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September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since.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 › Treasury and cash › Business banking › Small business › September 2026 Edition

Business banking for small business buyers

Asked as “business bank account for a company”, and as “banking platform for a startup”, 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
35%
Contested · Bluevine 16%
35Mercury16Bluevine11Novo39others

35% 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
01Mercury35%11%53endorsed leader
02Bluevine16%12%48accepted challenger
03Novo11%17%35accepted challenger
04Relay9%10%39accepted challenger
05Chase Business Banking4%21%38accepted challenger
06Brex4%5%20accepted challenger
07American Express Business Checking4%8%13accepted challenger
08Rho2%0%12accepted challenger
09U.S. Bank2%9%11accepted challenger
Show the three products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
12Wells Fargo0%67%15criticized challenger
11Bank of America0%38%24criticized challenger
10Wise Business0%8%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.
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
09
10
11
12
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative50%
Key
01Mercury35%
02Bluevine16%
03Novo11%
04Relay9%
05Chase Business Banking4%
06Brex4%
07American Express Business Checking4%
08Rho2%
09U.S. Bank2%
10Wise Business0%
11Bank of America0%
12Wells Fargo0%

What they warned about

Two of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Perplexity Sonar, Grok 4.1 Fast, Mistral Small, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, 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.
Wells Fargo
67%
10 of 15 labels negative · 9 of 12 models · 5 hard negative
“one of the most frequently flagged banks for small business banking issues... "F" rating from the BBB” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
Bank of America
38%
9 of 24 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“only 1.14/5 stars on BBB and 1.4/5 on Trustpilot, with many complaints about customer service, account freezes” Mistral Small, negative prompt
Chase Business Banking
21%
8 of 38 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“High monthly service charges, limited free business‑checking options, and a relatively large share of fee‑related complaints” MiniMax M2.5, negative prompt
Bluevine
12%
6 of 48 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Frequent reports of sudden account holds ... ~44 % of negatives are about closures.” MiniMax M2.5, 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

78 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. 1013 links across 197 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

48 answers · 76 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Airwallex35 answers · 45 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Brex34 answers · 44 citations · 12 models
31 answers · 62 citations · 11 models
28 answers · 36 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Bluevine26 answers · 39 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Bank of America26 answers · 29 citations · 10 models
25 answers · 25 citations · 10 models
22 answers · 32 citations · 8 models
vendor site · Mercury20 answers · 24 citations · 11 models
19 answers · 25 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Found19 answers · 22 citations · 12 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 business bank account for a company”, “business bank account for a company”, “business banking providers”. 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
Mercury mercury.com35%179368,000130,988301,244$284,811255
Bluevine bluevine.com16%10474,00099079,464$1131203
Novo novo.co11%5649,50010,75248,117$22,1878
Relay relayfi.com9%8690,50068,68596,775120
Chase chase.com
Chase Business Banking 4%
4%1116,120,000327,91852,427,131 company$69,752119
Brex brex.com4%64060,5001,190328,914$12,238817
American Express americanexpress.com
American Express Business Checking 4%
4%273,350,00023,18522,105,127 company$20,307119
Amex's Business Checking4%
Rho rho.co2%9074,0007,366182,562$4162
U.S. Bank usbank.com2%373,350,00032,38521,547,254$38,387528

