HR AI Index
September 2026 Edition · The permanent record of this edition. The unqualified address always carries the latest edition.
Index Onboarding and employee experience Employee engagement surv › Small business September 2026 Edition

Employee engagement surveys for small business buyers

Asked as “employee engagement survey platform”, and as “employee pulse survey tool”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 43 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
Contested
40% of first choices, contested.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

01The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a small B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Workleap Officevibe40%5%43endorsed leader
02FeedbackPulse33%0%30endorsed leader
0315Five12%3%31accepted challenger
04ThriveSparrow9%7%14accepted challenger
05Culture Amp2%55%20criticized challenger
Show the three products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
08SurveyMonkey0%47%15criticized challenger
07Lattice0%44%16criticized challenger
06Google Forms0%27%11criticized challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative50%
Key
01Workleap Officevibe40%
02FeedbackPulse33%
0315Five12%
04ThriveSparrow9%
05Culture Amp2%
06Google Forms0%
07Lattice0%
08SurveyMonkey0%

02What they warned about

Four of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Grok 4.1 Fast, Mistral Small, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Snapchat
100%
6 of 6 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 5 hard negative
“Platforms to Avoid for Most Small Businesses ... **Snapchat** - **Why avoid it:** No visibility into engagement” GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt
Culture Amp
55%
11 of 20 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“What to Avoid on a Tight Budget - **Culture Amp, Lattice, Qualtrics (enterprise), Workday Peakon**” DeepSeek V4 Flash, budget prompt
Outreach
100%
5 of 5 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“avoid enterprise-grade engagement platforms ... Examples in the results include **Outreach**, **SalesLoft**, and **HubSpot Sales Hub Enterprise**” Perplexity Sonar, negative prompt
SalesLoft
100%
5 of 5 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“Examples in the results include **Outreach**, **SalesLoft**, and **HubSpot Sales Hub Enterprise** for sales engagement” Perplexity Sonar, negative prompt

03What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: twelve of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

60 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 6 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 793 links across 257 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

vendor site · FeedbackPulse33 answers · 87 citations · 9 models
vendor site · ThriveSparrow28 answers · 35 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Select Software Reviews26 answers · 26 citations · 9 models
vendor site · CultureMonkey20 answers · 32 citations · 10 models
vendor site · People Managing People18 answers · 22 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Engagedly18 answers · 18 citations · 8 models
10 answers · 12 citations · 7 models
10 answers · 10 citations · 7 models
9 answers · 15 citations · 5 models
vendor site · Qualaroo9 answers · 10 citations · 6 models
vendor site · Workleap9 answers · 10 citations · 5 models
vendor site · Eletive9 answers · 9 citations · 7 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

