Finance AI Index
September 2026 Edition · The permanent record of this edition. The unqualified address always carries the latest edition.
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. 51 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
Mercury
Contested
33% of first choices, contested.
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 businessMercury33%ContestedThis pageMid-marketMercury20%ContestedStanding →EnterpriseRho20%ContestedStanding →

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
01Mercury33%14%50endorsed leader
02Bluevine25%12%41accepted challenger
03Novo12%16%31accepted challenger
04Relay6%18%33accepted challenger
05Found4%0%12accepted challenger
06Brex4%12%17accepted challenger
07Chase Business Banking4%31%36criticized challenger
08Axos Bank2%9%11accepted challenger
09Rho2%10%10accepted challenger
Show the two products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
11Wells Fargo0%62%16criticized challenger
10Bank of America0%57%21criticized 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
Mercury vs BluevineMercury vs Chase Business BankingBluevine vs Chase Business Banking

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
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative50%
Key
01Mercury33%
02Bluevine25%
03Novo12%
04Relay6%
05Found4%
06Brex4%
07Chase Business Banking4%
08Axos Bank2%
09Rho2%
10Bank of America0%
11Wells Fargo0%

02What they warned about

Three 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, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Qwen 3.7 Flash, 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.
Bank of America
57%
12 of 21 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“Traditional brick-and-mortar banks (Chase, BoA) | High wire fees ($25\u2013$40 each), monthly maintenance fees” DeepSeek V4 Flash, paraphrase prompt
Wells Fargo
62%
10 of 16 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“Why to avoid: Wells Fargo has faced significant regulatory penalties and lawsuits for creating millions of unauthorized accounts and charging improper fees.” GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt
Mercury
14%
7 of 50 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“**Mercury** rolled out strict geographic restrictions, closing the accounts of businesses with founders holding passports from or residing in dozens of countries” Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt
Chase Business Banking
31%
11 of 36 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Traditional brick-and-mortar banks (Chase, BoA) | High wire fees ... painful for a startup” DeepSeek V4 Flash, paraphrase 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

64 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. 5 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 851 links across 222 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

nerdwallet.com
42 answers · 64 citations · 11 models
finder.com
32 answers · 54 citations · 10 models
handelsblatt.com
29 answers · 31 citations · 9 models
found.com
vendor site · Found28 answers · 37 citations · 10 models
airwallex.com
vendor site · Airwallex23 answers · 35 citations · 8 models
rho.co
vendor site · Rho22 answers · 31 citations · 11 models
forbes.com
20 answers · 33 citations · 8 models
bluevine.com
vendor site · Bluevine19 answers · 26 citations · 10 models
smallbusinesstools.org
19 answers · 19 citations · 8 models
relayfi.com
18 answers · 30 citations · 9 models
wise.com
16 answers · 21 citations · 8 models
reddit.com
12 answers · 26 citations · 7 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.

