September 2026 Edition, published · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since.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

Proposal software for small business buyers

Asked as “proposal software”, and as “sales proposal and quote document tool”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 47 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
49%
Clear leader
49PandaDoc13Better Proposals09Proposify30others

49% 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
01PandaDoc49%12%60endorsed leader
02Better Proposals13%6%51accepted challenger
03Proposify9%12%57accepted challenger
04Bonsai4%0%18accepted challenger
05Agiled4%0%13accepted challenger
06Prospero4%7%15accepted challenger
07Qwilr2%8%39accepted challenger
Show the three products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
10Loopio0%55%11criticized challenger
09GetAccept0%20%10accepted challenger
08Proposable0%0%11accepted 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
P08
09
10
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative60%
Key
01PandaDoc49%
02Better Proposals13%
03Proposify9%
04Bonsai4%
05Agiled4%
06Prospero4%
07Qwilr2%
08Proposable0%
09GetAccept0%
10Loopio0%

What they warned about

Six of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, 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.
Proposify
12%
7 of 57 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“criticized for restrictive send limits ... bugs ... Users note it's pricier than alternatives and buggy for non-enterprise use.” Grok 4.20, negative prompt
PandaDoc
12%
7 of 60 labels negative · 7 of 12 models
“strong, but its pricing page points small businesses toward custom/per-seat or per-document pricing rather than a clearly low fixed entry price” GPT-5.4 mini, budget prompt
Loopio
55%
6 of 11 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 5 hard negative
“Platforms Requiring Sales Calls Before Pricing... Why avoid: These enterprise-focused platforms typically require sales conversations before showing pricing” Mistral Small, negative prompt
Responsive
71%
5 of 7 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“Responsive in particular is designed for multiple approval stages and role-based workflows. For a five-person team, configuring that overhead eats up more time than it saves.” DeepSeek V4 Flash, 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

21 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. 273 links across 87 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 · Flowcase12 answers · 13 citations · 3 models
vendor site · GetAccept12 answers · 13 citations · 3 models
vendor site · PandaDoc11 answers · 13 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Proposify11 answers · 13 citations · 4 models
vendor site · Qwilr10 answers · 14 citations · 3 models
9 answers · 9 citations · 4 models
vendor site · SiftHub7 answers · 7 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Better Proposals6 answers · 8 citations · 2 models
vendor site · YouTube6 answers · 7 citations · 1 model
vendor site · Lindy6 answers · 6 citations · 2 models
6 answers · 6 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Agiled5 answers · 7 citations · 1 model

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 proposal software”, “proposal 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
PandaDoc pandadoc.com49%53860,500510425,196$42,5161191
Better Proposals betterproposals.io13%1241,3006524,25154
Proposify proposify.com9%2593,6002838,103272
Bonsai hellobonsai.com4%3874,00027,918
Agiled agiled.app4%249,50030,6836,691
Prospero goprospero.com4%152,4001,1789082
Proposally.ai proposal.biz4%099
Qwilr qwilr.com2%1964,4002310,83727
Jotform jotform.com2%72246,0001,3081,677,836$1,619100
Oneflow oneflow.com2%321,0001139,54713

