now.
Squarespace Commerce0%20%10accepted challengernewNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 0% now.The floor is 12 points of share, measured: how far the models move a leader on their own when the same questions are asked twice with nothing changed. A larger change is movement; a smaller one can't be told apart from repeat variation, and both are shown. Each index measures its own floor from its own repeat, over its own categories, so the floor differs from one index to the next. How the floor is measured
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 head
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
0304
05Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative20%
Key
01BigCommerce B2B Edition10%
BigCommerce B2B Edition10%02Shopify5%
Shopify5%03WooCommerce5%
WooCommerce5%04Squarespace Commerce0%
Squarespace Commerce0%05Adobe Commerce0%
Adobe Commerce0%What they warned about
Three of six models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Opus 4.8, GPT-6 Astra and Gemini 3.1 Pro 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.
Shopify30%
9 of 30 labels negative · 5 of 6 models · 1 hard negative
“If you drop a software business onto Shopify Plus, you'll spend the next year bolting on subscription management... Buyers in this category consistently regret this path.” Claude Opus 5, direct prompt
Adobe Commerce50%
9 of 18 labels negative · 4 of 6 models · 1 hard negative
“built around a *catalog of SKUs shipped to a buyer*” Claude Opus 5, direct prompt
Amazon100%
4 of 4 labels negative · 4 of 6 models
“Marketplaces used as your only store such as Amazon, eBay, or Allegro, because they ... reduce customer ownership and margin control” Perplexity Sonar Pro, negative prompt
WooCommerce27%
4 of 15 labels negative · 4 of 6 models
“Your store is only as secure and reliable as its hosting, WordPress installation, plugins, and maintenance practices.” GPT-5.6 Sol, negative prompt
What they cite
Six of the six models returned a source list in this edition: six return the pages they cited.
Sites the answers cite
26 of 36 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 6 of 6 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 322 links across 211 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page. None of the 36 answers across every segment cited this index's own page for the category.
vendor site · BigCommerce8 answers · 8 citations · 4 models
vendor site · Shopify8 answers · 8 citations · 4 models
5 answers · 6 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Shopify5 answers · 5 citations · 2 models
vendor site · WooCommerce5 answers · 5 citations · 2 models
4 answers · 4 citations · 3 models
4 answers · 4 citations · 2 models
4 answers · 4 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Stripe4 answers · 4 citations · 3 models
vendor site · FastSpring3 answers · 6 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Reddit3 answers · 6 citations · 1 model
3 answers · 4 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.
4 answers · 2 models
4 answers · 3 models
4 answers · 2 models
3 answers · 2 models
3 answers · 1 model
3 answers · 2 models
2 answers · 1 model
2 answers · 1 model
2 answers · 2 models
2 answers · 2 models
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 ecommerce platform”, “ecommerce 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 products | Share | Own site cited | Name searches, Google | AI search demand, est. | Organic visits | Paid search a month, est. | Google ads, last 30 days |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Square Online squareup.com | 24% | 59 | 9,900 | 465 | 3,658,565 | $9 | 99 |
| Stripe Billing stripe.com | 24% | 170 | 1,900 | 599 | 3,226,782 | $3,621 | 102 |
| Paddle paddle.com | 19% | 88 | 60,500 | 69,116 | 172,079 | 31 | |
| BigCommerce B2B Edition bigcommerce.com | 10% | 164 | 210 | 2 | 655,124 | $1,225 | 115 |
| Chargebee chargebee.com | 10% | 198 | 5,400 | 140 | 69,891 | $1,889 | 82 |
| Shopify shopify.com | 5% | 299 | 1,000,000 | 38,067 | 3,486,997 | $3,351 | 110 |
| WooCommerce woocommerce.com | 5% | 146 | 22,200 | 3,726 | 88,616 | $24 | 15 |
| FastSpring fastspring.com | 5% | 22 | 3,600 | 235 | 8,511 | $29,868 | 15 |
| Salesforce parent site Salesforce Commerce Cloud 0%, Salesforce Revenue Cloud 0% | 0% | 233 | 550,000 | 60,632 | |||
| Wix wix.com | 0% | 185 | 673,000 | 21,881 | 4,049,160 | $1,858 | 119 |
Google's top ten for the two searches hold 15 sites; 1 of them are among the sites the models cited here (reddit.com). The first result for “best ecommerce platform” is theretailexec.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
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.