04How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ModelDirect“What is the best employee engagement survey platform for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which employee pulse survey tool would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top engagement platforms for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best employee engagement survey platform for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating an employee engagement survey platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which engagement platforms should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5no first choiceWorkleap OfficevibeChanged
Three alternatives15Five, FeedbackPulse, ThriveSparrow
Workleap Officevibe
Two alternativesConnecteam, Enalyzer
Workleap Officevibe
Three alternativesAssembly, SurveyLegend, TINYpulse
no first choicenothing named
GPT-5.4 mini15Five, Culture Amp
Two alternativesJotform, SurveySparrow
against: ADP RUN
Workleap OfficevibeChanged
Two alternatives15Five, Lattice
against: Culture Amp
no first choiceThriveSparrow
One alternativeSurveySparrow
against: Culture Amp, Lattice
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashWorkleap Officevibe
Three alternatives15Five, Leapsome, Teamflect
against: Qualtrics EmployeeXM
Workleap OfficevibeHeld
Four alternatives15Five, FeedbackPulse, Leapsome, Polly
against: Culture Amp, Lattice
Workleap Officevibe
Five alternatives15Five, Bonusly, Connecteam, TINYpulse, Teamflect
FeedbackPulse
Four alternativesConnecteam, Google Forms + Looker Studio, Small Improvements, Teamflect
against: Workleap Officevibe
Workleap Officevibe
Three alternatives15Five, Bonusly, Teamflect
against: Perceptyx, Qualtrics EmployeeXM, Workday Peakon Employee Voice
against: Adobe Experience Cloud, Bluesky, Discord, Marketo, Mastodon, Reddit, Salesforce, Slack, Threads, TikTok, X
Perplexity SonarWorkleap Officevibe
One alternative15Five
against: SurveyMonkey
Workleap OfficevibeHeld
Three alternativesFeedbackPulse, Happily.ai, Matter
Workleap Officevibe
Five alternatives15Five, Assembly, Bonusly, Connecteam, Matter
FeedbackPulse
Two alternativesSurveyMonkey, Workleap Officevibe
no first choiceagainst: HubSpot Sales Hub, Outreach, SalesLoft, Slack, Trigify
Grok 4.1 Fast15Five
Two alternativesFeedbackPulse, Workleap Officevibe
against: Culture Amp, Lattice, ThriveSparrow
FeedbackPulseChanged
One alternative15Five
against: Culture Amp, Google Forms, Lattice, SurveyMonkey
HubSpot CRM
Four alternativesHelp Scout, Intercom, Tidio, Zendesk
Matter
One alternativeFeedbackPulse
against: 15Five, Google Forms, SurveyMonkey, Typeform, Workleap Officevibe
no first choiceagainst: LinkedIn, Outreach, Pinterest, SalesLoft, Salesforce, Snapchat, TikTok, X
Mistral SmallFeedbackPulse, Workleap Officevibe
Two alternatives15Five, Zoho Survey
FeedbackPulseChanged
Two alternativesContactMonkey, CultureMonkey
Applauz
Four alternatives15Five, Assembly, Connecteam, ThriveSparrow
against: Lattice, Vantage Circle, WorkTango
FeedbackPulse, Workleap Officevibe
Two alternativesGoogle Forms, SurveyMonkey
no first choiceagainst: Outreach, SalesLoft, Snapchat
DeepSeek V4 FlashWorkleap Officevibe
One alternative15Five
against: Culture Amp, SurveyMonkey
Workleap OfficevibeHeld
Four alternativesFeedbackPulse, Google Forms, Microsoft Forms, SurveySparrow
Workleap Officevibe
Four alternatives15Five, Bonusly, Connecteam, ThriveSparrow
against: Culture Amp, Lattice, Leapsome
ThriveSparrow, Workleap Officevibe
Two alternatives15Five, FeedbackPulse
against: Culture Amp, Lattice, Qualtrics EmployeeXM, Workday Peakon Employee Voice
FeedbackPulse
Three alternatives15Five, Small Improvements, Workleap Officevibe
against: Culture Amp, Qualtrics EmployeeXM
against: Birdeye, Discord, Mailchimp, Path Social, Plixi, Podium, ReviewTrackers, SimplyGram, Skool, Slack
Llama 4 MaverickFeedbackPulse
Three alternatives15Five, PeopleGoal, ThriveSparrow
FeedbackPulseHeldno first choiceThriveSparrow
Four alternatives15Five, Assembly, FeedbackPulse, Workleap Officevibe
no first choiceagainst: Gong, Hootsuite, Salesforce, Snapchat, Zendesk
Qwen 3.7 Flash15Five
Three alternativesLattice, Microsoft Viva Glint, TINYpulse
against: SurveyMonkey
Workleap OfficevibeChanged
Two alternativesJotform, SurveyMonkey
Culture Amp
Three alternativesDonut, Kudos, Lattice
TINYpulse
Three alternativesGoogle Forms, SurveyMonkey, Workleap Officevibe
no first choiceagainst: Microsoft Viva Glint, Qualtrics EmployeeXM, SurveyMonkey, Typeformagainst: Microsoft Viva Engage, Outreach, SalesLoft, Simpplr, Snapchat
Kimi K2Workleap Officevibe
Two alternatives15Five, FeedbackPulse
against: Culture Amp
15Five, FeedbackPulseChanged
Two alternativesJotform, Workleap Officevibe
Friday Pulse, Workleap Officevibe
Three alternativesBonusly, Lattice, Matter
FeedbackPulse
Three alternativesGoogle Forms, ThriveSparrow, Workleap Officevibe
no first choiceagainst: "Buy Follower" Services, Angi (formerly Angie's List) / HomeAdvisor, Bark.com, Fiverr, Groupon / LivingSocial, HubSpot, SMM Panels, Salesforce, Thumbtack, Yelp Advertising
GLM 4.7 FlashXno first choiceFeedbackPulseChanged
Two alternativesJotform, Workleap Officevibe
Culture Amp, Workleap Officevibe
Seven alternatives15Five, Bonusly, Connecteam, Flaree, Lattice, Matter, Nectar
FeedbackPulse
Five alternativesGoogle Forms + Looker Studio, Jotform, StaffHero, ThriveSparrow, Workleap Officevibe
no first choiceagainst: Culture Amp, Qualtrics EmployeeXM, Workday Peakon Employee Voiceagainst: Discord, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, X
MiniMax M2.515Five, ThriveSparrow
Three alternativesFeedbackPulse, Microsoft Viva Glint, Workleap Officevibe
Workleap OfficevibeChanged
Two alternativesFeedbackPulse, Matter
against: Google Forms
Assembly, Enalyzer
Three alternativesApplauz, Empuls, Pebb
FeedbackPulse, Workleap Officevibe
Three alternativesConstant Contact, Google Forms, Typeform
no first choiceagainst: SurveyMonkeyagainst: Gong, Hootsuite, Outreach, SalesLoft, Salesforce, Snapchat, Zendesk
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

