Pave vs Mercer
Two of twelve models named Pave first on the direct prompt; zero named Mercer. Pave was named by eleven of the twelve models and Mercer by ten and Pave carries 25 labels and Mercer 28, so the shares are not directly comparable.
Named in three categories this edition.
Named in four categories this edition.
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all twelve 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
PaveFirst choices, of twelve modelsMercer
Across every category in the September 2026 Edition, Pave and Mercer were named in the same answer fifty-seven times, of the 213 answers naming Pave and the 109 naming Mercer. In those answers Mercer took the first choice six times and Pave twenty-seven.
Every model, every framing
| Model | Direct | Paraphrase | Comparative | Budget-constrained | Scale-constrained | Negative |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | | |||||
| GPT-5.4 mini | | | | | ||
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | | | | | | |
| Perplexity Sonar | | | | |||
| Grok 4.1 Fast | | | | |||
| Mistral Small | | | | |||
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | | | ||||
| Llama 4 Maverick | | |||||
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | | | | | ||
| Kimi K2 | | | ||||
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | | | | |||
| MiniMax M2.5 | | | |
Pave Mercer first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, Pave on the left and Mercer on the right.The direct prompt
Pave first, Mercer an alternative
2 of 12 modelsMercer was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Neither was the first choice, one was named
5 of 12 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.Neither was named
5 of 12 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
Mercer26%#1 of 10Pave8%#4 of 10What the models said about Pave
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Two of two in this category shown.
“Use modern, integration-based salary benchmarking software that pulls live, anonymized data directly from HR and payroll systems (e.g., Pave, Ravio, or Figures)” Gemini 3.5 Flash · negative prompt · first choice
“Start with Pave's free Market Data Lite (if you're under 200 employees) — it's the most accessible, current, and comprehensive free option.” DeepSeek V4 Flash · budget prompt · first choice
What the models said about Mercer
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of eight in this category shown.
“Avoid over-investing in Mercer/WTW unless you have global complexity” Kimi K2 · paraphrase prompt · hard negative
“Avoid traditional surveys (Mercer/Radford: $10k+/year) unless scaling.” Grok 4.1 Fast · budget prompt · hard negative
“high-end, legacy enterprise surveys like Mercer, Radford (Aon), or Willis Towers Watson (WTW)—which can easily cost $20,000 to $40,000+ annually—are generally out of reach” Gemini 3.5 Flash · budget prompt · soft negative
“Buy one major survey (like Robert Half or Mercer) to ensure you are paying within the 25th–75th percentiles” Qwen 3.7 Flash · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“The strongest fit from the results is Mercer or Salary.com/Compdata for broad benchmarking” Perplexity Sonar · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“Especially strong in pay and total rewards benchmarking, plus HR strategy.” GPT-5.4 mini · comparative prompt · first choice
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.