Salary.com CompAnalyst vs Radford
One of fourteen models named Salary.com CompAnalyst first on the direct prompt; zero named Radford. Salary.com CompAnalyst was named by twelve of the fourteen models and Radford by twelve and Salary.com CompAnalyst carries 22 labels and Radford 21, so the shares are not directly comparable.
Named in three categories this edition.
Radford
criticized challengerNamed in three categories this edition.
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the compensation benchmarking data page.
By framing
Salary.com CompAnalystFirst choices, of fourteen modelsRadfordAcross every category in the November 2026 Edition, Salary.com CompAnalyst and Radford were named in the same answer thirty-five times, of the 164 answers naming Salary.com CompAnalyst and the 73 naming Radford. In those answers Radford took the first choice three times and Salary.com CompAnalyst two.
Every model, every framing
| Model | DirectRA | ParaphraseRA | ComparativeRA | Budget-constrainedRA | Scale-constrainedRA | NegativeRA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | ||||||
| GPT-5.4 mini | | RA | | |||
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | RA | RA | RA | | ||
| Perplexity Sonar | | RA | ||||
| Grok 4.20 | RA | RA | RA | | ||
| Mistral Small | ||||||
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | RA | | RA | RA | ||
| Llama 4 Maverick | ||||||
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | | RA | ||||
| Kimi K2 | RA | RA | ||||
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | | RA | ||||
| MiniMax M2.5 | | |||||
| GPT-6 Luna | | |||||
| Muse Glimmer 30B | | RA |
Salary.com CompAnalystRA Radford first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, Salary.com CompAnalyst on the left and Radford on the right.The direct prompt
Salary.com CompAnalyst first, Radford not the choice
1 of 14 modelsRadford was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Neither was the first choice, one was named
6 of 14 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.Neither was named
7 of 14 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.
By buyer segment
Salary.com CompAnalyst10%#3 of 10Salary.com CompAnalyst4%#4 of 9Salary.com CompAnalyst9%#2 of 9What the models said about Salary.com CompAnalyst
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Four of four in this category shown.
“Free tools (e.g., basic Salary.com or Levels.fyi) can be a starting point but often lack depth.” Grok 4.20 · scale prompt · soft negative
“full benchmarking requires subscriptions (avoid if budget is tight)” Grok 4.20 · budget prompt · soft negative
“Primary source: Payscale or Salary.com CompAnalyst — for general job pricing across all functions” DeepSeek V4 Flash · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“the best default choice is usually Salary.com” GPT-5.4 mini · direct prompt · first choice
What the models said about Radford
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of seven in this category shown.
“Providers to avoid or use carefully include: - Mercer, Willis Towers Watson (WTW), and Radford when the budget is tight” Muse Glimmer 30B · negative prompt · hard negative
“Avoid for Mid-Market: Radford (Aon), Mercer, or Willis Towers Watson” Grok 4.20 · direct prompt · hard negative
“Large vendors (like Radford) rely on hundreds of massive companies to build benchmarks... avoid the heavy enterprise platforms unless you have a dedicated Compensation Manager” Qwen 3.7 Flash · scale prompt · soft negative
“Radford provides deep traditional global enterprise data; Pave offers real-time API integrations” Gemini 3.5 Flash · comparative prompt · first choice
“It is widely considered the gold standard for tech and SaaS.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“Radford excels in private company data (including VC/PE-backed firms) and has massive participation” Grok 4.20 · paraphrase prompt · alternative
Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category, each against each. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.