HR AI Index
Index › Learning and development › Mentoring software › Small business › September 2026 Edition

Mentoring software for small business buyers

Asked as “mentoring program software”, and as “employee mentoring platform”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 41 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
PushFar
Contested
39% of first choices, contested.
ShowinginAll 50 categories →

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.
Small businessPushFar39%ContestedThis pageMid-marketTogether37%ContestedStanding →EnterpriseQooper29%ContestedStanding →

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
01PushFar39%0%40endorsed leader
02Mentorloop20%5%39accepted challenger
03Mentornity12%0%22accepted challenger
04Together5%37%38criticized challenger
05GrowthMentor5%40%15criticized challenger
06Qooper2%11%27accepted challenger
07Mentorgain2%0%18accepted challenger
08MentorcliQ2%75%32criticized challenger
Show the three products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
11Chronus0%91%22criticized challenger
10SCORE0%31%13criticized challenger
09MicroMentor0%0%15accepted 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.
Head to head
Together vs MentorloopTogether vs MentorgainMentorloop vs Mentorgain

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
09
10
11
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative50%
Key
01PushFar39%
02Mentorloop20%
03Mentornity12%
04Together5%
05GrowthMentor5%
06Qooper2%
07Mentorgain2%
08MentorcliQ2%
09MicroMentor0%
10SCORE0%
11Chronus0%

02What they warned about

Two of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2 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.
MentorcliQ
75%
24 of 32 labels negative · 10 of 12 models · 8 hard negative
“What to Avoid (Too Expensive for Small Budgets) ... MentorcliQ | ~$9,900/year | Enterprise pricing model” Kimi K2, budget prompt
Chronus
91%
20 of 22 labels negative · 10 of 12 models · 7 hard negative
“Why skip for now: Unless you have >100 employees and complex compliance requirements, Chronus will drain your budget and admin time.” DeepSeek V4 Flash, comparative prompt
Together
37%
14 of 38 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 5 hard negative
“enterprise giants like *Together*, *Chronus*, or *MentorcliQ*—which are excellent for thousands of employees—are generally **not a good fit**” Gemini 3.5 Flash, scale prompt
GrowthMentor
40%
6 of 15 labels negative · 6 of 12 models
“advice from multiple mentors "sounds very reasonable when you first hear it" but is actually superficial and doesn't work when implemented” Kimi K2, 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

66 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. 896 links across 108 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

qooper.io
vendor site · Qooper38 answers · 69 citations · 10 models
gartner.com
vendor site · Gartner32 answers · 32 citations · 10 models
g2.com
31 answers · 52 citations · 11 models
growthmentor.com
vendor site · GrowthMentor31 answers · 35 citations · 10 models
brancher.com.au
vendor site · Brancher31 answers · 31 citations · 9 models
guideflow.com
vendor site · Guideflow30 answers · 33 citations · 9 models
togetherplatform.com
29 answers · 37 citations · 10 models
peoplemanagingpeople.com
vendor site · People Managing People28 answers · 28 citations · 10 models
mentorgain.com
vendor site · Mentorgain23 answers · 41 citations · 9 models
chronus.com
vendor site · Chronus22 answers · 25 citations · 11 models
getapp.com
21 answers · 37 citations · 8 models
mentorcruise.com
vendor site · MentorCruise20 answers · 35 citations · 8 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.

gartner.com/reviews/market/mentoring-software
32 answers · 10 models
brancher.com.au/blog/best-mentoring-software
30 answers · 9 models
growthmentor.com/blog/online-mentoring-platforms-software
29 answers · 10 models
guideflow.com/blog/mentoring-software
29 answers · 9 models
peoplemanagingpeople.com/tools/best-mentoring-software
28 answers · 10 models
chronus.com/blog/top-mentoring-platforms
19 answers · 11 models
qooper.io/blog/top-10-online-mentoring-platforms
19 answers · 8 models
softwareadvice.com/mentoring
16 answers · 8 models
togetherplatform.com/
16 answers · 9 models
adplist.org/guides/best-mentorship-platforms
14 answers · 8 models