Google's top ten for the three searches hold 24 sites; 7 of them are among the sites the models cited here (airwallex.com, bluevine.com, brex.com, business.bankofamerica.com, forbes.com, mercury.com, nerdwallet.com). The first result for “best business bank account for a company” is business.bankofamerica.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 business bank account for a company for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which banking platform for a startup would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top business banking providers for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best business bank account for a company for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating a business bank account for a company. What should we look at?”Negative“Which business banking providers should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Bluevine Premier Business Checking
Three alternativesChase Business Banking, Grasshopper, Novo
no first choiceChanged
Two alternativesBrex, Mercury
against: First Republic, Silicon Valley Bank
Lili
Five alternativesBluevine, Chase Business Banking, Mercury, Relay, Rho
American Express Business Checking
Four alternativesBluevine, Brex, Lili, Novo
no first choiceagainst: Citibank, Small Business Bank, Wio
GPT-5.4 miniChase Business Banking
Two alternativesBank of America, Chase Performance Business Checking
against: Wells Fargo
MercuryChanged
Two alternativesBrex, Relay
no first choice
Eight alternativesBank of America, Bluevine, Capital One, Chase Business Banking, Mercury, NBKC, Relay, Wells Fargo
Bluevine
Two alternativesChase Business Banking, Wells Fargo
against: Bank of America
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashMercury
Five alternativesAirwallex, Bluevine, Chase Business Banking, Relay, Wise Business
MercuryHeld
Three alternativesBrex, Relay, Rho
Relay
Four alternativesBluevine, Chase Business Banking, Mercury, Novo
Novo
Three alternativesBluevine, Relay, U.S. Bank Silver Business Checking
no first choiceagainst: Bank of America, Evolve Bank & Trust, Revolut Business, Tide, Wells Fargo, Wise Business
Perplexity SonarRho
Two alternativesAmerican Express Business Checking, Bank of America Business Advantage Fundamentals
MercuryChanged
Two alternativesBrex, Chase Business Banking
Relay
Four alternativesAmerican Express Business Checking, Bluevine, Found, Mercury
against: Novo
Bluevine
Two alternativesGrasshopper Innovator Business Checking, Mercury
against: American Express Business Checking
no first choicenothing named
Grok 4.1 FastBluevine, Novo
Five alternativesAmerican Express Business Checking, Mercury, Starling Bank, Tide, Wise Business
against: Chase Business Banking
MercuryChanged
Five alternativesBluevine, Brex, Novo, Ramp, Relay
Bluevine, Relay
Four alternativesChase Business Banking, Lili, Mercury, Novo
Mercury, Novo
Seven alternativesBluevine, Mettle, Relay, Starling Bank, Tide, U.S. Bank, Virgin Money M Business
against: Bank of America, Chase Business Banking
no first choice
Five alternativesBank of America, Bluevine, Chase Business Banking, Mercury, U.S. Bank
against: Bank of America, Bluevine, Capital One Basic Checking, Found, HSBC, Mercury, Novo, Relay, Wells Fargo
Mistral SmallAxos Bank Basic Business Checking, U.S. Bank
Two alternativesAirwallex, Bank of America
BrexChanged
Three alternativesAirwallex, Bluevine, Chase Business Banking
Relay
Nine alternativesAxos Bank, Bank of America, Bluevine, Chase Business Banking, Lili, Slash, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, Wise Business
American Express Business Checking, Brexno first choiceagainst: Bank of America, Capital One, Mercury, Novo, Small Business Bank, Wells Fargo
DeepSeek V4 FlashMercury
Three alternativesBrex, Chase Performance Business Checking, Novo
MercuryHeld
Three alternativesBluevine, Relay, Rho
Ramp, Relay
Six alternativesBank of America, Bluevine, Brex, Chase Business Banking, Mercury, Novo
Found, Novo
Four alternativesAmerican Express® Business Checking, Bluevine, Lili, Relay
Bluevine, Mercury, Novo, Relay
Four alternativesBank of America, Chase Business Banking, TD Bank, U.S. Bank
against: Bluevine, Found, Lili, Mercury Bank, Novo, Square, Wells Fargo
Llama 4 MaverickAmex's Business Checking
One alternativeBank of America's No-Fee Business Checking Account
MercuryChanged
Four alternativesBluevine, Brex, Rho, Silicon Valley Bank
no first choiceAmex's Business Checking
Two alternativesFound, Mercury
no first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashChase Business Banking
Two alternativesBank of America, U.S. Bank Business Essentials Checking
MercuryChanged
Two alternativesChase Business Banking, Relay
Novo, Rho
Two alternativesCapital One, Wells Fargo
NBKC, U.S. Bank Business Essentials Checking
Two alternativesBluevine, Capital One
no first choice
Two alternativesMercury, Relay
against: Aspire, Bank of America, Bluevine, Braintree, Chase Business Banking, Citibank, Fundbox, Kabbage, LendUp, MoneyGram, Novo, PayPal, Square, Stripe, Wells Fargo, Western Union
Kimi K2Relay
Four alternativesKeyBank Business Rewards Checking, Mercury, Novo, Wise Business
MercuryChanged
Three alternativesRamp, Relay, Wise Business
Mercury
Three alternativesChase Business Banking, Relay, Wise Business
against: Wells Fargo
Bluevine, Relay
Three alternativesLili, Mercury, U.S. Bank
no first choiceagainst: Bank of America, Bluevine, Chase Business Banking, Mercury, Relay, Wells Fargo
GLM 4.7 FlashXBluevine, Mercury
Three alternativesAirwallex, Brex, U.S. Bank
AirwallexChanged
Five alternativesAmerican Express Business Checking, Bluevine, Found, Mercury, Novo
Mercury
Four alternativesBluevine, Brex, Chase Business Banking, Relay
Novo, Relay
Four alternativesAmerican Express Business Checking, Bluevine, North One, U.S. Bank
no first choiceagainst: Bank of America, Chase Business Banking, SSB Bank, Small Business Bank, Stearns Bank, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo
MiniMax M2.5KeyBank Business Rewards Checking, Mercury
Three alternativesBluevine, Chase Business Banking, Relay
MercuryChanged
Three alternativesChase Business Banking, Novo, Rho
Mercury
Three alternativesBluevine, Brex, Wise Business