ShowHideModelDirect“What is the best ecommerce platform for a mid-market B2B software company?”Paraphrase“Which online store platform would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B software company?”Comparative“What are the top ecommerce platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best ecommerce platform for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating an ecommerce platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which ecommerce platforms should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Opus 5Stripe Billingagainst: Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce B2B Edition, FastSpring, OroCommerce, Paddle, ShopifyStripe BillingHeldagainst: Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce B2B Edition, ShopifyShopifyagainst: Adobe CommerceSquare Onlineno first choiceagainst: Adobe Commerceagainst: Amazon, BigCommerce B2B Edition, Shopify, Walmart Marketplace
Four alternatives
AWS Marketplace, Chargebee, Metronome, OrbFour alternatives
AWS Marketplace, Chargebee, Maxio, PaddleThree alternatives
BigCommerce B2B Edition, Wix, WooCommerceTwo alternatives
Shopify, WooCommerceClaude Opus 4.8Chargebee, Stripe Billingagainst: Adobe Commerce, ShopifyPaddleChangedagainst: Adobe CommerceShopifyShopifyno first choiceagainst: SHEIN, Temu
Eight alternatives
BigCommerce B2B Edition, DealHub, Lemon Squeezy, Paddle, Recurly, Salesforce Revenue Cloud, Subskribe, ZuoraFive alternatives
BigCommerce B2B Edition, Chargebee, Lemon Squeezy, Shopify, Stripe BillingSix alternatives
Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce B2B Edition, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Squarespace Commerce, Wix, WooCommerceThree alternatives
Square Online, Wix eCommerce, WooCommerceGPT-6 AstraFastSpringPaddleChangedShopifySquare Onlineagainst: WooCommerceno first choiceagainst: commercetoolsagainst: AliExpress, Amazon, SHEIN, Temu
Three alternatives
Maxio, Paddle, Stripe BillingTwo alternatives
Shopify, Stripe BillingSix alternatives
Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce B2B Edition, Square Online, Squarespace Commerce, Wix, WooCommerceOne alternative
ShopifyGPT-5.6 SolStripe Billingagainst: Adobe Commerce, Shopify, commercetoolsStripe BillingHeldShopifySquare Onlineno first choiceagainst: Adobe Commerce, Amazon, Etsy, Shopify, TikTok Shop, Wix Stores, WooCommerce
Two alternatives
BigCommerce B2B Edition, Salesforce Revenue CloudFour alternatives
Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce B2B Edition, Paddle, ShopifySix alternatives
Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce B2B Edition, Square Online, Squarespace Commerce, Wix, WooCommerceThree alternatives
Big Cartel, Shopify, WooCommerceGemini 3.1 ProPaddleagainst: ShopifyChargebee, PaddleChangedagainst: Salesforce B2B CommerceShopifySquare Onlineno first choiceagainst: BigCommerce B2B Edition, Magento Open Source, Shopify, Squarespace Commerce, Turbify, Volusion, Weebly, Wix, WooCommerce, Zen Cart, osCommerce
Seven alternatives
BigCommerce B2B Edition, Chargebee, Cleverbridge, FastSpring, Maxio, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Stripe Revenue CloudFour alternatives
BigCommerce B2B Edition, Cleverbridge, FastSpring, StripeThree alternatives
Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce B2B Edition, WooCommerceFour alternatives
Big Cartel, Ecwid, Shopify, WooCommerceSix alternatives
Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce B2B Edition, Elastic Path Composable Commerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Shopify, commercetoolsPerplexity Sonar ProBigCommerce B2B EditionBigCommerce B2B EditionHeldShopifyagainst: Adobe CommerceSquare Online, WooCommerceagainst: Shopifyno first choiceagainst: Allegro, Amazon, Magento 1.x, Squarespace Commerce, Volusion V1, WooCommerce, Zen Cart, eBay
Two alternatives
OroCommerce, ShopifyTwo alternatives
OroCommerce, Salesforce Commerce CloudSix alternatives
BigCommerce B2B Edition, Ecwid, Square Online, Squarespace Commerce, Wix, WooCommerceOne alternative
WixBold 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.