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 mentoring program software for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which employee mentoring platform would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top mentoring platforms for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best mentoring program software for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating a mentoring program software. What should we look at?”Negative“Which mentoring platforms should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Mentorloop
Three alternativesMentorEase, Mentorgain, Together
against: MentorcliQPushFarChanged
Three alternativesGuider, Mentorloop, Qooper
Mentorloop
Three alternativesPushFar, Qooper, Together
PushFar
Two alternativesMentorCity, MentorEase
against: Chronus, MentorcliQno first choicenothing named
GPT-5.4 miniTogether
One alternativeMentorloop
against: Chronus, MentorcliQMentorcliQChanged
One alternativeLattice
PushFar, Qooper
One alternativeMentorloop
against: ADPList, Chronus, MentorCruise, MentorcliQMentorloop
Two alternativesGrowthMentor, Together
against: MentorcliQno first choiceagainst: Chronus, GrowthMentor, MentorcliQ, Mentorloop
Gemini 3.5 FlashGrowthMentor, Mentorloop
Two alternativesMentorCruise, Qooper
against: TogetherMentorloopChanged
Three alternativesPushFar, Qooper, Together
GrowthMentor, Mentorloop
Three alternativesADPList, MentorCruise, PushFar
against: Chronus, Qooper, TogetherMentorStack
Three alternativesMentorloop, Mentornity, PushFar
against: Chronus, MentorcliQ, TogetherDonut, RandomCoffee
Four alternativesAirtable, Mentorloop, Notion, PushFar
against: Chronus, MentorcliQ, Togetheragainst: Amway, Chronus, Lurn, MentorcliQ, Ten Thousand Coffees, Together
Perplexity SonarMentorloop
Two alternativesQooper, Together
against: MentorcliQPushFarChanged
One alternativeTogether
against: Chronus, MentorcliQMentorloop, PushFar
Two alternativesQooper, Together
against: Chronus, MentorcliQPushFar
Two alternativesMentorgain, Mentornity
no first choiceagainst: ADPList, Clarity.fm, Codementor, GrowthMentor, MentorCruise
Grok 4.1 FastPushFar
Four alternativesMentorcliQ, MicroMentor, Qooper, Together
PushFarHeld
Three alternativesMentorgain, Mentorloop, Mentornity
against: Chronus, MentorcliQ, TogetherMentorloop, Mentornity, PushFar
Two alternativesMentorgain, MicroMentor
against: MentorcliQ, TogetherMentornity
Three alternativesMentorgain, Mentorloop, PushFar
against: Chronus, MentorcliQ, Togetherno first choiceagainst: GrowthMentor, Mentor.me, SCORE, Stayly Academy / Stayly / I&B Coaching / Inayah Academy
Mistral SmallGrowthMentor, Mentoring Complete
One alternativeMicroMentor
PushFarChangedagainst: MentorCloud, TogetherQooper
Three alternativesMentorloop, Mentornity, PushFar
PushFar
Two alternativesMentorgain, Mentornity
against: Mentorloopno first choiceagainst: ADPList, GrowthMentor
DeepSeek V4 FlashQooper
Two alternativesMentorCruise, Mentorloop
against: MentorcliQ, TogetherPushFarChanged
Four alternativesMentorStack, Mentorloop, Ten Thousand Coffees, Together
Mentorloop, PushFar, Together
One alternativeQooper
against: Chronus, GuiderMentornity
Three alternativesMentorgain, MicroMentor, SCORE
against: Chronus, MentorcliQ, Togetherno first choice
Four alternativesMentorCity, Mentorink, Mentorloop, Together
against: Coaching Department / Apply Knowledge, Digital Boost, GrowthMentor, MOBE, ProductMentor, SCORE, The Sales Mentor
Llama 4 Maverickno first choiceTogetherChanged
Four alternativesMentorCity, MentorcliQ, Mentornity, Qooper
PushFar
Four alternativesMentorgain, Mentorloop, Mentornity, Qooper
PushFar
Three alternativesMentorloop, Mentornity, PeopleGrove
no first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashMentorgain
Two alternativesGrowthMentor, PushFar
against: MentorcliQPushFarChanged
Two alternativesMentorgain, MicroMentor
against: Chronus, MentorcliQQooper
Three alternativesMentorloop, Mentornity, Together
Mentornity
Two alternativesMentorloop, PushFar
no first choiceagainst: SCORE, Small Business Development Centers
Kimi K2PushFar
Two alternativesMentorgain, Together
against: MentorcliQMentorloopChanged
Two alternativesPushFar, Together
against: ChronusPushFar
Two alternativesMentorgain, Qooper
against: Chronus, MentorcliQPushFar
One alternativeMicroMentor
against: Chronus, MentorcliQ, Qooper, Togetherno first choiceagainst: FBA Mentor Programs, GrowthMentor, Mentor.me, SCORE
GLM 4.7 FlashXPushFar
Three alternativesMentorloop, Qooper, Together
PushFarHeld
One alternativeQooper
Mentorloop
Two alternativesMentornity, PushFar
against: TogetherMentorEase, Mentornity
Three alternativesMentorgain, Mentorloop, PushFar
against: Chronus, MentorcliQ, Qooper, Togetherno first choicenothing named
MiniMax M2.5Mentorloop
Three alternativesPushFar, Qooper, Together
against: MentorcliQMentorloop, PushFarChanged
Two alternativesMentornity, Together
Mentorloop, Qooper
Three alternativesBetterUp, Mentornity, PushFar
against: ChronusMentornity
Two alternativesMentorink, PushFar
no first choicenothing named
