# Employee engagement surveys for small business buyers: what AI models recommend, September 2026

Gane Index, September 2026 Edition. Asked as "employee engagement survey platform" and as "employee pulse survey tool", six framings each, to twelve models with search on, on behalf of a small B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/experience/employee-engagement-surveys/2026-09/smb

This is the permanent record of the September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 and superseded since. The current standing: https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/experience/employee-engagement-surveys/smb/index.md

**Standing:** Workleap Officevibe leads with 40% of first choices; verdict contested. 43 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [Workleap Officevibe](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/workleap-officevibe/index.md) | 40% | 5% | 43 |
| 2 | [FeedbackPulse](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/feedbackpulse/index.md) | 33% | 0% | 30 |
| 3 | [15Five Engage](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/15five-engage/index.md) | 12% | 3% | 33 |
| 4 | [ThriveSparrow Engage](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/thrivesparrow-engage/index.md) | 9% | 7% | 14 |
| 7 | [Culture Amp](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/culture-amp/index.md) | 2% | 55% | 20 |
| 12 | [Google Forms](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/google-forms/index.md) | 0% | 21% | 14 |
| 104 | [Lattice Engagement](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/lattice-engagement/index.md) | 0% | 44% | 16 |
| 110 | [SurveyMonkey](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/surveymonkey/index.md) | 0% | 47% | 15 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 122 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: 15Five Engage, Culture Amp; alternatives Jotform, SurveySparrow
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Workleap Officevibe; alternatives 15Five Engage, Leapsome, Teamflect
- Perplexity Sonar: Workleap Officevibe; alternatives 15Five Engage
- Grok 4.20: 15Five Engage; alternatives FeedbackPulse, Workleap Officevibe
- Mistral Small: FeedbackPulse, Workleap Officevibe; alternatives 15Five Engage, Zoho Survey
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Workleap Officevibe; alternatives 15Five Engage
- Llama 4 Maverick: FeedbackPulse; alternatives 15Five Engage, PeopleGoal, ThriveSparrow Engage
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: 15Five Engage; alternatives Lattice Engagement, Microsoft Viva Glint, TINYpulse
- Kimi K2: Workleap Officevibe; alternatives 15Five Engage, FeedbackPulse
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: no first choice
- MiniMax M2.5: 15Five Engage, ThriveSparrow Engage; alternatives FeedbackPulse, Microsoft Viva Glint, Workleap Officevibe

## Sources the answers cite

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

- feedbackpulse.com: 35 answers, 92 citations
- thrivesparrow.com: 29 answers, 36 citations
- selectsoftwarereviews.com: 27 answers, 27 citations
- culturemonkey.io: 20 answers, 32 citations
- peoplemanagingpeople.com: 19 answers, 23 citations
- engagedly.com: 19 answers, 19 citations
- learn.g2.com: 14 answers, 16 citations
- g2.com: 10 answers, 16 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://feedbackpulse.com/resources/affordable-employee-surveys-tools (25 answers)
- https://selectsoftwarereviews.com/buyer-guide/best-employee-engagement-software (24 answers)
- https://feedbackpulse.com/resources/best-employee-survey-software (23 answers)
- https://thrivesparrow.com/blog/best-employee-engagement-software (20 answers)
- https://engagedly.com/blog/best-employee-engagement-survey-softwares (15 answers)
- https://thrivesparrow.com/blog/employee-engagement-survey-vendors (14 answers)
- https://learn.g2.com/free-employee-engagement-software (13 answers)
- https://culturemonkey.io/employee-engagement/pulse-survey-tools (12 answers)
- https://peoplemanagingpeople.com/tools/best-employee-pulse-survey-tools (11 answers)
- https://arenevo.com/en/blog/best-employee-engagement-survey-software-small-business (10 answers)

## Warned against

- Snapchat: 6 of 6 labels negative. "Platforms to Avoid for Most Small Businesses ... Snapchat - Why avoid it: No visibility into engagement" (GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt)
- Culture Amp: 11 of 20 labels negative. "What to Avoid on a Tight Budget - Culture Amp, Lattice, Qualtrics (enterprise), Workday Peakon" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, budget prompt)
- Outreach: 5 of 5 labels negative. "avoid enterprise-grade engagement platforms ... Examples in the results include Outreach, SalesLoft, and HubSpot Sales Hub Enterprise" (Perplexity Sonar, negative prompt)
- SalesLoft: 5 of 5 labels negative. "Examples in the results include Outreach, SalesLoft, and HubSpot Sales Hub Enterprise for sales engagement" (Perplexity Sonar, negative prompt)

## Record

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