AI Indexes
Finance AI Index
September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › Planning and analysis › September 2026 Edition

Financial modeling and scenario planning

Asked as “financial modeling software”, and as “scenario planning tool for finance”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 66 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
14%
Contested · Cube 12%
14Microsoft Excel12Cube12Vena62others

14% of first choices, contested.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

The standing

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. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Microsoft Excel14%24%17accepted challenger
02Cube12%0%32accepted challenger
03Vena12%5%21accepted challenger
04Datarails11%0%20accepted challenger
05Google Sheets Lab in the set9%15%13accepted challenger
06Drivetrain6%0%11accepted challenger
07Prophix6%10%10accepted challenger
08Workday Adaptive Planning6%35%17criticized challenger
09Planful3%11%19accepted challenger
10Abacum3%7%15accepted challenger
11Jirav2%0%10accepted challenger
12Pigment2%8%12accepted challenger
Show the two products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
14Anaplan0%75%24criticized challenger
13Mosaic0%17%12accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.

Google Sheets is made by Google, whose model Gemini 3.5 Flash is in the set. On the four share prompts that model made it the first choice zero times of 4; the other eleven models four times of 44. Lab treatment is defined on the method page; the row is marked, not excluded.

All twenty-one head-to-head pages: the top seven products, each against each

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative30%
Key
01Microsoft Excel14%
02Cube12%
03Vena12%
04Datarails11%
05Google Sheets9%
06Drivetrain6%
07Prophix6%
08Workday Adaptive Planning6%
09Planful3%
10Abacum3%
11Jirav2%
12Pigment2%
13Mosaic0%
14Anaplan0%

What they warned about

One of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. 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, Kimi K2, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Anaplan
75%
18 of 24 labels negative · 10 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Avoid for Mid-Market: Anaplan's licensing and implementation costs are significant” Claude Haiku 4.5, paraphrase prompt
Workday Adaptive Planning
35%
6 of 17 labels negative · 5 of 12 models
“cannot afford enterprise FP&A software (like Workday Adaptive Planning or Anaplan, which cost tens of thousands of dollars annually)” Gemini 3.5 Flash, budget prompt
Microsoft Excel
24%
4 of 17 labels negative · 3 of 12 models
“**Overly complex Excel hacks**: Circular references, OFFSET/INDIRECT functions, or hard-coded constants breed errors and slow performance.” Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt
Mosaic
17%
2 of 12 labels negative · 2 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Avoid discontinued tools:** Causal, Pry, and Mosaic have been acquired and shut down” Kimi K2, budget prompt

What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: fourteen of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

71 of 84 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 14 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 947 links across 329 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

vendor site · Drivetrain38 answers · 59 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Abacum29 answers · 34 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Datarails24 answers · 26 citations · 12 models
vendor site · G221 answers · 24 citations · 10 models
20 answers · 20 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Guideflow19 answers · 22 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Cubesoftware17 answers · 20 citations · 11 models
14 answers · 16 citations · 7 models
vendor site · Hebbia14 answers · 14 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Worldmetrics12 answers · 22 citations · 7 models
12 answers · 13 citations · 8 models
vendor site · Centage11 answers · 15 citations · 8 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

Search against answers

Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best financial modeling software”, “financial modeling software”, “modeling tools”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Company and productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
Microsoft Excel microsoft.com14%137135,0004,387145,358,109$12,455103
Cube cubesoftware.com12%34990,500152,613168,764134
Vena venasolutions.com12%34412,1003,92862,294$13,79258
Datarails datarails.com11%3036,60013418,964$16,697107
Google Sheets google.com9%1003,350,00053,7301,800,358,416$465,9445
Drivetrain drivetrain.ai6%10318,1002,8188,983$13416
Prophix prophix.com6%2371,6004114,138$1091034
Workday workday.com
Workday Adaptive Planning 6%
6%4071,220,00023,8482,213,450 company80
Planful planful.com3%3413,600685,72658,997$137120
Abacum abacum.ai3%731,3001879,014$26162

Google's top ten for the three searches hold 21 sites; 5 of them are among the sites the models cited here (abacum.ai, cubesoftware.com, drivetrain.ai, fathomhq.com, hebbia.com). The first result for “best financial modeling software” is intl.finebi.com.

