Every category where a model named Toptal 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
Internal talent marketplace	Performance and talent management	0%	19 of 129	18%	17	accepted challenger
Contingent workforce management	Workforce planning and analytics	0%	25 of 97	0%	3	under 10 labels · led by SimpleVMS at 35%
Technical hiring assessments	Talent acquisition	0%	31 of 52	0%	2	under 10 labels · led by HackerRank at 28%
Job advertising and distribution	Talent acquisition	0%	72 of 109	0%	1	under 10 labels · led by JobTarget at 21%
Skills intelligence	Performance and talent management	0%	68 of 162	0%	1	under 10 labels · led by TalentGuard at 19%

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for Toptal 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 Toptal 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	0	0	1	0	1
GPT-5.4 mini	0	0	1	0	1
Gemini 3.5 Flash	0	1	1	0	2
Perplexity Sonar	0	0	1	1	2
Grok 4.1 Fast	1	1	0	0	2
Mistral Small	1	0	1	0	2
DeepSeek V4 Flash	0	1	2	0	3
Llama 4 Maverick	0	0	0	1	1
Qwen 3.7 Flash	0	1	2	0	3
Kimi K2	1	0	1	0	2
GLM 4.7 FlashX	1	1	0	0	2
MiniMax M2.5	0	2	0	1	3

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

Direct0 labelsNone

Paraphrase3 labelsNone

Comparative27 labels2not counted in share

Budget-constrained0 labelsNone

Scale-constrained1 labelNone

Negative35 labels11not counted in share

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative66 labels in all, every segment counted; 0 of the 13 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.

“Consider curated talent networks (e.g., Toptal, Gigster) or subscription services with vetted talent and dedicated support” Mistral Small · Internal talent marketpl · negative prompt · first choice

“Toptal = elite, senior talent, high vetting → best for high‑budget, critical roles.” GLM 4.7 FlashX · Internal talent marketpl · comparative prompt · first choice

“Toptal - Rigorous vetting but higher quality clients and better rates” Kimi K2 · Internal talent marketpl · negative prompt · first choice

“For vetted talent: Prefer Toptal (top 3%, high ratings)” Grok 4.1 Fast · Internal talent marketpl · negative 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.

“some sources specifically say to avoid premium vetted platforms like Toptal only if you do not meet their experience expectations” Perplexity Sonar · Internal talent marketpl · negative prompt · soft negative

“generally legitimate but have experienced scammers impersonating them” MiniMax M2.5 · Internal talent marketpl · negative prompt · soft negative

“Freelancer.com, Toptal” Llama 4 Maverick · Internal talent marketpl · negative prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Toptal, over the 66 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Toptal was named but was not.

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Upwork63 of 668Not in the top three

Fiverr54 of 662Not in the top three

Freelancer.com38 of 660Not in the top three

Contra19 of 660Not in the top three

PeoplePerHour16 of 660Not in the top three

Gloat15 of 6612Not in the top three

Guru13 of 660Not in the top three

Eightfold AI12 of 661Not in the top three

Fuel5012 of 661Not in the top three

Braintrust9 of 660Not 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 Toptal. 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 56 of the 66 answers that named Toptal and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

g2.com26

upwork.com20

awesomic.com19

gartner.com17

linkedin.com17

cbr.exchange16

reddit.com16

cotocus.com14

fuel50.com14

peoplemanagingpeople.com14

173 of the 173 domain citations in answers naming Toptal came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

cbr.exchange/blogs/how-to-choose-a-talent-marketplace-key-criteria-for-202616

gartner.com/reviews/market/internal-talent-marketplaces16

cotocus.com/blog/top-10-workforce-marketplace-platforms-features-pros-cons-comparison13

awesomic.com/blog/talent-marketplace-cheat-sheet-speed-cost-quality11

fuel50.com/blog/talent-marketplace-software11

scale.jobs/blog/freelance-platforms-b2b-services-comparison11

hiringmanager.net/best-talent-marketplace-platforms10

recruiterslineup.com/best-talent-marketplace-platforms-reviewed10

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Names read as Toptal

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

Toptal Talent 1Toptal's assessments 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 Toptal'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 Toptal, 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 toptal.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.