Finance AI Index
September 2026 Edition · The permanent record of this edition. The unqualified address always carries the latest edition.
Index › Planning and analysis › FP&A platforms › Small business › September 2026 Edition

FP&A platforms for small business buyers

Asked as “FP&A software”, and as “financial planning and analysis platform”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 47 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
Clockwork
Clear leader
60% of first choices, clear leader.
ShowinginAll 41 categories in the September 2026 Edition →

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.
Small businessClockwork60%Clear leaderThis pageMid-marketVena15%ContestedStanding →EnterpriseAnaplan48%Clear leaderStanding →

01The 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
01Clockwork60%0%52endorsed leader
02Fathom13%3%36accepted challenger
03Cube9%17%47accepted challenger
04Jirav4%11%46accepted challenger
05Datarails2%20%35accepted challenger
06Mosaic2%22%23accepted challenger
07Vena2%58%19criticized challenger
Show the six products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
12Anaplan0%90%20criticized challenger
13Workday Adaptive Planning0%83%23criticized challenger
10Pigment0%80%10criticized challenger
11Planful0%69%13criticized challenger
09Limelight0%31%16criticized challenger
08LiveFlow0%12%24accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.
Head to head
Vena vs PigmentVena vs ClockworkPigment vs Clockwork

One product takes 60% of first choices here, so the chart would put twelve markers in one corner and one at the far edge. The two measurements it plots are columns in the standing above: share, and the negative label rate. Six products carry a negative rate above 25% in this category. Jump to the standing

02What they warned about

Four of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, Grok 4.1 Fast, Mistral Small, Qwen 3.7 Flash 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.
Workday Adaptive Planning
83%
19 of 23 labels negative · 11 of 12 models · 13 hard negative
“the main goal is to avoid enterprise-grade FP&A platforms (like Workday Adaptive Planning, Anaplan, or Vena)” Gemini 3.5 Flash, budget prompt
Anaplan
90%
18 of 20 labels negative · 10 of 12 models · 12 hard negative
“Designed for large, complex organizations... Requires significant modeling expertise, IT resources, and long implementation timelines.” GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt
Vena
58%
11 of 19 labels negative · 9 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“avoid enterprise-grade FP&A platforms (like Workday Adaptive Planning, Anaplan, or Vena)” Gemini 3.5 Flash, budget prompt
Planful
69%
9 of 13 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 5 hard negative
“Why avoid: These are firmly in the enterprise tier, with annual costs ranging from $240k to $260k+ per year.” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt

03What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: twelve of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

63 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 6 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 767 links across 133 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

clockwork.ai
vendor site · Clockwork50 answers · 73 citations · 10 models
golimelight.com
47 answers · 56 citations · 10 models
getaleph.com
39 answers · 58 citations · 10 models
cubesoftware.com
38 answers · 69 citations · 10 models
drivetrain.ai
vendor site · Drivetrain35 answers · 35 citations · 10 models
g2.com
21 answers · 39 citations · 8 models
learn.g2.com
17 answers · 18 citations · 8 models
centage.com
vendor site · Centage16 answers · 21 citations · 7 models
thefinanceweekly.com
13 answers · 14 citations · 8 models
metapraxis.com
12 answers · 15 citations · 7 models
startup.info
12 answers · 12 citations · 9 models
datarails.com
vendor site · Datarails11 answers · 12 citations · 6 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.

clockwork.ai/blog/best-fpa-software-small-business
50 answers · 10 models
golimelight.com/blog/fpa-software-for-small-business
46 answers · 10 models
drivetrain.ai/solutions/financial-planning-analysis-software
34 answers · 10 models
getaleph.com/answers/best-fpa-software-by-company-size
31 answers · 10 models
cubesoftware.com/blog/best-fpa-software-tools
26 answers · 10 models
cubesoftware.com/blog/best-fpa-software-for-small-businesses
19 answers · 9 models
learn.g2.com/best-fpa-software
16 answers · 8 models
getaleph.com/answers/top-fpa-software-2026
15 answers · 9 models
g2.com/categories/fp-a-financial-planning-analysis/small-business
13 answers · 6 models
centage.com/blog/best-fp-a-software
12 answers · 6 models

