Wave vs Xero
Zero of fourteen models named Wave first on the direct prompt; one named Xero. Wave was named by twelve of the fourteen models and Xero by fourteen and Wave carries 13 labels and Xero 37, so the shares are not directly comparable.
Named in seventeen categories this edition.
Named in twenty-one categories this edition.
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen 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 AI accounting assistants page.
By framing
WaveFirst choices, of fourteen modelsXero
Across every category in the October 2026 Edition, Wave and Xero were named in the same answer 213 times, of the 349 answers naming Wave and the 795 naming Xero. In those answers Xero took the first choice forty-three times and Wave fifty-six.
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 | | | | |||
| GPT-6 Luna | | | ||||
| Muse Glimmer 30B | |
Wave Xero first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, Wave on the left and Xero on the right.The direct prompt
Xero first, Wave not the choice
1 of 14 modelsWave was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Neither was the first choice, one was named
2 of 14 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.Neither was named
11 of 14 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
Wave9%#5 of 17Xero4%#7 of 17What the models said about Wave
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. One of one in this category shown.
“Wave stands out as the best free AI bookkeeping tool, especially for freelancers or solo operators with simple finances.” Mistral Small · budget prompt · first choice
What the models said about Xero
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. One of one in this category shown.
“Xero is ideal for accountants and bookkeepers... best for cloud bookkeeping with strong bank feeds and unlimited users” Claude Haiku 4.5 · 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.