Thirty-six rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
| Prompt | Model | Version string | Time (UTC) | Searched | Sources | Latency |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direct recommendation | Claude Opus 5 | claude-opus-5 | 2026-09-09 20:29 | yes | 22 | 69 s |
| Direct recommendation | Claude Opus 4.8 | claude-opus-4-8 | 2026-09-09 20:30 | no | 0 | 23 s |
| Direct recommendation | GPT-6 Astra | gpt-6-astra | 2026-09-09 20:31 | yes | 6 | 27 s |
| Direct recommendation | GPT-5.6 Sol | gpt-5.6-sol | 2026-09-09 20:33 | yes | 4 | 32 s |
| Direct recommendation | Gemini 3.1 Pro | gemini-3.1-pro-preview | 2026-09-10 17:22 | no | 0 | 33 s |
| Direct recommendation | Perplexity Sonar Pro | sonar-pro | 2026-09-10 19:13 | yes | 20 | 6 s |
| Paraphrase | Claude Opus 5 | claude-opus-5 | 2026-09-09 20:35 | yes | 20 | 59 s |
| Paraphrase | Claude Opus 4.8 | claude-opus-4-8 | 2026-09-09 20:36 | no | 0 | 20 s |
| Paraphrase | GPT-6 Astra | gpt-6-astra | 2026-09-09 20:37 | yes | 5 | 26 s |
| Paraphrase | GPT-5.6 Sol | gpt-5.6-sol | 2026-09-09 20:39 | yes | 5 | 31 s |
| Paraphrase | Gemini 3.1 Pro | gemini-3.1-pro-preview | 2026-09-10 17:24 | no | 0 | 45 s |
| Paraphrase | Perplexity Sonar Pro | sonar-pro | 2026-09-09 20:36 | yes | 20 | 6 s |
| Comparative | Claude Opus 5 | claude-opus-5 | 2026-09-09 20:40 | yes | 23 | 36 s |
| Comparative | Claude Opus 4.8 | claude-opus-4-8 | 2026-09-09 20:41 | no | 0 | 20 s |
| Comparative | GPT-6 Astra | gpt-6-astra | 2026-09-09 20:43 | yes | 7 | 41 s |
| Comparative | GPT-5.6 Sol | gpt-5.6-sol | 2026-09-09 20:45 | yes | 7 | 45 s |
| Comparative | Gemini 3.1 Pro | gemini-3.1-pro-preview | 2026-09-10 17:28 | yes | 8 | 135 s |
| Comparative | Perplexity Sonar Pro | sonar-pro | 2026-09-09 20:42 | yes | 20 | 7 s |
| Budget constrained | Claude Opus 5 | claude-opus-5 | 2026-09-09 20:47 | yes | 33 | 43 s |
| Budget constrained | Claude Opus 4.8 | claude-opus-4-8 | 2026-09-09 20:48 | no | 0 | 14 s |
| Budget constrained | GPT-6 Astra | gpt-6-astra | 2026-09-09 20:49 | yes | 3 | 21 s |
| Budget constrained | GPT-5.6 Sol | gpt-5.6-sol | 2026-09-09 20:50 | yes | 4 | 18 s |
| Budget constrained | Gemini 3.1 Pro | gemini-3.1-pro-preview | 2026-09-10 17:29 | yes | 4 | 30 s |
| Budget constrained | Perplexity Sonar Pro | sonar-pro | 2026-09-09 20:48 | yes | 20 | 5 s |
| Scale constrained | Claude Opus 5 | claude-opus-5 | 2026-09-09 20:51 | no | 0 | 41 s |
| Scale constrained | Claude Opus 4.8 | claude-opus-4-8 | 2026-09-09 20:52 | no | 0 | 20 s |
| Scale constrained | GPT-6 Astra | gpt-6-astra | 2026-09-09 20:54 | yes | 5 | 37 s |
| Scale constrained | GPT-5.6 Sol | gpt-5.6-sol | 2026-09-09 20:55 | yes | 3 | 62 s |
| Scale constrained | Gemini 3.1 Pro | gemini-3.1-pro-preview | 2026-09-10 17:31 | no | 0 | 26 s |
| Scale constrained | Perplexity Sonar Pro | sonar-pro | 2026-09-09 20:53 | yes | 20 | 6 s |
| Negative framing | Claude Opus 5 | claude-opus-5 | 2026-09-09 20:57 | no | 0 | 16 s |
| Negative framing | Claude Opus 4.8 | claude-opus-4-8 | 2026-09-09 21:00 | yes | 25 | 128 s |
| Negative framing | GPT-6 Astra | gpt-6-astra | 2026-09-09 21:02 | yes | 6 | 27 s |
| Negative framing | GPT-5.6 Sol | gpt-5.6-sol | 2026-09-09 21:04 | yes | 6 | 45 s |
| Negative framing | Gemini 3.1 Pro | gemini-3.1-pro-preview | 2026-09-10 18:39 | yes | 6 | 59 s |
| Negative framing | Perplexity Sonar Pro | sonar-pro | 2026-09-09 21:01 | yes | 20 | 7 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
BigCommerce read as BigCommerce B2B Edition
BigCommerce (B2B Edition) read as BigCommerce B2B Edition
BigCommerce Enterprise read as BigCommerce B2B Edition
BigCommerce, including B2B Edition read as BigCommerce B2B Edition
Elastic Path read as Elastic Path Composable Commerce
Oracle read as Oracle CPQ
SAP read as SAP Commerce Cloud
Squarespace read as Squarespace Commerce
Unresolved, counted raw
None awaiting human review.
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.