# Compensation benchmarking data for enterprise 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 an enterprise B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/rewards/compensation-benchmarking-data/enterprise

**Standing:** Mercer Total Remuneration Survey leads with 33% 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 | [Mercer Total Remuneration Survey](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/mercer-total-remuneration-survey/index.md) | 33% | 11% | 37 |
| 2 | [Salary.com CompAnalyst](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/salary-com-companalyst/index.md) | 9% | 10% | 29 |
| 3 | [WTW](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/wtw/index.md) | 9% | 15% | 20 |
| 4 | [Radford](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/radford/index.md) | 5% | 16% | 19 |
| 5 | [Payscale](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/payscale/index.md) | 5% | 17% | 23 |
| 6 | [Willis Towers Watson](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/willis-towers-watson/index.md) | 5% | 14% | 14 |
| 7 | [Pave](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/pave/index.md) | 3% | 20% | 15 |
| 11 | [Korn Ferry Pay](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/korn-ferry-pay/index.md) | 2% | 15% | 13 |
| 23 | [Ravio](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/ravio/index.md) | 0% | 15% | 13 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 154 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: Aon Radford McLagan, Mercer Total Remuneration Survey; alternatives CompAnalyst, Pave, Ravio, Salary.com CompAnalyst
- GPT-5.4 mini: Aon's Radford McLagan Compensation Database; alternatives Mercer Total Remuneration Survey, WTW
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Aon Radford; alternatives Mercer Total Remuneration Survey, Pave, Payscale, WTW
- Perplexity Sonar: Mercer Total Remuneration Survey; alternatives Pave, Payscale, Radford/Aon, Ravio
- Grok 4.20: Mercer Total Remuneration Survey; alternatives Radford, Salary.com CompAnalyst, WTW
- Mistral Small: Payscale, Salary.com CompAnalyst; alternatives Mercer, Radford, SalaryCube, Willis Towers Watson
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Radford; alternatives Mercer Total Remuneration Survey, Payscale, Salary.com CompAnalyst, WTW
- Llama 4 Maverick: no first choice
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Mercer Total Remuneration Survey, Willis Towers Watson; alternatives Comprehensive.io, Korn Ferry Pay, Lightcast, Payscale
- Kimi K2: Radford; alternatives Mercer Total Remuneration Survey, WTW
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Korn Ferry Pay; alternatives ERI Salary Assessor, Payscale Ascent, Radford, Salary.com CompAnalyst
- MiniMax M2.5: Salary.com CompAnalyst, WTW; alternatives Payscale
- GPT-6 Luna: Aon's Radford data; alternatives Mercer TRS, WTW
- Muse Glimmer 30B: Mercer Total Remuneration Survey; alternatives Pave, Radford, Ravio, Salary.com CompAnalyst

## Sources the answers cite

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

- ravio.com: 40 answers, 90 citations
- salary.com: 24 answers, 44 citations
- comprehensive.io: 21 answers, 22 citations
- salarycube.com: 18 answers, 24 citations
- wtwco.com: 17 answers, 20 citations
- mercer.com: 13 answers, 18 citations
- payscale.com: 12 answers, 23 citations
- imercer.com: 12 answers, 15 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://ravio.com/blog/compensation-benchmarking-companies (24 answers)
- https://ravio.com/blog/the-best-tools-for-salary-benchmarking (19 answers)
- https://comprehensive.io/content/best-compensation-benchmarking-data-sources (16 answers)
- https://salary.com/ (13 answers)
- https://salary.com/data (13 answers)
- https://peoplemanagingpeople.com/services/best-compensation-benchmarking-companies (11 answers)
- https://wtwco.com/en-us/solutions/products/salary-surveys (11 answers)
- https://marketintelligencetools.com/rankings/compensation-benchmarking-tools (10 answers)
- https://mercer.com/en-us/solutions/talent-and-rewards/rewards-strategy/global-compensation-and-benefits-data (10 answers)
- https://salarycube.com/compensation/best-compensation-benchmarking-companies-for-2026-complete-guide (10 answers)

## Warned against

- Forrester: 4 of 7 labels negative. "Forrester (Wave reports): Similar incentive structures to Gartner, with vendor participation in evaluations and potential for bias toward paying clients." (Grok 4.20, negative prompt)
- Gartner: 4 of 9 labels negative. "Providers to Be Cautious About or Avoid Relying on Exclusively - Gartner (especially Magic Quadrant reports): Often criticized as operating on a "pay-to-play" model" (Grok 4.20, negative prompt)
- IDC: 4 of 8 labels negative. "IDC (MarketScape reports): Frequently grouped with Gartner and Forrester in discussions of analyst biases." (Grok 4.20, negative prompt)
- Mercer Total Remuneration Survey: 4 of 37 labels negative. "Avoid Mercer and Radford for this use case" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, budget prompt)

## Movement since October 2026

Floor: 13 points of share, measured on the calibration repeat.
Same leader: Mercer Total Remuneration Survey at 33%.

- Mercer Total Remuneration Survey: 44% to 33%, −11. Inside the floor by 2 points · rank 1 of 154, unchanged.
- Radford: 16% to 5%, −11. Inside the floor by 2 points · rank 2 → 4 of 154.
- Salary.com CompAnalyst: 0% to 9%, +9. Inside the floor by 4 points · rank 19 → 2 of 154.
- WTW: 2% to 9%, +7. Inside the floor by 6 points · rank 9 → 3 of 154.
- Pave: 5% to 3%, −2. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 3 → 7 of 154.
- SalaryCube: 5% to 3%, −2. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 4 → 8 of 154.
- Korn Ferry Pay: 0% to 2%, +2. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 16 → 11 of 154.
- Payscale: 4% to 5%, +1. Inside the floor by 12 points · rank 6 → 5 of 154.
- Willis Towers Watson: 5% to 5%, ±0. Inside the floor by 13 points · rank 5 → 6 of 154.
- Ravio: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 13 points · rank 17 → 23 of 154.
- Deloitte: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 13 points · rank 20 → 29 of 154.
- Gartner: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 13 points · rank 21 → 145 of 154.

## 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.