Google's top ten for the two searches hold 15 sites; 5 of them are among the sites the models cited here (betterproposals.io, getaccept.com, pandadoc.com, proposify.com, sifthub.io). The first result for “best proposal software” is grantbite.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 proposal software for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which sales proposal and quote document tool would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top proposal tools for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best proposal software for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating a proposal software. What should we look at?”Negative“Which proposal tools should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5no first choice
Four alternativesBetter Proposals, PandaDoc, Proposify, Qwilr
QuoteWerksChanged
Three alternativesGetAccept, HubSpot CRM, Osmos
Better Proposals
Five alternativesPandaDoc, Proposable, Proposify, Prospero, Qwilr
Cone, PandaDoc
Two alternativesBetter Proposals, Nusii
no first choiceagainst: Better Proposals, DealHub, Proposify
GPT-5.4 miniPandaDoc
Two alternativesHubSpot Commerce Hub, Proposify
PandaDocHeld
Two alternativesProposify, Qwilr
Proposify
Three alternativesBetter Proposals, PandaDoc, Qwilr
Proposify
Two alternativesProposal Kit, Qwilr
against: PandaDoc
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashPandaDoc
Three alternativesBetter Proposals, Proposify, Qwilr
PandaDocHeld
Four alternativesBetter Proposals, Proposify, QuoteWerks, Qwilr
PandaDoc
Four alternativesBetter Proposals, Proposify, Prospero, Qwilr
Prospero
Three alternativesBetter Proposals, PandaDoc, Proposable
PandaDoc
Six alternativesAutogenAI, Better Proposals, GetAccept, Loopio, Qwilr, SiftHub
against: Adobe InDesign, Canva, Conga Composer, DealHub, Loopio, PandaDoc, Proposify, RFP360, Responsive, Salesforce CPQ, Standard Microsoft Word, Upland Qvidian
Perplexity SonarPandaDoc
Three alternativesAgiled, Better Proposals, Proposify
PandaDocHeld
Three alternativesBetter Proposals, Proposify, Qwilr
PandaDoc
Five alternativesAgiled, Better Proposals, Bonsai, Proposify, Qwilr
Better Proposals
Two alternativesAgiled, Prospero
no first choicenothing named
Grok 4.20PandaDoc
Three alternativesBetter Proposals, Proposable, Proposify
PandaDocHeld
One alternativeProposify
Better Proposals, PandaDoc
Four alternativesBonsai, Proposable, Proposify, Qwilr
against: Loopio, Responsive
Better Proposals
Three alternativesJotform, Oneflow, PandaDoc
no first choiceagainst: Bidsketch, Loopio, Nusii, PandaDoc, Proposify, Qwilr, Upland Qvidian
Mistral SmallPandaDoc
Three alternativesBetter Proposals, Proposify, Qwilr
PandaDocHeld
Two alternativesProposify, Quotient
Better Proposals
Four alternativesIgnition, PandaDoc, Proposify, Qwilr
Bonsai, Jotform, PandaDoc
Two alternativesBetter Proposals, Proposify
no first choiceagainst: BasicDocs, GetAccept, Google Workspace, Loopio, PandaDoc, PowerPoint, Proposify, QuoteWerks, RFP360, Responsive, Upland Qvidian
DeepSeek V4 FlashBetter Proposals
Two alternativesPandaDoc, Qwilr
PandaDocChanged
Three alternativesBetter Proposals, Proposify, Qwilr
PandaDoc
Seven alternativesAgiled, Better Proposals, Bonsai, HoneyBook, Proposify, Prospero, Qwilr
PandaDoc
Four alternativesAgiled, Bonsai, Jotform, Prospero
against: Better Proposals, Nusii, Proposify, Qwilr
PandaDoc, Proposify, Qwilr
Three alternativesLoopio, QorusDocs, Responsive
against: Conga Composer, DealHub, Oneflow
against: ChatGPT, Loopio, QorusDocs, Responsive, Upland Qvidian
Llama 4 MaverickAgiled, Better Proposals, PandaDoc, ProposifyProposifyChanged
Four alternativesBidsketch, GetAccept, PandaDoc, QuoteCloud
Proposify
Four alternativesAgiled, Better Proposals, PandaDoc, Storydoc
Prospero
Four alternativesBetter Proposals, PandaDoc, Plutio, Proposify
no first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashPandaDoc
Three alternativesBetter Proposals, Proposify, Qwilr
PandaDocHeld
Two alternativesProposify, Quotient
PandaDoc
Five alternativesAgiled, Better Proposals, Bonsai, Proposify, Qwilr
Proposaly.ai
Two alternativesGoogle Docs + Free Templates, Jotform
no first choiceagainst: Better Proposals, GetAccept, Nusii, PandaDoc, Proposify, Prospero
Kimi K2Better Proposals
Four alternativesPandaDoc, Proposally.ai, Proposify, Qwilr
PandaDocChanged
Three alternativesBetter Proposals, Dubsado, HoneyBook
PandaDoc
Five alternativesBetter Proposals, Bonsai, Proposify, Prospero, Qwilr
Bonsai
Four alternativesAgencyPitch, Better Proposals, Canva, Prospero
no first choiceagainst: Conga CPQ, Conga Composer, DealHub, Loopio, PandaDoc, Proposify, Qwilr, Responsive
GLM 4.7 FlashXAgiled
Six alternativesBetter Proposals, GetAccept, HoneyBook, PandaDoc, Proposify, Qwilr
PandaDocChanged
Three alternativesHubSpot Commerce Hub, Proposify, Qwilr
PandaDoc
Four alternativesAgiled, Better Proposals, Proposify, Qwilr
Oneflow, Proposally.ai
Four alternativesBetter Proposals, Bonsai, PandaDoc, Proposable
no first choiceagainst: Microsoft Word, Salesforce-Based Proposal Tools
MiniMax M2.5Better Proposals, PandaDoc
One alternativeProposify
PandaDocChanged
Two alternativesBetter Proposals, Proposify
PandaDoc
Two alternativesProposify, Qwilr
Proposally.ai
One alternativeProposable
against: PandaDoc
no first choice
Four alternativesAgiled, DealHub, PandaDoc, Proposify
against: Salesforce
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 02:48yes98 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 03:39yes34 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 00:47yes1520 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 01:53yes205 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 01:16yes07 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 01:33yes06 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-14 23:52yes021 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:37yes01 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-14 23:08yes038 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:46yes025 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 03:38yes037 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 01:39yes08 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-14 23:41yes97 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 00:38yes46 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 04:21yes917 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 02:20yes205 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 02:29yes08 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 02:40yes06 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 02:26yes024 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 04:08yes02 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 03:51yes047 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 05:07yes044 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 04:02yes072 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 00:19yes010 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 01:38yes149 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 03:15yes66 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 23:47yes1526 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 01:54yes208 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)2026-09-14 23:20yes09 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-14 23:22yes06 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 03:13yes037 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:27yes03 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 03:30yes035 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 00:50yes026 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-14 23:32yes0106 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 01:44yes016 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 02:44yes77 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 02:26yes44 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 23:02yes1519 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 04:29yes205 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 03:37yes07 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-14 23:05yes010 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 03:53yes016 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 22:54yes02 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 03:30yes023 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:06yes024 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-14 23:20yes049 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 03:31yes08 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 00:16no05 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 00:42no05 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 00:38yes1222 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 01:53yes189 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 01:18yes07 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 04:08no05 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 03:47yes021 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 04:00yes04 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 02:24yes035 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 01:07no084 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 05:02yes0105 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 01:46yes013 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 01:57yes129 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 04:07no03 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 22:54yes2225 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-14 23:17yes198 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 01:13yes09 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 03:39yes09 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 02:41yes023 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 02:43yes02 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 00:50yes039 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:50yes046 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 03:33yes020 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 02:58yes037 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
Conga read as Conga Composer
HubSpot read as HubSpot Commerce Hub
Unresolved, counted raw
Adobe InDesign
BasicDocs
Google Docs + Free Templates
Proposal Kit
Proposaly.ai
Proprosable
Quillbot AI
Salesforce
Salesforce-Based Proposal Tools
Standard Microsoft Word
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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