handelsblatt.com/geschaeftskonto/vergleich
29 answers · 9 models
found.com/resources/business-banking/best-business-bank-accounts-small-busi…
26 answers · 10 models
smallbusinesstools.org/guides/best-business-bank-accounts
19 answers · 8 models
finder.com/business-banking
16 answers · 7 models
relayfi.com/blog/best-online-business-bank-accounts-2026-guide
15 answers · 8 models
nerdwallet.com/business/banking/best/types
14 answers · 8 models
finder.com/business-banking/banks-for-small-business
12 answers · 7 models
airwallex.com/en-us/blog/compare-business-bank-accounts
11 answers · 7 models
rho.co/blog/best-online-business-bank-accounts
11 answers · 5 models
forbes.com/financial-services/best-business-checking-accounts
10 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 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 4.5no first choiceMercury, StripeChanged
One alternativeSquare
against: Bank of America, Bluevine, Brex, Chase Business Banking, Wells FargoMercury
Four alternativesBluevine, Chase Business Banking, Lili, Relay
no first choiceno first choiceagainst: Wells Fargo
GPT-5.4 miniBluevine
Two alternativesBank of America, Chase Business Banking
MercuryChanged
Two alternativesBrex, Rho
Bank of America, Chase Business Banking
Three alternativesBrex, Mercury, Wells Fargo
Bluevine
Two alternativesNBKC, U.S. Bank
against: Chase Business Bankingno first choiceagainst: TD Bank
Gemini 3.5 FlashMercury
Five alternativesAirwallex, Bluevine, Chase Business Banking, Relay, Wise Business
MercuryHeld
Three alternativesBrex, Relay, Rho
Relay
Three alternativesBluevine, Chase Business Banking, Mercury
against: NovoNovo
Five alternativesBluevine, Found, Mercury, Relay, U.S. Bank
against: Bank of America, Chase Business BankingBrex, Mercuryagainst: Bank of America, Chase Business Banking, Community Federal Savings Bank, Cross River Bank, Evolve Bank & Trust, Lineage Bank, Mercury, Novo, Wells Fargo, Wise Business
Perplexity SonarBluevine
Four alternativesChase Business Banking, Found, Mercury, Relay
RhoChanged
Two alternativesChase Business Banking, Mercury
Relay
Five alternativesBluevine, Chase Business Banking, Found, Lili, Mercury
Bluevine
Two alternativesChase Business Banking, Mercury
no first choiceagainst: Bank of America, Capital One, Citibank, Citizens Bank, Comerica, Discover Bank, Fifth Third Bank, Flagstar, PNC Bank, Wells Fargo
Grok 4.1 FastBluevine
Seven alternativesAxos Bank, Mercury, Monzo, Novo, Relay, Starling Bank, Tide
against: Chase Business BankingMercuryChanged
Four alternativesBluevine, Brex, Ramp, Relay
against: Chase Business BankingBluevine, Relay
One alternativeMercury
against: Bank of America, Chase Business BankingBluevine
Seven alternativesAxos Bank, Mercury, Monzo, NBKC, Novo, Starling Bank, Tide
against: Barclaysno first choice
Six alternativesAxos Bank, Bluevine, Chase Business Banking, Mercury, NBKC, PNC Bank
against: Bank of America, Bluevine, Chase Business Banking, Mercury, Relay, Revolut Business, Square, Wells Fargo
Mistral SmallBluevine, Novo, Relay
Two alternativesFound, Mercury
MercuryChanged
Two alternativesBrex, Rho
Bluevine
Four alternativesChase Business Banking, Found, Mercury, Relay
against: RhoBluevine
Eight alternativesFinom Solo, Found, Grasshopper, Lili, Mercury, Novo, Qonto, Relay
no first choiceagainst: Mercury, Relay
DeepSeek V4 FlashRelay
Three alternativesBluevine, Brex, Mercury
MercuryChanged
Three alternativesBluevine, Brex, Relay
against: Bank of America, Chase Business Banking, Chime, NovoRelay
Seven alternativesBluevine, Brex, Chase Business Banking, Mercury, Novo, Rho, U.S. Bank
Bluevine, Novo
Four alternativesAmerican Express Business Checking, NBKC, Relay, U.S. Bank
Chase Business Banking, Mercury
Two alternativesAirwallex, Relay
against: Absa Business Evolve Lite, Axos Bank, Bank of America, Bluevine, Cash App, Mercury, PayPal, RBS/NatWest, Relay, Revolut Business, Santander, Tide, Wells Fargo
Llama 4 Maverickno first choiceno first choiceHeldno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceagainst: Bluevine
Qwen 3.7 FlashChase Business Banking
Seven alternativesAirwallex, Bluevine, Mercury, Monzo, Revolut Business, Tide, Wise Business
MercuryChanged
Three alternativesAirwallex, Bluevine, Novo
Found
Three alternativesMercury, Novo, Relay
Bluevine
Three alternativesHuntington Business Checking 100, Mercury, Relay
Found, Mercury, Novoagainst: Bank of America, Chase Business Banking, Wells Fargoagainst: Bank of America, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Relay, Santander, Square, Stripe Treasury, Wells Fargo
Kimi K2Mercury
Three alternativesBluevine, Grasshopper, Novo
MercuryHeld
Three alternativesBluevine, Ramp, Relay
against: BrexMercury
Five alternativesBluevine, Found, Novo, Relay, Wise Business
Bluevine, Relay
Four alternativesAxos Bank, NBKC, Novo, U.S. Bank
Mercury
Four alternativesAxos Bank, First Internet Bank, Relay, Wise Business
against: ANNA, Bank of America, Mercury, Novo, Relay, Santander, Wells Fargo
GLM 4.7 FlashXBluevine, Found, Novo
Three alternativesChase Business Banking, Tide, Wise Business
MercuryChanged
Three alternativesAirwallex, Bluevine, Stripe Atlas
Brex, Mercury
Eight alternativesBank of America, Bluevine, Chase Business Banking, Found, Novo, Relay, Rho, Wells Fargo
Bluevine
Four alternativesLili, NBKC, Novo, U.S. Bank
no first choiceagainst: Bank of America, Chase Business Banking, Mercury, TD Bank, Wells Fargo
MiniMax M2.5Brex, Grasshopper
Three alternativesBluevine, Novo, Ramp
MercuryChanged
Five alternativesBrex, N26, RBC, Rho, Starling Bank
against: Silicon Valley BankMercury
Four alternativesBluevine, Chase Business Banking, Found, Relay
against: NovoAxos Bank, Mercury, Novo, Starling Bank, Tangerine Business Banking
Eight alternativesBMO Business Account, Bank of America, Barclays, Chase Business Banking, Lloyds, Monzo, RBC, TD Bank