Bluevine
Four alternativesAmerican Express® Business Checking, Axos Bank, Capital One, Novo
no first choiceagainst: Bank of America, Bluevine, Bread Financial, Brex, CAN Capital, Capital One, Chase Business Banking, Citibank, Fundbox, Kabbage, Mercury, PNC Bank, PayPal Working Capital, Rapid Finance, Relay, Square Capital, Synchrony Financial, Wells Fargo
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 08:42yes98 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 10:14yes45 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 07:40yes1523 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 10:14yes214 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 09:17yes2015 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 11:20yes167 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 09:48yes2134 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 07:57yes51 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 07:56yes540 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 09:45yes1528 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 07:55yes1781 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 11:22yes1133 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 10:01no07 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 09:54yes56 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 08:13yes1022 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 07:42yes243 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 09:58yes229 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 08:55yes55 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 08:52yes2127 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 08:59yes54 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 10:05yes542 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 08:48yes2524 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 10:13yes1432 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 09:48yes1048 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 09:48yes98 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 09:09yes68 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 08:50yes1724 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 10:26yes224 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 09:41yes259 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 10:16yes78 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 10:31yes2141 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 08:03yes51 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 11:13yes528 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 08:07yes1533 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 10:43yes2376 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 11:27yes1330 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 08:31yes98 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 09:07yes45 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 08:29yes1418 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 09:58yes214 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 10:45yes2211 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 11:11yes53 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 07:37yes1824 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 10:25yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 09:36yes925 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 09:43yes914 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 09:38yes19120 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 10:09yes516 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 08:04no06 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 10:02no09 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 10:45no014 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 09:15yes214 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 11:08yes149 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 08:13no07 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 09:55yes1839 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 08:00yes52 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 10:07yes520 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 11:08yes1926 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 07:45yes1415 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 08:33yes514 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 08:58yes187 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 08:48yes66 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 10:38yes1922 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 10:45yes204 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 08:13yes2213 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 10:14yes2013 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 10:31yes2533 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 08:56yes510 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 10:15no035 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 09:13yes2430 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 08:39yes2241 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 11:18yes1052 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
Axos read as Axos Bank
Bank of America Business Advantage read as Bank of America
Chase read as Chase Business Banking
Chase Business read as Chase Business Banking
Citi read as Citibank
Grasshopper Bank read as Grasshopper
NBKC Bank read as NBKC
PNC read as PNC Bank
Synapse read as Synapse Financial Technologies
Unresolved, counted raw
American Express® Business Checking
Bank of America's No-Fee Business Checking Account
Bluevine Standard checking
Bread Financial
CAN Capital
Capital One Basic Checking
Chase, Bank of America, or Wells Fargo
Community banks and credit unions
Grasshopper Innovator Business Checking
Key, Huntington, and other established regional banks
LendUp
Mercury Bank
NBKC Bank Free Business Checking Account
North One
Piermont Bank
Rapid Finance
Regions
SSB Bank
Square Capital
Square Checking & Square Savings
SquareUp (Square)
Stearns Bank
Synchrony Financial
Virgin Money M Business
WellsFargo
Wio
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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