04How 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.
ModelDirect“What is the best FP&A software for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which financial planning and analysis platform would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top FP&A platforms for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best FP&A software for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating a FP&A software. What should we look at?”Negative“Which FP&A platforms should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Clockwork
Three alternativesCube, Datarails, Jirav
no first choiceChangedCube
Four alternativesDatarails, Jirav, Mosaic, Prophix
Clockwork
Two alternativesFathom, Jirav
against: Abacum, Cubeno first choiceagainst: Anaplan, Board, Datarails, Mosaic, OneStream, Pigment, Vena, Workday Adaptive Planning
GPT-5.4 miniFathom
Two alternativesDatarails, Reach Reporting
MosaicChanged
One alternativeCube
against: Anaplan, Workday Adaptive PlanningDatarails
Four alternativesCube, Mosaic, Planful, Vena
Reach Reporting
Two alternativesFathom, LiveFlow
against: Datarailsno first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashClockwork, Fathom
Six alternativesCube, Datarails, Jirav, LiveFlow, Mosaic, Runway
ClockworkChanged
Five alternativesCube, Datarails, Fathom, Jirav, Mosaic
Aleph, Cube
Five alternativesCausal, Clockwork, Datarails, Jirav, Runway
against: Anaplan, Workday Adaptive PlanningClockwork
Three alternativesFathom, Finmark, LivePlan
against: Anaplan, Vena, Workday Adaptive PlanningClockwork
Six alternativesAleph, Cube, Fathom, Jirav, LiveFlow, Runway
against: Anaplan, OneStream, Pigment, Workday Adaptive Planningagainst: Anaplan, Board, OneStream, Oracle Cloud EPM, Planful, SAP Analytics Cloud, Vena, Workday Adaptive Planning
Perplexity SonarClockwork
Three alternativesAleph, Cube, Jirav
JiravChanged
One alternativeClockwork
against: Anaplan, DrivetrainClockwork
Five alternativesCube, Datarails, Jirav, LiveFlow, Mosaic
Clockwork
Three alternativesCube, Fairview, Fathom
no first choiceagainst: Anaplan, Planful, Prophix, Vena, Workday Adaptive Planning
Grok 4.1 FastCube
Three alternativesClockwork, Datarails, Jirav
ClockworkChanged
Three alternativesCube, Fathom, Jirav
no first choice
Four alternativesClockwork, Cube, Fathom, Jirav
against: Datarails, LiveFlowFathom
Two alternativesClockwork, Fairview
against: Cube, JiravClockwork, Jirav
Four alternativesCentage, Cube, Datarails, Limelight
against: Anaplan, Cube, Mosaic, OneStream, Oracle Hyperion, Planful, Prophix, Vena, Workday Adaptive Planning
Mistral SmallClockwork
Two alternativesAleph, Limelight
no first choiceChangedagainst: Workday Adaptive PlanningClockwork, LiveFlow
Five alternativesCube, Datarails, Fathom, Jirav, Mosaic
Clockwork
One alternativeLimelight
against: Excel or Google Sheetsno first choiceagainst: Mosaic, Planful, Prophix, Vena, Workday Adaptive Planning
DeepSeek V4 FlashClockwork
Three alternativesFathom, Float, Jirav
ClockworkHeld
Three alternativesCentage, Cube, Jirav
Clockwork
Six alternativesCube, Datarails, Fathom, Jirav, LiveFlow, Mosaic
Causal, Fathom
Two alternativesClockwork, Excel/Google Sheets
against: Anaplan, Cube, Jirav, Pigment, Workday Adaptive PlanningAleph, Cube, Datarails, Vena
Five alternativesClockwork, Fathom, FreeAgent, Jirav, Limelight
against: Pigment, Planful, Workday Adaptive Planningagainst: Anaplan, Datarails, Fathom, Pigment, Planful, Prophix, Vena, Workday Adaptive Planning
Llama 4 MaverickClockwork
Three alternativesAleph, Datarails, Runway
ClockworkHeld
Two alternativesFathom, Jirav
against: Excel, Google SheetsClockwork
Four alternativesFathom, Jirav, LiveFlow, Mosaic
Clockwork
Five alternativesFathom, Jirav, LiveFlow, Mosaic, Reach Reporting
against: Excel, Google SheetsClockwork
Four alternativesFathom, Jirav, LiveFlow, Mosaic
against: Abacum, Cube, Jirav, Limelight, Mosaic
Qwen 3.7 FlashClockwork
Three alternativesCube, Jirav, LiveFlow
DatabookChanged
Three alternativesCube, Fathom, Float
Jirav
Three alternativesCube, Datarails, Limelight
Clockwork, Cube
Two alternativesDundas BI, Zoho Analytics
against: Anaplan, Workday Adaptive Planningno first choiceagainst: Anaplanagainst: Anaplan, Coupa, Microsoft Dynamics GP, NetSuite, Oracle Cloud ERP, SAP Analytics Cloud, Sage Intacct, Vena, Workday Adaptive Planning
Kimi K2Clockwork
Four alternativesCube, Datarails, Jirav, Mosaic
ClockworkHeld
Two alternativesFathom, Jirav
Clockwork
Six alternativesAleph, Cube, Datarails, Jirav, LiveFlow, Mosaic
Clockwork, Fathom
Three alternativesCube, Excel or Google Sheets, Reach Reporting
against: Datarails, Jirav, Limelight, Vena, Workday Adaptive Planningno first choice
Three alternativesClockwork, Cube, LiveFlow
against: Anaplan, Limelight, Pigmentagainst: Anaplan, Cube, Datarails, Limelight, OneStream, Planful, Vena, Workday Adaptive Planning
GLM 4.7 FlashXClockwork
Eight alternativesAleph, Budgyt, Cube, Datarails, Jirav, Limelight, LiveFlow, PlanGuru
ClockworkHeld
Three alternativesJirav, Maxio, Younium
Clockwork
Three alternativesCube, Datarails, Fathom
against: LiveFlowClockwork, Fathom
Two alternativesCube, Datarails
against: LiveFlowno first choiceagainst: Anaplan, Cube, Datarails, Jirav, Limelight, OneStream, Oracle Cloud EPM, Pigment, Planful, Vena, Workday Adaptive Planning
MiniMax M2.5Cube
Four alternativesBudgyt, Clockwork, Jirav, Limelight
ClockworkChanged
Two alternativesCubis, Drivetrain
Clockwork, Cube, Datarails, Jirav, Limelight
One alternativeMosaic
Clockwork
Three alternativesExcel/Google Sheets, Fathom, LiveFlow
no first choiceagainst: Anaplan, Cube, Mosaic, Pigment, Planful, Prophix, Workday Adaptive Planning
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