How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ShowHide
ModelDirect“What is the best financial modeling software for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which scenario planning tool for finance would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top modeling tools and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best financial modeling software for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating a financial modeling software. What should we look at?”Negative“Which modeling tools should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Datarails
Four alternativesCube, Drivetrain, Planful, Prophix One
CubeChanged
Three alternativesLimelight, Mosaic, Pigment
against: Anaplan
ER/Studio
Three alternativesErwin Data Modeler, MySQL Workbench, pgModeler
Fathom, LivePlan
Three alternativesCompass AI, Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel
no first choicenothing named
GPT-5.4 miniDatarails, Planful
Two alternativesAnaplan, Vena
VenaChanged
One alternativeWorkday Adaptive Planning
against: Anaplan
no first choiceMicrosoft Excel
Three alternativesCube, Google Sheets, LibreOffice Calc
against: Abacum, Mosaic, Planful, Vena
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashAleph, Cube
Four alternativesAbacum, Bob Finance, Pigment, Vena
DrivetrainChanged
Four alternativesAbacum, Cube, Pigment, Vena
against: Anaplan, Workday Adaptive Planning
Cube, Microsoft Excel
Two alternativesJirav, Mosaic
against: Anaplan
LivePlan
Four alternativesBudgeto, Excel or Google Sheets, Float, Parallel
against: Anaplan, Workday Adaptive Planning
Cube, Vena
Four alternativesAbacum, Mosaic, Planful, Workday Adaptive Planning
against: Django ORM, FreeCAD, Google Sheets, Hibernate, Microsoft Excel, Prisma, SketchUp
Perplexity SonarDatarails, Limelight
Two alternativesAbacum, Workday Adaptive Planning
Cube, ProphixChanged
One alternativeAnaplan
no first choiceMicrosoft Excel
Six alternativesCube, Datarails, Finmark, Google Sheets, Jirav, LiveFlow
no first choicenothing named
Grok 4.1 FastCube, Datarails, Drivetrain, Jirav
One alternativeAbacum
ProphixChanged
Two alternativesCube, Vena
against: Planful, Workday Adaptive Planning
no first choiceGoogle Sheets, Microsoft Excel
Five alternativesCausal, Cube, Fathom, Finmark, LivePlan
no first choice
Five alternativesCube, Datarails, Jirav, Pigment, Prophix
against: Anaplan, Microsoft Excel, Oracle Fusion Cloud EPM
against: Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, dbt
Mistral SmallAbacum
Two alternativesCube, Datarails
Cube, VenaChanged
Two alternativesDrivetrain, Planful
no first choiceGoogle Sheets, Microsoft Excel
Two alternativesBILL, Jirav
no first choiceagainst: Oracle Hyperionnothing named
DeepSeek V4 FlashCube
Four alternativesDatarails, Jirav, Planful, Vena
against: Anaplan
Centage Planning MaestroChanged
Three alternativesDatarails, Planful, Vena
against: Anaplan, Pigment
no first choiceFinancial Modelling Pro
Four alternativesCompass AI, Excel or Google Sheets, Fathom, LivePlan
no first choice
Four alternativesPigment, Planful, Vena, Workday Adaptive Planning
against: Anaplan
nothing named
Llama 4 Maverickno first choiceProphixChangedno first choiceFinancial Modelling Prono first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashVena, Workday Adaptive Planning
Two alternativesFathom, PlanGuru
against: Anaplan
Vena, Workday Adaptive PlanningHeld
One alternativeDatarails
against: Anaplan
no first choiceMicrosoft Excel
Four alternativesFinmark, Google Sheets, Jirav, LibreOffice Calc
against: Anaplan, Workday Adaptive Planning
no first choicenothing named
Kimi K2Drivetrain
Two alternativesMosaic, Pigment
against: Anaplan, Workday Adaptive Planning
Prophix, VenaChanged
One alternativeMosaic
against: Anaplan
no first choiceGoogle Sheets, Microsoft Excel
Four alternativesFinancial Modelling Pro, Finmark, PlanGuru, Uniflow
against: Causal, Mosaic, Pry
Datarails, Pigment, Vena, Workday Adaptive Planningagainst: Anaplan, OneStreamagainst: SketchUp
GLM 4.7 FlashXDatarails
Four alternativesAbacum, Cube, Lucanet xP&A, Mosaic
AbacumChanged
Three alternativesCentage Planning Maestro, Cube, Planful
no first choiceGoogle Sheets, Microsoft Excel
Three alternativesFinmark, Jirav, PlanGuru
against: Budgyt
no first choiceagainst: Anaplan, Oracle Fusion Cloud EPM, Prophix, SAP Analytics Cloud, Workday Adaptive Planningnothing named
MiniMax M2.5Drivetrain
Four alternativesAbacum, Cube, Datarails, Pigment
Centage Planning MaestroChanged
Four alternativesCube, Datarails, Planful, Vena
against: Anaplan
no first choiceUpmetrics
Four alternativesBudgyt, FreshBooks, Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel
no first choiceagainst: Oracle Hyperionnothing named
