Small business=heldSince September 2026: 11% → 11%, ±0 points. Inside the 10-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
11%from 11% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 10 pointsRank 2 of 78, unchanged
Square · 1 category · RankedSquare Payroll
31Judge labels
10First choices
5Negative labels
13 / 14Models named it
1Category
October 2026 Edition. Every number here is derived from the raw labels under vendor table v2026-10.7, every buyer segment counted.
Best standing
10% in Contractor payments for small business buyers
Rank 5 of 98 in the mid-market standingaccepted challenger
0 of 14 models made it the first choice on the direct prompt; 9% of its 11 labels there were negative.
What the models named instead of Square Payroll →By buyer segmentRead the same way at every buyer size.
Small business2 of 81
10%17 labels
accepted challenger
Mid-market5 of 98
8%11 labels
accepted challenger
Enterprise69 of 75
0%3 labels
under the label threshold
In contractor payments · each standing computed within its segment · bars are 0 to 100 · the accent bar is the product's own best reading
Standing by category
Every category where a model named Square Payroll 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 | Since September 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contractor payments | Spend and procurement | 8% | 5 of 98 | 9% | 11 | accepted challenger | ▼−7Since September 2026: 14% → 7%, −7 points. Inside the 10-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. |
Movement
Since September 2026, Square Payroll held within the floor in its one category: no change cleared 10 points.
Best category · Contractor payments · by segment
Mid-market▼−7Since September 2026: 14% → 7%, −7 points. Inside the 10-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
7%from 14% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 3 pointsRank 2 → 6 of 85
Enterprise=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 10-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
0%from 0% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 10 pointsRank 63 → 64 of 70
All categories · Mid-market
| Category | September 2026 | Now | Change | Reading | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contractor payments | 14% | 7% | ▼−7Since September 2026: 14% → 7%, −7 points. Inside the 10-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. | Within noise | Rank 2 → 5 of 98 |
Shares here are read over the models both editions asked, so they can differ by a point or two from the standing above, which counts every model in this edition.
The floor is 10 points of share, measured: how far the models move a leader on their own when the same questions are asked twice with nothing changed. A larger change is movement; a smaller one is noise, and both are shown. Movement is read over the twelve models both editions asked; GPT-6 Luna, Muse Glimmer 30B joined this edition and are in the standing but not yet in the comparison. How the floor is measured · The editions
By model
How each model treated Square Payroll across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.ShowHide
By model
How each model treated Square Payroll across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.
ShowHide| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Negative | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Grok 4.1 Fast | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Mistral Small | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Kimi K2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
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
Direct2 labelsNone
Paraphrase2 labelsNone
Comparative5 labelsNone
Budget-constrained16 labels9
Scale-constrained1 label1
Negative5 labelsNone
First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative31 labels in all, every segment counted; 10 of the 10 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.
“Square Payroll's Contractor-Only plan stands out as the best option for a company on a limited budget” Grok 4.1 Fast · Contractor payments · budget prompt · first choice
“Square Payroll is my budget pick if you want payments and 1099-NEC filing in one place” GPT-6 Luna · Contractor payments · budget prompt · first choice
“Square Payroll if you only care about paying contractors as cheaply as possible” Perplexity Sonar · Contractor payments · budget prompt · first choice
“For a truly limited budget, Square Payroll is your best bet” Kimi K2 · Contractor payments · budget 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.
“Platforms to use with caution: Stripe, Square, PayPal Business.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Contractor payments · negative prompt · soft negative
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as Square Payroll, over the 31 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Square Payroll was named but was not.ShowHide
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as Square Payroll, over the 31 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Square Payroll was named but was not.
ShowHideProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head
A head-to-head page exists where both products are among a category's top eight. 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 Square Payroll. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.
Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, five of the fourteen in this edition, so these counts come from 30 of the 31 answers that named Square Payroll and are not a share of its labels.
Domains cited
gusto.com16
wingspan.app14
worksuite.com14
fitsmallbusiness.com13
learn.g2.com13
guideflow.com12
wise.com12
quickbooks.intuit.com11
slash.com11
remote.com10
126 of the 126 domain citations in answers naming Square Payroll came from somebody else's page.
Pages cited
Pages are listed as the models cited them.
Search and answers
squareup.com ranks 3 on Google for the category's searches. In the answers, Square Payroll takes 8% of first choices and Tipalti takes 22%.ShowHide
Search and answers
squareup.com ranks 3 on Google for the category's searches. In the answers, Square Payroll takes 8% of first choices and Tipalti takes 22%.
ShowHideIn search
Google, US estimatesPosition for “contractor payment platforms”
–
not in the top ten
Position for “contractor payments and 1099 platform”
–
not in the top ten
- Searches for its name, Google
- 9,900 a month (“square payroll”)
- AI search demand for its name, est.
- 190 a month
- Its company's site
- squareup.com shared with Square's other products; the figures are the site's
- Organic visits to its site
- about 3,658,565 a month
- Searches its site ranks for
- 164,520 · 15,238 in the top three
- Sites linking to it
- 158,900
- Paid Google search
- 2 searches its ads show for, about 2 clicks and $9 a month (estimate)
In answers
This editionShare of first choices
8%
rank 5 of 98 in contractor payments
Segment leader
22%
Tipalti
- First choices
- 10 across its categories
- Named in
- 31 answers
- Its own site cited
- in 30 of the answers that named it
Search figures are US estimates from DataForSEO, read September 28, 2026; AI search demand is its modeled, directional estimate, not a count of queries to any assistant. The answers are this edition's. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Names read as Square Payroll
What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Square Payroll; a claim can dispute any of them.
Square 3Square Payroll (Contractor-Only) 2
Follow Square Payroll
An email the morning each edition publishes: where this product moved, where it held, and by how much against the noise floor. One address, confirmed by a click; a stop link in every email.
Already following? Everything you follow, with a stop for each.
The company
Square is the company behind Square Payroll.ShowHide
The company
Square is the company behind Square Payroll.
ShowHideOn record
Company records- Also from Square
- Square Contractor Payments, Square Invoices, Square for Business
In its own words
Stated by the vendor, not checked- Positioning
- Make payroll a breeze.
- For
- businesses
- Price stated
- Full-service payroll: $35/mo + $6 monthly fee per person paid; Contractor-only payroll: $6/mo per person paid. squareup.com/us/en/payroll
- Starting price
- 6 squareup.com/us/en/payroll
- Free plan or trial
- Start free trial squareup.com/us/en/payroll/demo
- Customers named
- Unfurl MadisonLaura Novak MassageBlueprint LightingUnfurl Madison & Laura Novak MassageLauren N.Kelly A.
- Not stated on the pages read
- Integrations, certifications, hosting
What Square Payroll's own pages state, read September 28, 2026: squareup.com/us/en/payroll, squareup.com/us/es/payroll, squareup.com/us/en/payroll/demo, squareup.com/us/es/payroll/demo, squareup.com/us/en/payroll/pricing. A claimed page can correct any of them.
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 Square Payroll'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 Square Payroll, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.
What a new claim receivesHide what a new claim receives
A new claim receives the current edition's vendor brief for Square Payroll by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:
- where Square Payroll is named, by buyer and by framing, and which cells hold its first choices;
- the claims the models make when they name it, ranked, with the strongest and the weakest quoted;
- its vocabulary against the segment leader's, and the pages the models cited;
- who was chosen in the answers that did not name Square Payroll, and every reason the record gives;
- a battlecard for each top rival: the head-to-head split, why they win, and the reservation quoted against them;
- one page of published figures cleared to show a buyer.