05The 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-4-5-202510012026-09-17 17:44yes97 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 17:34yes38 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 17:49yes1733 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 17:47yes207 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 17:33yes2819 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 17:41yes54 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-17 17:47yes1625 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 17:47yes52 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 17:37yes837 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 17:39yes1234 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 17:34yes1442 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 17:36yes514 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 17:26no04 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 17:33yes35 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 17:48yes923 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 17:28yes196 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 17:48yes3415 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 17:44no02 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-17 17:48yes2350 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 17:40yes52 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 17:32no031 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 17:37yes1627 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 17:40yes1960 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 17:48yes538 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 17:48yes1811 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 17:47yes79 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 17:39yes1731 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 17:36yes208 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 17:28yes2413 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 17:41yes57 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 17:44yes815 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 17:39yes53 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 17:32yes537 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 17:39yes1638 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 17:47yes3185 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 17:28yes928 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 17:44yes97 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 17:48yes511 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 17:39yes1823 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 17:42yes208 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 17:32yes3614 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 17:44yes54 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-17 17:49yes2240 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 17:42yes63 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 17:37yes528 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 17:32yes929 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 17:28yes1123 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 17:43yes930 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 17:48no05 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 17:33no07 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 17:48yes824 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 17:46yes208 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 17:36yes1411 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 17:33no010 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 17:41yes1422 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 17:47yes52 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 17:43no036 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 17:29yes1231 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 17:48yes1345 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 17:28yes530 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 17:28yes1713 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 17:47no04 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 17:33yes2324 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 17:27yes206 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 17:31yes3716 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 17:27yes56 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 17:31yes2448 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 17:34yes55 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 17:40no040 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 17:42yes1224 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 17:46yes1675 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 17:48yes1435 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

Category-scoped readings
Adaptive Insights read as Workday Adaptive Planning
Adaptive Insights (Workday) read as Workday Adaptive Planning
Adaptive Insights (now Workday Prism/EPM) read as Workday Adaptive Planning
Adaptive Insights (now part of Workday) read as Workday Adaptive Planning
Clockwork.ai read as Clockwork
Oracle Fusion Cloud EPM read as Oracle Cloud EPM
Vena Solutions read as Vena
Workday Adaptive read as Workday Adaptive Planning
Unresolved, counted raw
Cubis
Databook
Dundas BI
Excel/Google Sheets + Add-ons
Flywheel
Lumina
Paribus
ReportWORQ
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.

Also in planning and analysis

The other categories of this function, with the leader in each.
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