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September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since.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 › Spend and procurement › Expense management › Small business › September 2026 Edition

Expense management for small business buyers

Asked as “expense management software”, and as “employee expense reporting tool”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 57 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
37%
Contested · Ramp 25%
37Zoho Expense25Ramp19Expensify19others

37% 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 small B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Zoho Expense37%5%63endorsed leader
02Ramp25%7%57accepted challenger
03Expensify19%15%65accepted challenger
04BILL Spend & Expense14%7%57accepted challenger
05Brex4%16%31accepted challenger
06Emburse2%46%13criticized challenger
Show the two products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
08SAP Concur0%90%21criticized challenger
07Rippling Spend0%23%13accepted 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.
All twenty-eight head-to-head pages: the top eight 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
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative50%
Key
01Zoho Expense37%
02Ramp25%
03Expensify19%
04BILL Spend & Expense14%
05Brex4%
06Emburse2%
07Rippling Spend0%
08SAP Concur0%

What they warned about

Two of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Grok 4.1 Fast, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2 and GLM 4.7 FlashX 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.
SAP Concur
90%
19 of 21 labels negative · 13 of 12 models · 11 hard negative
“Tools designed for large corporations (such as SAP Concur Expense, Emburse Certify, or Navan) are often too complex and expensive for small businesses.” Mistral Small, negative prompt
Expensify
15%
10 of 65 labels negative · 9 of 12 models
“The industry standard. It works well everywhere, but the UI can sometimes feel cluttered or overly feature-heavy for small teams.” Qwen 3.7 Flash, scale prompt
Emburse
46%
6 of 13 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“such as SAP Concur Expense, Emburse Certify, or Navan) are often too complex and expensive for small businesses” Mistral Small, negative prompt
Brex
16%
5 of 31 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Brex may be impossible to sign up for, or too complex for your current needs.” GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative 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

79 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. 1014 links across 163 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

vendor site · Ramp48 answers · 78 citations · 13 models
vendor site · BILL41 answers · 69 citations · 13 models
vendor site · OFX40 answers · 40 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Mercury37 answers · 37 citations · 11 models
vendor site · G235 answers · 58 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Expensify34 answers · 55 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Brex32 answers · 40 citations · 13 models
28 answers · 28 citations · 8 models
24 answers · 25 citations · 9 models
20 answers · 21 citations · 6 models
20 answers · 21 citations · 8 models
vendor site · Rippling20 answers · 21 citations · 9 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 expense management software”, “expense management software”, “expense management 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
Zoho parent site
Zoho Expense 37%
37%1865,40052
Ramp ramp.com25%1042246,00049,733770,056$13,5111203
Expensify expensify.com19%24174,00093276,29101
BILL bill.com
BILL Spend & Expense 14%
14%3422,740,0001,063,0011,783,039 company$199,231119
Brex brex.com4%64060,5001,190328,914$12,238813
Emburse emburse.com2%8418,10024240,700$26651
Rippling rippling.com
Rippling Spend 0%, Rippling Finance 0%
0%95301,00017,886712,399 company$42,013115
FreshBooks freshbooks.com0%33040,500389305,801$221113
Wave waveapps.com0%323368,000253,218708,86239
Airwallex airwallex.com0%30827,100416420,414$56,83245