05The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 17:12no04 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 17:11yes26 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 17:11yes1021 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 17:10yes207 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 17:02yes4019 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 17:08yes55 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 17:13yes2324 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 17:17yes55 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 17:03no030 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 17:21yes1524 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 16:58yes1455 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 17:05yes1020 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 17:19yes98 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 17:04no02 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 17:12yes1218 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 17:14yes205 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 17:03yes3817 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 17:00yes54 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-17 17:15yes1836 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 17:01yes53 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 17:19yes543 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 17:12yes819 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 17:10yes25220 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 17:08yes1531 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 17:13yes98 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 17:13no06 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 17:02yes624 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 17:10yes2010 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 17:03yes3314 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 17:21yes98 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 17:18yes1820 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 17:05yes53 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 17:17no030 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 17:21yes1023 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 17:13yes972 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 17:10yes722 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 17:20yes98 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 17:12yes34 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 17:05yes1830 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 17:13yes205 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 17:15yes3317 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 16:57yes54 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 17:13yes1817 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 17:12yes53 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 16:57no038 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 17:08yes819 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 17:11yes1178 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 16:58yes517 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 17:15no07 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 17:12no06 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 17:16yes825 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 17:02yes2010 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 17:08yes149 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 17:19no08 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 17:06yes1520 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 17:06yes54 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 17:03no033 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 17:22yes1428 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 17:00yes1439 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 17:00no011 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 17:01yes1810 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 17:02no03 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 17:00yes1223 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 16:57yes207 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 17:09yes3820 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 17:21yes56 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-17 17:14yes2986 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 17:07yes53 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 17:14yes529 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 17:00yes2947 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 17:16yes3440 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 17:02yes951 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

Category-scoped readings
Glint read as Microsoft Viva Glint
Glint (by LinkedIn) read as Microsoft Viva Glint
Officevibe read as Workleap Officevibe
Officevibe (Workleap) read as Workleap Officevibe
Officevibe (by Workleap) read as Workleap Officevibe
Officevibe (now Ovibe) read as Workleap Officevibe
Peakon read as Workday Peakon Employee Voice
Qualtrics read as Qualtrics EmployeeXM
Qualtrics Starter read as Qualtrics EmployeeXM
Twitter (X) read as X
Workday Peakon read as Workday Peakon Employee Voice
Workleap read as Workleap Officevibe
Workleap (Officevibe) read as Workleap Officevibe
Workleap (formerly Officevibe) read as Workleap Officevibe
Zoho read as Zoho Survey
Unresolved, counted raw
"Buy Follower" Services (Instagram, TikTok, etc.)
ActiveCampaign
Adobe Experience Cloud
Angi (formerly Angie's List) / HomeAdvisor
Bluesky
Constant Contact
Google Forms with Looker Studio
Google/YouTube
Grade.us
Groupon / LivingSocial
Keap
Less Annoying CRM
Marketo
Mastodon
Ovatio
Path Social
Plixi
Podium
Pulsewise
ReviewTrackers
SMM Panels (Social Media Marketing Panels)
SimplyGram
SurveyLegend
Tapsy
Threads
Trigify
Yelp Advertising
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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