# Financial modeling and scenario planning: what AI models recommend, September 2026

Finance AI Recommendation Index, September 2026 Edition. Asked as "financial modeling software" and as "scenario planning tool for finance", six framings each, to twelve models with search on, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. Page: https://finance-ai-index.com/planning/financial-modeling-and-scenario-planning/

**Standing:** Datarails leads with 19% of first choices; verdict contested. 47 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| # | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Datarails | 19% | 5% | 21 |
| 2 | Google Sheets | 13% | 0% | 10 |
| 3 | Cube | 11% | 0% | 18 |
| 4 | Microsoft Excel | 11% | 21% | 14 |
| 5 | Vena | 6% | 15% | 26 |
| 6 | Planful | 4% | 11% | 18 |
| 7 | Workday Adaptive Planning | 4% | 35% | 17 |
| 8 | Anaplan | 0% | 47% | 19 |

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: no first choice
- GPT-5.4 mini: Datarails; alternatives Abacum, Anaplan
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Mosaic, Pigment; alternatives Centage Planning Maestro, Cube, Datarails, Planful
- Perplexity Sonar: Datarails, Drivetrain; alternatives Anaplan, Planful, Vena
- Grok 4.1 Fast: Cube, Datarails; alternatives Drivetrain, Limelight, Pigment, Vena
- Mistral Small: Datarails, Limelight; alternatives Cube, Planful, Vena
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Limelight; alternatives Abacum, Cube, Datarails, Pigment
- Llama 4 Maverick: Datarails; alternatives Abacum, Cube, Lucanet xP&A, Mosaic
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Cube; alternatives Fathom, Float, Jedox, Jirav
- Kimi K2: Datarails; alternatives Aleph, Centage Planning Maestro, Cube
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Datarails; alternatives Cube, Drivetrain, Mosaic, Planful
- MiniMax M2.5: Datarails; alternatives Cube, Planful

## Sources the answers cite

53 of 72 answers came back with a source list, from 11 of 12 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- drivetrain.ai: 19 answers, 33 citations
- datarails.com: 17 answers, 20 citations
- worldmetrics.org: 14 answers, 20 citations
- learn.g2.com: 14 answers, 14 citations
- farseer.com: 13 answers, 16 citations
- hebbia.com: 13 answers, 13 citations
- reddit.com: 12 answers, 18 citations
- gitnux.org: 10 answers, 15 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://datarails.com/best-financial-modeling-software (17 answers)
- https://hebbia.com/resources/best-financial-modeling-software (13 answers)
- https://drivetrain.ai/solutions/financial-modeling-software (12 answers)
- https://farseer.com/blog/financial-modeling-tools (10 answers)
- https://drivetrain.ai/solutions/financial-modeling-software/scenario-planning-analysis (9 answers)
- https://fathomhq.com/blog/the-6-best-financial-modelling-software-tools (8 answers)
- https://productive.io/blog/financial-modeling-software (8 answers)
- https://taxilla.com/best-scenario-planning-modeling-tools (8 answers)
- https://barchart.com/story/news/3006151/best-fpa-software-for-financial-modeling-in-2026-top-10-tools-with-pricing (7 answers)
- https://centage.com/blog/best-fp-a-software (7 answers)

## Warned against

- Anaplan: 9 of 19 labels negative. "You generally want to avoid enterprise-grade tools (like Anaplan or Workday) which cost thousands per month." (Qwen 3.7 Flash, budget prompt)
- Workday Adaptive Planning: 6 of 17 labels negative. "You generally want to avoid enterprise-grade tools (like Anaplan or Workday) which cost thousands per month." (Qwen 3.7 Flash, budget prompt)
- Vena: 4 of 26 labels negative. "Avoid enterprise-class tools like Anaplan, Adaptive, and Vena" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, budget prompt)
- Microsoft Excel: 3 of 14 labels negative. "Spreadsheet-based solutions (Excel with add-ins): Low cost, familiar, but limited scalability" (Claude Haiku 4.5, paraphrase prompt)

## Record

- Method: https://finance-ai-index.com/methodology/
- Raw judge labels and full responses: https://finance-ai-index.com/data/
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Finance AI Recommendation Index, September 2026 Edition, finance-ai-index.com.