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

Gane Index, November 2026 Edition. Asked as "salary benchmarking data provider" and as "compensation survey data", six framings each, to fourteen models with search on, on behalf of a small B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/rewards/compensation-benchmarking-data/2026-11/smb

**Standing:** Pave leads with 19% of first choices; verdict contested. 58 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) | 19% | 3% | 30 |
| 2 | [Payscale](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/payscale/index.md) | 12% | 21% | 42 |
| 3 | [Salary.com CompAnalyst](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/salary-com-companalyst/index.md) | 10% | 6% | 32 |
| 4 | [Comprehensive.io](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/comprehensive-io/index.md) | 7% | 0% | 18 |
| 6 | [Glassdoor](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/glassdoor/index.md) | 3% | 17% | 23 |
| 12 | [Ravio](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/ravio/index.md) | 2% | 6% | 18 |
| 13 | [Mercer MarketPricer](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/mercer-marketpricer/index.md) | 2% | 0% | 10 |
| 28 | [Levels.fyi](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/levels-fyi/index.md) | 0% | 9% | 11 |
| 161 | [Mercer Total Remuneration Survey](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/mercer-total-remuneration-survey/index.md) | 0% | 67% | 21 |
| 162 | [Radford](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/radford/index.md) | 0% | 70% | 23 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 162 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 Comprehensive.io, Payscale, Ravio, Salary.com CompAnalyst
- GPT-5.4 mini: Payscale; alternatives Option Impact, Radford
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Pave; alternatives Carta Total Compensation, Payscale, Salary.com CompAnalyst
- Perplexity Sonar: Payscale; alternatives Comprehensive.io, Pave
- Grok 4.20: Payscale; alternatives Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) OEWS, Glassdoor, Indeed, Salary.com CompAnalyst
- Mistral Small: Salary.com CompAnalyst; alternatives Mercer MarketPricer
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: SalaryCube; alternatives BLS, Glassdoor, Mercer MarketPricer, Pave
- Llama 4 Maverick: no first choice
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Salary.com CompAnalyst; alternatives BLS OEWS, Comprehensive.io, Founderpath, Mercer Total Remuneration Survey
- Kimi K2: Pave; alternatives OpenComp, Payscale, Salary.com CompAnalyst
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Salary.com CompAnalyst; alternatives Bureau of Labor Statistics, Pave, Payscale
- MiniMax M2.5: Salary.com CompAnalyst; alternatives Comparably, Payscale
- GPT-6 Luna: Pave; alternatives Carta Total Compensation, Salary.com CompAnalyst
- Muse Glimmer 30B: Pave; alternatives Comprehensive.io, Payscale, Salary.com CompAnalyst

## Sources the answers cite

69 of 84 answers came back with a source list, from 14 of 14 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- ravio.com: 38 answers, 80 citations
- g2.com: 29 answers, 37 citations
- salary.com: 26 answers, 44 citations
- comprehensive.io: 18 answers, 22 citations
- hrpaypick.com: 16 answers, 16 citations
- fitsmallbusiness.com: 14 answers, 14 citations
- salarycube.com: 13 answers, 17 citations
- payscale.com: 12 answers, 23 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://ravio.com/blog/the-best-tools-for-salary-benchmarking (20 answers)
- https://comprehensive.io/content/best-compensation-benchmarking-data-sources (18 answers)
- https://g2.com/categories/salary-benchmarking/small-business (18 answers)
- https://ravio.com/blog/compensation-benchmarking-companies (18 answers)
- https://hrpaypick.com/salary-benchmarking-small-business (16 answers)
- https://fitsmallbusiness.com/salary-comparison-tools (14 answers)
- https://salary.com/solutions/company-size/small-business (14 answers)
- https://ravio.com/blog/free-salary-data (13 answers)
- https://salary.com/ (11 answers)
- https://salary.com/data (9 answers)

## Warned against

- Radford: 16 of 23 labels negative. "prioritizing free/low-cost options over premium enterprise tools like Mercer, Radford, or Willis Towers Watson" (Grok 4.20, budget prompt)
- Payscale: 9 of 42 labels negative. "requires expensive annual subscriptions (often $5,000–$10,000+) which are inefficient for a small team" (Qwen 3.7 Flash, budget prompt)
- Mercer Total Remuneration Survey: 14 of 21 labels negative. "The benchmarking providers that a small business should be cautious about or avoid are Mercer, Willis Towers Watson (WTW), and Radford" (Llama 4 Maverick, negative prompt)
- Culpepper Compensation Surveys: 5 of 7 labels negative. "Most enterprise compensation software (like Culpepper or PayScale) requires expensive annual subscriptions (often $5,000–$10,000+) which are inefficient for a small team" (Qwen 3.7 Flash, budget prompt)

## Movement since October 2026

Floor: 13 points of share, measured on the calibration repeat.
Same leader: Pave at 19%.

- Pave: 30% to 19%, −11. Inside the floor by 2 points · rank 1 of 162, unchanged.
- Salary.com CompAnalyst: 7% to 10%, +3. Inside the floor by 10 points · rank 4 → 3 of 162.
- Glassdoor: 0% to 3%, +3. Inside the floor by 10 points · rank 145 → 6 of 162.
- Mercer MarketPricer: 0% to 2%, +2. New · not ranked in October 2026 · rank 13 of 162.
- Mercer Total Remuneration Survey: 2% to 0%, −2. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 26 → 161 of 162.
- Comprehensive.io: 8% to 7%, −1. Inside the floor by 12 points · rank 3 → 4 of 162.
- Payscale: 12% to 12%, ±0. Inside the floor by 13 points · rank 2 of 162, unchanged.
- Ravio: 2% to 2%, ±0. Inside the floor by 13 points · rank 8 → 12 of 162.
- Levels.fyi: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 13 points · rank 30 → 28 of 162.
- Willis Towers Watson: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 13 points · rank 153 → 160 of 162.
- Radford: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 13 points · rank 154 → 162 of 162.

## Record

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