# Financial modeling and scenario planning for small business buyers: 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 small B2B company. Page: https://finance-ai-index.com/planning/financial-modeling-and-scenario-planning/smb/

**Standing:** Clockwork leads with 12% of first choices; verdict contested. 50 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| # | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Clockwork | 12% | 0% | 15 |
| 2 | LivePlan | 10% | 0% | 13 |
| 3 | Fathom | 6% | 3% | 29 |
| 4 | Cube | 6% | 11% | 19 |
| 5 | Finmark | 6% | 12% | 16 |
| 6 | Jirav | 6% | 26% | 23 |
| 7 | Forecastr | 6% | 8% | 12 |
| 8 | Google Sheets | 6% | 27% | 11 |
| 9 | Microsoft Excel | 6% | 37% | 19 |
| 10 | Datarails | 2% | 6% | 16 |
| 11 | Causal | 0% | 10% | 10 |
| 12 | Runway | 0% | 10% | 10 |

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

- Claude Haiku 4.5: Drivetrain; alternatives Cube, Fathom, Jirav, LivePlan
- GPT-5.4 mini: Datarails, Fathom; alternatives LiveFlow, Planful
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Clockwork; alternatives Causal, Jirav, LiveFlow, Runway
- Perplexity Sonar: Clockwork; alternatives Datarails, LiveFlow
- Grok 4.1 Fast: Jirav; alternatives Cube, Datarails, Finmark, LivePlan
- Mistral Small: BILL, Forecastr; alternatives Fathom
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Finmark; alternatives Coefficient, Fathom, Forecastr
- Llama 4 Maverick: Forecastr; alternatives BILL, Farseer
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Excel/Google Sheets; alternatives Cube, Flare Finance, Float, LivePlan
- Kimi K2: BILL, Fathom; alternatives Causal, Google Sheets / Excel, Jirav, LivePlan
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Finmark; alternatives Budgyt, Cube, Datarails, Excel/Google Sheets
- MiniMax M2.5: Finmark, Forecastr; alternatives Datarails, LiveFlow, PlanGuru, Vena

## Sources the answers cite

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

- fathomhq.com: 35 answers, 37 citations
- farseer.com: 29 answers, 32 citations
- cubesoftware.com: 28 answers, 40 citations
- drivetrain.ai: 22 answers, 27 citations
- worldmetrics.org: 20 answers, 39 citations
- productive.io: 20 answers, 20 citations
- datarails.com: 18 answers, 19 citations
- gitnux.org: 16 answers, 17 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://fathomhq.com/blog/the-6-best-financial-modelling-software-tools (33 answers)
- https://farseer.com/blog/financial-modeling-tools (24 answers)
- https://cubesoftware.com/blog/financial-modeling-software (20 answers)
- https://productive.io/blog/financial-modeling-software (19 answers)
- https://datarails.com/best-financial-modeling-software (18 answers)
- https://drivetrain.ai/solutions/financial-modeling-software (17 answers)
- https://clockwork.ai/blog/best-fpa-software-small-business (12 answers)
- https://skyvia.com/blog/top-data-modeling-tools (12 answers)
- https://compassapp.ai/compare/best-financial-modelling-software-2026 (11 answers)
- https://worldmetrics.org/best/small-business-financial-projection-software (10 answers)

## Warned against

- Anaplan: 13 of 15 labels negative. "Avoid unless you have a dedicated finance team and $50M+ in revenue.... Anaplan starts around $30,000+/year" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt)
- Microsoft Excel: 7 of 19 labels negative. "Creating large, interconnected financial models from scratch in Excel is high-risk." (Qwen 3.7 Flash, negative prompt)
- Workday Adaptive Planning: 6 of 7 labels negative. "Avoid unless you have a dedicated finance team and $50M+ in revenue.... Workday Adaptive is often $15,000–$20,000+/month" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt)
- Jirav: 6 of 23 labels negative. "Often quoted starting around $10,000/year ... requires a dedicated in-house finance professional" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, budget 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.