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 20:32yes98 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 21:09yes48 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 22:05yes1760 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 20:33yes205 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 18:48yes4319 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 18:17yes77 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 21:11yes1918 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 20:49yes53 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 18:58yes832 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 18:23yes1324 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 19:01yes1951 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 20:48yes1733 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 20:23yes98 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 19:31no03 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 19:36yes1622 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 19:15yes206 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 18:39yes3720 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 20:56yes53 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 20:00yes713 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 21:44yes53 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 21:33yes1442 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 20:45yes2529 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 18:16yes1848 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 18:26yes1023 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 18:24yes910 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 19:10yes48 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 18:23yes2228 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 20:37yes209 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 18:02yes3919 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 18:43yes56 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 20:19yes2639 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 21:25yes53 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 21:08yes527 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 17:54yes1037 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 19:51yes2384 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 18:51yes820 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 18:26yes97 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 20:33yes25 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 19:08yes1923 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 19:19yes205 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 19:13yes4322 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 18:01yes55 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 17:58yes2016 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 18:40yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 19:59yes2367 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 19:35yes2024 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 21:45yes1249 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 20:54yes1527 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 21:20no05 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 19:46no08 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 22:06yes2051 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 21:19yes2012 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 19:05yes1112 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 20:24no05 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 20:10yes1721 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 21:45yes54 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 21:34no026 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 19:54yes919 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 19:35yes1345 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 20:02no08 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 19:06yes188 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 21:06yes45 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 21:53yes2755 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 21:30yes196 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 20:45yes3719 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 21:42yes56 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 18:56yes2744 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 20:50yes54 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 21:04yes1042 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 18:15yes2754 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 19:17yes15117 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 19:28yes1235 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
None. Every name in this category resolved on its own.
Unresolved, counted raw
Alfy (by BuddiesHR)
CleverMemo
Codementor
Digital Boost
FBA Mentor Programs (e.g., fbamentor.co.uk)
Innovative Mentoring
LinkedIn/Reddit communities
Medoo
MicroMentor / ADPList-style free platforms
Microsoft Teams / Slack + Excel/Google Sheets
PeopleGrove
ProductMentor
RandomCoffee
SBA
Stayly Academy / Stayly / I&B Coaching / Inayah Academy
The Sales Mentor
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.

Also in learning and development

The other categories of this function, with the leader in each.
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