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 09:19yes97 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 09:36yes36 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 07:43yes1728 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 09:06yes202 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 10:21yes207 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 10:44yes53 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 10:54yes1637 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 09:00yes51 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 11:09no029 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 11:25yes1421 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 09:36yes915 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 09:43yes728 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 07:57yes98 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 09:11no03 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 07:47yes1624 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 11:14yes204 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 08:32yes197 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 08:48yes53 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 11:19yes2432 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 08:33yes52 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 10:23yes1043 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 08:14yes1531 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 09:59yes2125 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 10:02yes1427 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 10:47yes98 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 08:19no06 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 09:52yes1924 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 09:25yes184 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 10:56yes2511 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 11:11yes108 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 09:15yes2048 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 07:45yes52 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 11:16no023 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 07:31yes2028 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 08:06yes24114 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 10:57yes1868 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 09:47yes97 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 09:31no03 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 11:02yes1719 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 08:58yes193 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 07:46yes246 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 11:11yes54 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 10:34yes2523 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 08:22yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 07:33yes519 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 10:24yes1322 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 11:05yes24201 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 10:04yes518 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 09:24no05 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 10:09no09 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 08:20no016 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 10:01yes207 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 09:47yes1313 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 07:36no06 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 09:15yes2450 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 10:13yes52 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 10:56yes521 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 08:46yes1036 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 10:16yes1458 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 10:25yes520 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 10:26no02 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 10:37yes44 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 10:35yes1926 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 08:06yes154 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 10:07yes258 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 07:47no01 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 10:30yes920 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 11:12yes51 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 10:11yes2049 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 09:57yes2523 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 09:31yes2283 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 10:09yes936 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

ShowHide
Category-scoped readings
Adaptive Insights read as Workday Adaptive Planning
Adaptive Insights (Workday) read as Workday Adaptive Planning
Centage read as Centage Planning Maestro
Excel read as Microsoft Excel
Oracle Cloud EPM read as Oracle Fusion Cloud EPM
Oracle EPM read as Oracle Fusion Cloud EPM
Vena Solutions read as Vena
Workday Adaptive read as Workday Adaptive Planning
Unresolved, counted raw
Boldin
Decipad
Django ORM
Finta
Hackolade
Hibernate
Hunyuan3D
Maya
Meshy
Prisma
Rodin
Tripo
Vizule
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
← Corporate performance maFinancial reporting →