Google's top ten for the three searches hold 18 sites; 3 of them are among the sites the models cited here (brex.com, mercury.com, ramp.com). The first result for “best expense management software” is expensify.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 expense management software for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which employee expense reporting tool would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top expense management tools for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best expense management software for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating an expense management software. What should we look at?”Negative“Which expense management tools should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Brex
Two alternativesExpensify, Zoho Expense
Expensify, Zoho ExpenseChanged
One alternativeBILL Spend & Expense
Zoho Expense
Three alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, Expensify, Ramp
Zoho Expense
Three alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, Expensify, Ramp
no first choiceagainst: Coupa Expense Management, Expensify, SAP Concur, Xero
GPT-5.4 miniRamp
Three alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, Expensify, Zoho Expense
Zoho ExpenseChanged
Four alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, FreshBooks, Ramp, Xero
against: SAP Concur
Expensify, Zoho Expense
Two alternativesBrex, Ramp
against: Airbase
Zoho Expense
One alternativeExpensify
against: QuickBooks Online Expenses
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashRamp
Four alternativesAirwallex, BILL Spend & Expense, Brex, Zoho Expense
against: Expensify
BILL Spend & Expense, RampChanged
Four alternativesExpensify, FreshBooks, Harvest, Zoho Expense
Ramp
Four alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, Expensify, Navan, Zoho Expense
Ramp
Four alternativesBrex, Expensify, Wave, Zoho Expense
Ramp
Five alternativesAirwallex, BILL Spend & Expense, Brex, Expensify, Zoho Expense
against: SAP Concur
against: Brex, Chrome River, Emburse, Expensify, SAP Concur
Perplexity SonarZoho Expense
Three alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, Expensify, Ramp
against: SAP Concur
Zoho ExpenseHeld
Three alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, Expensify, Ramp
Expensify
Four alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, Ramp, Xero, Zoho Expense
Zoho Expense
Two alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, FreshBooks
no first choicenothing named
Grok 4.1 FastRamp
One alternativeZoho Expense
ExpensifyChanged
Two alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, Zoho Expense
against: QuickBooks Online Expenses
no first choice
Four alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, Expensify, Ramp, Zoho Expense
against: Emburse, Rippling Spend, SAP Concur
Zoho Expense
One alternativeExpensify
against: Ramp, Wave
Expensify, Zoho Expense
Three alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, Brex, Ramp
against: Expensify, QuickBooks Online Expenses, SAP Concur, Xero
Mistral SmallBILL Spend & Expense, Emburse
One alternativeZoho Expense
Zoho ExpenseChanged
Two alternativesExpensify, Ramp
Ramp
Five alternativesBrex, Expensify, QuickBooks Online Expenses, Rippling Spend, Zoho Expense
Zoho Expense
One alternativeBILL Spend & Expense
no first choiceagainst: Emburse, Navan, SAP Concur
DeepSeek V4 FlashRamp
Four alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, Brex, Expensify, Zoho Expense
ExpensifyChanged
Three alternativesFreshBooks, Ramp, Zoho Expense
Expensify, Ramp
Three alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, Brex, Zoho Expense
against: SAP Concur
Ramp, Zoho Expense
One alternativeExpensify
against: Wave
Ramp
Three alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, Expensify, Zoho Expense
against: Coupa Expense Management, Payhawk, SAP Concur
against: Brex, Emburse, Expensify, Ramp, Rydoo, SAP Concur, Zoho Expense
Llama 4 Maverickno first choiceExpensifyChanged
Two alternativesRamp, Zoho Expense
Ramp
Four alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, Expensify, Novo, Zoho Expense
Zoho Expense
Two alternativesExpensify, Ramp
no first choiceagainst: Emburse, Expensify
Qwen 3.7 FlashBILL Spend & Expense
Three alternativesExpensify, Ramp, Zoho Expense
RampChanged
Two alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, Expensify
Brex, Ramp
Three alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, Expensify, Zoho Expense
Expensify, Zoho Expense
Two alternativesQuickBooks Online Self-Employed, Wave Expenses
against: Rippling Spend
BILL Spend & Expense, Brex, Ramp
Two alternativesRippling Spend, Zoho Expense
against: Expensify, SAP Concur
against: Rippling Spend, SAP Concur
Kimi K2Expensify, Ramp
Three alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, Brex, Rippling Spend
BILL Spend & ExpenseChanged
Two alternativesExpensify, Ramp
BILL Spend & Expense
Four alternativesBrex, Expensify, Ramp, Zoho Expense
Zoho Expense
Three alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, Expensify, Ramp
no first choice
Five alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, Expensify, Ramp, Rippling Spend, Spendesk
against: BILL Spend & Expense, Emburse, Expensify, SAP Concur
GLM 4.7 FlashXZoho Expense
Four alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, Emburse, Expensify, Rippling Finance
against: SAP Concur
ExpensifyChanged
One alternativeBILL Spend & Expense
Zoho Expense
Five alternativesBILL Spend & Expense, Brex, Expensify, Ramp, Rippling Finance
Zoho Expense
Four alternativesExpensify, QuickBooks Online Expenses, Ramp, Wave
no first choiceagainst: BILL Spend & Expense, Brex, Lemon, Neat, QuickBooks Desktop
MiniMax M2.5BILL Spend & Expense, Expensify
Two alternativesBrex, Emburse
BILL Spend & Expense, ExpensifyHeld
Two alternativesQuickBooks Expense, Zoho Expense
Expensify
Four alternativesEverlance, ExpensePoint, Rippling Spend, Shoeboxed
Zoho Expense
Two alternativesExpensify, Wave
no first choiceagainst: SAP Concuragainst: BILL Spend & Expense, Expensify, SAP Concur
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 08:20yes99 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 11:16yes35 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 10:19yes1919 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 09:26yes182 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 11:11yes138 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 09:52yes125 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 11:14yes1939 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 08:33yes52 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 10:53yes515 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 10:40yes1225 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 11:26yes1026 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 08:55yes1020 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 08:15yes169 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 10:28yes36 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 08:36yes1123 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 08:01yes194 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 08:20yes237 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 10:55yes53 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 09:51yes2432 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 08:08yes52 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 07:52yes21124 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 09:33yes1517 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 10:20yes2464 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 10:23yes515 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 10:13yes99 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 08:02yes67 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 10:34yes923 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 11:07yes205 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 10:51yes199 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 08:45yes1311 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 10:29yes1931 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 10:51yes53 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 10:23yes1223 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 10:37yes1018 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 09:54yes1020 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 08:38yes59 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 08:09yes97 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 08:43yes35 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 07:50yes1122 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 08:04yes204 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 10:30yes229 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 08:45yes54 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 08:00yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 09:18yes515 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 07:57yes1520 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 09:35yes20108 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 09:04yes2532 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 11:02no06 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 08:49no08 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 09:11yes1325 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 10:53yes184 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 10:46yes149 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 10:28no07 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 09:33yes1640 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 09:27yes52 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 09:39no034 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 10:11yes1020 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 08:07no020 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 10:42yes517 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 10:34yes169 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 08:18yes57 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 07:41yes1721 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 10:43yes203 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 09:50yes2217 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 07:43yes146 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 07:57yes2543 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 10:29yes52 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 09:11yes1443 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 09:58yes2531 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 07:40yes2327 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 08:12yes2232 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
BILL read as BILL Spend & Expense
BILL (Divvy) read as BILL Spend & Expense
BILL (formerly Bill.com) read as BILL Spend & Expense
Bill.com read as BILL Spend & Expense
Certify read as Emburse
Coupa read as Coupa Expense Management
Divvy read as BILL Spend & Expense
Emburse Expense Professional (formerly Certify) read as Emburse
QuickBooks read as QuickBooks Online Expenses
QuickBooks Online read as QuickBooks Online Expenses
Rippling read as Rippling Spend
Wave Accounting read as Wave
Zoho read as Zoho Expense
Unresolved, counted raw
Everlance
Expensify Collect
Expensify Control
Hurdlr
Lemon
Neat
QuickBooks Expense
QuickBooks Online Self-Employed
Wave Expenses
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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