# Compensation benchmarking data for small business buyers: what AI models recommend, September 2026

Gane Index, September 2026 Edition. Asked as "salary benchmarking data provider" and as "compensation survey data", six framings each, to twelve models with search on, on behalf of a small B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/rewards/compensation-benchmarking-data/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This is the permanent record of the September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 and superseded since.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/rewards/compensation-benchmarking-data/smb/index.md

**Standing:** Pave leads with 32% of first choices; verdict contested. 47 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [Pave](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/pave/index.md) | 32% | 0% | 27 |
| 2 | [Salary.com CompAnalyst](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/salary-com-companalyst/index.md) | 9% | 17% | 24 |
| 3 | [Bureau of Labor Statistics](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/bureau-of-labor-statistics/index.md) | 6% | 0% | 10 |
| 4 | [Payscale](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/payscale/index.md) | 4% | 22% | 23 |
| 7 | [Ravio](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/ravio/index.md) | 2% | 0% | 25 |
| 8 | [Comprehensive.io](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/comprehensive-io/index.md) | 2% | 0% | 20 |
| 12 | [Culpepper Compensation Surveys](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/culpepper-compensation-surveys/index.md) | 2% | 20% | 10 |
| 19 | [Levels.fyi](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/levels-fyi/index.md) | 2% | 27% | 11 |
| 62 | [Glassdoor](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/glassdoor/index.md) | 0% | 40% | 10 |
| 155 | [Mercer Total Remuneration Survey](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/mercer-total-remuneration-survey/index.md) | 0% | 77% | 13 |
| 156 | [Radford](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/radford/index.md) | 0% | 83% | 12 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 156 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: Pave; alternatives BLS Occupational Employment Statistics, Compease, Salary.com CompAnalyst
- GPT-5.4 mini: Salary.com CompAnalyst; alternatives Payscale Ascent, SalaryCube
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Pave; alternatives Carta Total Compensation, Comprehensive.io, Figures, Pavilion GTM Benchmarks
- Perplexity Sonar: Pave, Ravio; alternatives BLS, Payscale, Salary.com CompAnalyst
- Grok 4.20: Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, Salary.com CompAnalyst; alternatives Comprehensive.io, Pave
- Mistral Small: Brightmine, Salary.com CompAnalyst; alternatives Bureau of Labor Statistics, Indeed
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Comprehensive.io, Pave; alternatives Bureau of Labor Statistics, Ravio
- Llama 4 Maverick: no first choice
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Levels.fyi, Pave; alternatives Compensation-IQ, Payscale, Ravio, Robert Half Salary Guide
- Kimi K2: Payscale; alternatives BLS, Glassdoor, Mercer MarketPricer, Pave
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Pave; alternatives Comprehensive.io, LaborIQ, SalaryCube
- MiniMax M2.5: Pave, Payscale; alternatives BLS Occupational Employment Statistics, Figures, Salary.com CompAnalyst

## Sources the answers cite

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

- ravio.com: 43 answers, 110 citations
- comprehensive.io: 25 answers, 38 citations
- fitsmallbusiness.com: 23 answers, 24 citations
- pin.com: 22 answers, 22 citations
- worldmetrics.org: 18 answers, 40 citations
- salary.com: 17 answers, 25 citations
- reddit.com: 14 answers, 24 citations
- g2.com: 13 answers, 21 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://ravio.com/blog/the-best-tools-for-salary-benchmarking (29 answers)
- https://comprehensive.io/content/best-compensation-benchmarking-data-sources (24 answers)
- https://fitsmallbusiness.com/salary-comparison-tools (23 answers)
- https://ravio.com/blog/compensation-benchmarking-companies (23 answers)
- https://pin.com/blog/salary-benchmarking-tools (22 answers)
- https://salary.com/blog/top-tools-for-salary-benchmarking (13 answers)
- https://compensation-iq.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-salary-benchmarking-survey-providers (11 answers)
- https://ficstar.com/best-compensation-benchmarking-data-providers-2026 (11 answers)
- https://ravio.com/blog/free-salary-data (10 answers)
- https://worldmetrics.org/service/benchmarking (10 answers)

## Warned against

- Radford: 10 of 12 labels negative. "What to avoid on a tight budget - Mercer / Radford / Willis Towers Watson" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, budget prompt)
- Mercer Total Remuneration Survey: 10 of 13 labels negative. "Avoid Enterprise Platforms: Skip heavyweights like Mercer, Willis Towers Watson, or Radford" (Qwen 3.7 Flash, budget prompt)
- Willis Towers Watson: 4 of 5 labels negative. "Skip heavyweights like Mercer, Willis Towers Watson, or Radford unless you have an HRIS integration budget of $10k+ annually" (Qwen 3.7 Flash, budget prompt)
- Payscale: 5 of 23 labels negative. "Avoid: Large annual subscriptions from providers like PayScale (~$13,888+/year median for SMBs)" (Kimi K2, paraphrase 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.