11 categories · RankedMicrosoft Excel
146Judge labels
9First choices
112Negative labels
12 of 12Models named it
11Categories
September 2026 Edition. Every number here is derived from the raw labels under vendor table vv2026-09.2, every buyer segment counted.
Best standing
11% in Financial modeling for mid-market buyers
Rank 4 of 114 in the mid-market standingaccepted challenger
0 of 12 models made it the first choice on the direct prompt; 21% of its 14 labels there were negative.
By buyer segmentStrongest at mid-market.
Small business10 of 121
6%19 labels
criticized challenger
Mid-market4 of 114
11%14 labels
accepted challenger
Enterprise92 of 92
0%7 labels
under the label threshold
In financial modeling · 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 Microsoft Excel 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Financial modeling and scenario planning | Planning and analysis | 11% | 4 of 114 | 21% | 14 | accepted challenger |
| Corporate tax provision | Tax and compliance | 2% | 11 of 98 | 0% | 2 | under 10 labels · led by Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE Tax Provision at 26% |
| Lease accounting | Accounting and close | 0% | 60 of 60 | 100% | 7 | under 10 labels · led by FinQuery at 36% |
| Cash flow forecasting | Treasury and cash | 0% | 86 of 86 | 80% | 5 | under 10 labels · led by Agicap at 18% |
| Financial reporting and dashboards | Planning and analysis | 0% | 133 of 133 | 100% | 5 | under 10 labels · led by Sage Intacct at 27% |
| Financial consolidation | Accounting and close | 0% | 95 of 96 | 100% | 4 | under 10 labels · led by Prophix at 19% |
| Account reconciliation | Accounting and close | 0% | 72 of 72 | 100% | 3 | under 10 labels · led by FloQast at 33% |
| Entity management | Equity and corporate | 0% | 87 of 87 | 100% | 3 | under 10 labels · led by Athennian at 18% |
| Board and investor reporting | Planning and analysis | 0% | 88 of 97 | 50% | 2 | under 10 labels · led by OnBoard at 25% |
| Internal controls and SOX | Tax and compliance | 0% | 70 of 71 | 100% | 2 | under 10 labels · led by AuditBoard at 18% |
| Cap table management | Equity and corporate | 0% | 40 of 41 | 100% | 1 | under 10 labels · led by Carta at 44% |
Movement
This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for Microsoft Excel yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.
By model
How each model treated Microsoft Excel across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Twelve models, six prompts per category.
| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Negative | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 7 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 0 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 8 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 |
| Grok 4.1 Fast | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| Mistral Small | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 1 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 9 |
| Kimi K2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 5 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
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
Direct5 labelsNone
Paraphrase4 labelsNone
Comparative6 labels2not counted in share
Budget-constrained24 labels9
Scale-constrained1 labelNone
Negative106 labels3not counted in share
First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative146 labels in all, every segment counted; 9 of the 14 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.
“Microsoft Excel | General‑purpose financial modeling | Dominant in finance, powerful formulas, Python in Excel, AI Copilot, wide ecosystem” GLM 4.7 FlashX · Financial modeling · comparative prompt · first choice
“Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets remain the practical sweet spot, offering functionality, familiarity, and affordability.” Claude Haiku 4.5 · Financial modeling · budget prompt · first choice
“For many small businesses, the absolute best tool is the one you likely already own.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · Financial modeling · budget prompt · first choice
“includes options like Google Sheets or Excel, which are free or low-cost” Llama 4 Maverick · Financial modeling · 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.
“Heavy reliance on spreadsheets for consolidation. | Manual entry, broken formulas, copy‑paste errors, version‑control chaos, no audit trail. | A finance team that still reconciles intercompany balances in Excel.” GLM 4.7 FlashX · Financial consolidation · negative prompt · hard negative
“Spreadsheets / Excel: sources warn they create data integrity, version-control, security, and compliance risks, and they are poor for large or complex lease portfolios.” Perplexity Sonar · Lease accounting · negative prompt · hard negative
“Excel/Spreadsheets: They lack built-in audit controls, version history, and data validation, making them prone to errors, missed payments, and compliance issues.” Llama 4 Maverick · Lease accounting · negative prompt · hard negative
“Excel-first workflows are the clearest avoid-or-caution category because they are manual, prone to user error, and inefficient for cash management at scale.” Perplexity Sonar · Cash flow forecasting · negative prompt · hard negative
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as Microsoft Excel, over the 145 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Microsoft Excel was named but was not.
ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head
A head-to-head page exists where both products are in a category's top three. 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 Microsoft Excel. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.
Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, four of the twelve in this edition, so these counts come from 102 of the 145 answers that named Microsoft Excel and are not a share of its labels.
Domains cited
worldmetrics.org31
linkedin.com24
g2.com23
farseer.com22
cubesoftware.com19
reddit.com19
gartner.com17
datarails.com16
fathomhq.com15
guideflow.com15
201 of the 201 domain citations in answers naming Microsoft Excel came from somebody else's page.
Pages cited
Pages are listed as the models cited them.
Names read as Microsoft Excel
What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Microsoft Excel; a claim can dispute any of them.
Excel 26Excel/Spreadsheets 2Excel + Dropbox 1Excel / Spreadsheets 1Excel and Spreadsheets 1Excel/spreadsheets 1Microsoft Excel (with Templates) 1Spreadsheets and Excel 1spreadsheets/Excel 1
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