Payscale vs Pave
Two of twelve models named Payscale first on the direct prompt; zero named Pave. Payscale was named by twelve of the twelve models and Pave by eight and Payscale carries 34 labels and Pave 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 pay equity page.
By framing
PayscaleFirst choices, of twelve modelsPave
Across every category in the September 2026 Edition, Payscale and Pave were named in the same answer eighty-seven times, of the 221 answers naming Payscale and the 213 naming Pave. In those answers Pave took the first choice thirty-seven times and Payscale 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 | | | |
Payscale Pave first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, Payscale on the left and Pave on the right.The direct prompt
Payscale first, Pave not the choice
2 of 12 modelsPave was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Neither was the first choice, one was named
7 of 12 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.Neither was named
3 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
Payscale7%#4 of 8Pave7%#2 of 8What the models said about Payscale
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. One of one in this category shown.
“Repeated complaints about a clunky, outdated interface, a steep learning curve, data inaccuracy for niche roles... don't buy it purely for equity.” DeepSeek V4 Flash · negative prompt · soft negative
What the models said about Pave
No label in this category carried a quote.
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.