Nine of twelve models named Payscale first on the direct prompt; zero named Comprehensive.io. Payscale was named by twelve of the twelve models and Comprehensive.io by eleven and Payscale carries 28 labels and Comprehensive.io 12, so the shares are not directly comparable.
Named in three categories this edition.
Named in three 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.
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.
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Four of four in this category shown.
“Avoid crowdsourced data (like Glassdoor or basic Payscale) as your primary source; it is often outdated or contains inflated self-reported figures.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · scale prompt · soft negative
“I'd suggest starting with Payscale or CompAnalyst as they offer the best balance of cost, data quality, and relevance to B2B roles” MiniMax M2.5 · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“OR Payscale (if you are traditional B2B/professional services) to establish your baseline corporate job architecture and salary bands” Gemini 3.5 Flash · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“I'd suggest starting with Payscale/CompAnalyst as it's specifically mentioned as ideal for broad US mid-market companies” MiniMax M2.5 · direct prompt · first choice
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Three of four in this category shown.
“three free salary benchmarking tools cover most needs at zero cost: Pave (tech roles, under 200 employees), Comprehensive.io (US tech daily data), and BLS OEWS” Claude Haiku 4.5 · budget prompt · first choice
“Free daily-refreshed tech salary data from 6,000+ U.S. companies (no participation needed) ... Great for startups/lean teams.” Grok 4.1 Fast · budget prompt · first choice
“Pave and Comprehensive.io are currently leading the market for affordable or free options” Qwen 3.7 Flash · budget prompt · first choice
Comparisons are drawn for the top three products in each category. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.