Every category where a model named Payscale for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant
Compensation benchmarking data	Compensation and total rewards	24%	1 of 144	21%	28	accepted challenger
Pay equity	Compensation and total rewards	14%	2 of 60	3%	34	accepted challenger
Compensation management	Compensation and total rewards	0%	35 of 189	19%	32	accepted challenger

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for Payscale yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated Payscale across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Twelve models, six prompts per category.

Model	First choice	Alternative	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	2	3	3	1	9
GPT-5.4 mini	3	4	0	0	7
Gemini 3.5 Flash	1	3	1	4	9
Perplexity Sonar	2	2	1	0	5
Grok 4.1 Fast	3	6	2	3	14
Mistral Small	0	2	1	1	4
DeepSeek V4 Flash	2	4	5	2	13
Llama 4 Maverick	1	1	3	0	5
Qwen 3.7 Flash	1	3	2	0	6
Kimi K2	1	6	1	1	9
GLM 4.7 FlashX	1	4	0	1	6
MiniMax M2.5	2	4	1	0	7

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct56 labels17

Paraphrase37 labels7

Comparative55 labels4not counted in share

Budget-constrained37 labels3

Scale-constrained29 labels2

Negative21 labels1not counted in share

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative235 labels in all, every segment counted; 29 of the 34 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“Payscale offers one of the broadest data sets in the market ... with tools like Payfactors and MarketPay supporting structure design, job pricing, and enterprise-grade compensation planning” Claude Haiku 4.5 · Compensation management · comparative prompt · first choice

“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 · Compensation benchmarkin · 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 · Compensation benchmarkin · 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 · Compensation benchmarkin · direct prompt · first choice

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

“Avoid Payscale and Salary.com if you need modern UX and self-service” DeepSeek V4 Flash · Compensation management · negative prompt · hard negative

“Clunky UI and rigid workflows... Locked multi-year contracts” Kimi K2 · Compensation management · negative prompt · hard negative

“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 · Compensation benchmarkin · scale prompt · soft negative

“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 · Pay equity · negative prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Payscale, over the 221 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Payscale was named but was not.

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Pave87 of 22137Compare →

Salary.com85 of 2213Not in the top three

beqom67 of 22120Not in the top three

Syndio65 of 22128Compare →

Ravio63 of 2217Not in the top three

Mercer62 of 2218Not in the top three

Radford50 of 2217Not in the top three

Trusaic PayParity42 of 2217Not in the top three

PayAnalytics39 of 2217Compare →

Aeqium32 of 2214Not in the top three

A head-to-head page exists where both products are in a category's top three. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Payscale. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, four of the twelve in this edition, so these counts come from 191 of the 221 answers that named Payscale and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

gartner.com101

peoplemanagingpeople.com82

ravio.com81

comprehensive.io77

g2.com76

worldmetrics.org71

guideflow.com70

payscale.comYour site48

salarycube.com47

captivateiq.com40

645 of the 693 domain citations in answers naming Payscale came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

gartner.com/reviews/market/pay-equity-software59

peoplemanagingpeople.com/tools/best-pay-equity-software52

comprehensive.io/content/best-compensation-management-software48

gartner.com/reviews/market/compensation-management-software47

guideflow.com/blog/pay-equity-software39

ravio.com/blog/the-best-tools-for-salary-benchmarking39

ravio.com/blog/compensation-benchmarking-companies37

learn.g2.com/best-compensation-management-software35

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Names read as Payscale

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Payscale; a claim can dispute any of them.

PayScale 5Payscale Ascent 3Payscale (MarketPay) 2Payscale Pay Equity 2Glassdoor/Payscale (Free Basic) 1PayScale (Ascent) 1PayScale Ascent 1PayScale’s Pay Analytics 1Payscale (Ascent/MarketPay) 1Payscale (CompAnalyst) 1Payscale (Insight Lab) 1Payscale (especially Payscale Ascent) 1Payscale (including Payfactors) 1Payscale (including Payfactors/Ascent) 1Payscale (with CompAnalyst) 1Payscale (with Payfactors) 1Payscale Ascent (formerly Payfactors) 1

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when Payscale's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as Payscale, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

It does not get any change to labels, shares or verdicts, any preview, or any say over which quotes appear. A verification link goes to your work email; an address at payscale.com is approved on the spot, any other address is reviewed by hand.

Your name and company appear on the claimed page, or the company alone if you ask below. A title and a LinkedIn address appear there too if you give them, and are left off if you do not. Your email address is never published.