no first choiceagainst: Bluevine, HSBC, Mercury, RBS/NatWest, Relay
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 19:27no04 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 18:27yes36 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 21:16yes21185 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 19:17yes205 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 18:03yes3415 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 21:00yes1227 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 20:15yes1818 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 18:45yes53 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 18:19yes839 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 20:07yes1330 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 18:55yes1781 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 20:53yes1237 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 19:40no06 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 19:41yes44 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 18:27yes921 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 19:18yes156 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 19:44yes3013 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 21:02yes54 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-17 18:52yes2758 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 20:35yes53 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 18:43yes536 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 20:25yes1046 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 19:49yes2837 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 20:36yes975 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 21:03yes911 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 20:14yes49 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 19:37yes1923 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 20:53yes209 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 21:08yes3114 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 19:51yes810 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 20:50yes2022 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 20:59yes52 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 21:06yes1927 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 19:08yes1051 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 19:40yes23137 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 20:11yes1128 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 19:30no05 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 20:34yes26 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 20:07yes1520 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 20:17yes207 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 19:12yes3517 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 20:35yes97 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 20:10yes1011 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 19:51yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 19:17yes1041 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 20:42yes1323 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 20:55yes2049 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 20:50no050 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 18:08no06 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 20:34no05 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 18:10no013 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 20:55yes2010 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 20:56yes1510 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 19:52no07 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 21:04yes1013 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 19:52yes53 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 17:59yes535 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 18:30yes1358 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 19:26yes2035 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 19:19yes571 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 20:47yes1810 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 19:26yes55 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 21:20yes3055 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 20:09yes188 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 19:09yes2415 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 20:41yes54 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 18:00yes2925 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 20:05yes53 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 19:08yes1537 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 18:29yes3044 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 19:00yes25117 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 19:49yes2041 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
Axos read as Axos Bank
Axos (US) read as Axos Bank
Capital One Spark read as Capital One
Chase read as Chase Business Banking
Chase (JPMorgan Chase) read as Chase Business Banking
Chase Business Essentials read as Chase Business Banking
Fifth Third read as Fifth Third Bank
JPMorgan Chase read as Chase Business Banking
PNC read as PNC Bank
SVB (now "Silicon Valley Bank – Bridge") read as Silicon Valley Bank
Starling (UK) read as Starling Bank
Starling Business read as Starling Bank
Unresolved, counted raw
ANNA (UK)
Absa Business Evolve Lite (South Africa)
BMO Business Account
Chime
Community Federal Savings Bank (CFSB)
Cross River Bank
Discover Bank
Finom Solo
Flagstar
Kotak Mahindra Bank
Lineage Bank
N26 (EU)
Tangerine Business Banking
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.

Also in treasury and cash

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