AI Indexes
HR AI Index
September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › Learning and development › Mentoring software › Small business › September 2026 Edition

Mentoring software for small business buyers

Asked as “mentoring program software”, and as “employee mentoring platform”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 52 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
37%
Contested · PushFar 19%
37Mentorloop19PushFar08MentorCity37others

37% of first choices, contested.

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.

The 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
01Mentorloop37%4%46endorsed leader
02PushFar19%0%37accepted challenger
03MentorCity8%0%11accepted challenger
04Qooper8%35%40criticized challenger
05Together6%43%44criticized challenger
06MentorcliQ4%68%38criticized challenger
07MicroMentor2%7%29accepted challenger
08MentorCruise2%20%10accepted challenger
Show the four products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
12Chronus0%79%34criticized challenger
10GrowthMentor0%10%21accepted challenger
11ADPList0%8%13accepted challenger
09SCORE0%0%19accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.
All twenty-eight head-to-head pages: the top eight products, each against each

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
12
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative50%
Key
01Mentorloop37%
02PushFar19%
03MentorCity8%
04Qooper8%
05Together6%
06MentorcliQ4%
07MicroMentor2%
08MentorCruise2%
09SCORE0%
10GrowthMentor0%
11ADPList0%
12Chronus0%

What they warned about

Six of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Mistral Small, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2, 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.
MentorcliQ
68%
26 of 38 labels negative · 11 of 12 models · 9 hard negative
“Specific Platforms/Services to Approach with Extreme Caution or Avoid: Enterprise-focused mentoring software (e.g., MentorcliQ, Chronus, Together)” Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt
Chronus
79%
27 of 34 labels negative · 11 of 12 models · 7 hard negative
“"Why skip for now: Unless you have >100 employees and complex compliance requirements, Chronus will drain your budget and admin time."” Muse Glimmer 30B, negative prompt
Together
43%
19 of 44 labels negative · 9 of 12 models · 5 hard negative
“Built for enterprise-scale organizations with dedicated HR/L&D teams; quote-based pricing assuming large budgets” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
Qooper
35%
14 of 40 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Built for enterprise-scale organizations with dedicated HR/L&D teams; quote-based pricing assuming large budgets” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt

What they cite

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

Sites the answers cite

80 of 84 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 14 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 1089 links across 118 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

vendor site · GrowthMentor53 answers · 68 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Qooper42 answers · 82 citations · 13 models
vendor site · G235 answers · 58 citations · 12 models
vendor site · ADPList35 answers · 42 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Guideflow32 answers · 42 citations · 10 models
30 answers · 30 citations · 9 models
28 answers · 45 citations · 11 models
27 answers · 38 citations · 11 models
26 answers · 26 citations · 9 models
vendor site · MentorCruise25 answers · 42 citations · 10 models
25 answers · 31 citations · 9 models
25 answers · 29 citations · 11 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.

Search against answers

Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best mentoring program software”, “mentoring platforms”, “mentoring program software”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Company and productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
Mentorloop mentorloop.com37%95260332,28911
PushFar pushfar.com19%709032,521
MentorCity mentorcity.com8%26260183410
Qooper qooper.io8%1407200144,826$31841
Together togetherplatform.com
Together 6%, Together Corporate Mentorship 2%
8%163165,0001,119,61037,95203
MentorStack mentorstack.co6%8
Mentornity mentornity.com4%15702368
Mentorink mentorink.com4%11
MentorcliQ mentorcliq.com4%1478804164,583$124178
MicroMentor micromentor.org2%3939032,6790

Google's top ten for the three searches hold 16 sites; 6 of them are among the sites the models cited here (adplist.org, growthmentor.com, mentorcruise.com, peoplemanagingpeople.com, qooper.io, togetherplatform.com). The first result for “best mentoring program software” is peoplemanagingpeople.com.

How 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.
ShowHide
ModelDirect“What is the best mentoring program software for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which employee mentoring platform would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top mentoring platforms for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best mentoring program software for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating a mentoring program software. What should we look at?”Negative“Which mentoring platforms should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5PushFar
Two alternativesMentorloop, Qooper
PushFarHeld
One alternativeMentorloop
against: Chronus, Qooper
Mentornity, PushFar
Two alternativesMentorloop, Qooper
Mentorloop
Five alternativesMentorCruise, Mentorink, MicroMentor, PushFar, SCORE
no first choiceagainst: Clarity.fm, GrowthMentor, LinkedIn, MicroMentor
GPT-5.4 miniMentorloop
Three alternativesGrowthMentor, MentorcliQ, Together
MentorloopHeld
Two alternativesMentorly, Mentornity
against: MentorcliQ
Together
Two alternativesMentorcliQ, Qooper
against: ADPList, Chronus, MentorCruise
Mentorloop
One alternativeTogether
against: Chronus
no first choiceagainst: AMZMentors, GrowthMentor, MentorShow, Smart Coach, The Small Business Handbook
Gemini 3.5 FlashMentorloop
Three alternativesMentorgain, Mentorink, PushFar
against: Chronus, MentorcliQ, Qooper, Together
MentorloopHeld
Three alternativesGrowthMentor, MentorCruise, PushFar
against: Chronus, MentorcliQ, Together
Mentorloop
Seven alternativesADPList, Donut, GrowthMentor, MentorCruise, Mentorgain, Mentorink, PushFar
against: Chronus, Qooper, Together
MentorStack, Mentorloop
Three alternativesMentorgain, Mentornity, PushFar
against: Chronus, Qooper, Together
MentorStack, Mentorloop
Two alternativesMentornity, PushFar
against: Chronus, MentorcliQ, Qooper, Together
against: Chronus, Clarity.fm, MentorcliQ, Qooper, Together
Perplexity SonarQooper
Two alternativesMentorloop, PushFar
QooperHeld
Three alternativesChronus, PushFar, Together
Qooper
Three alternativesChronus, Mentorloop, MicroMentor
against: Together
Mentorloop
Two alternativesMicroMentor, SCORE
against: Qooper
no first choiceagainst: Chronus, MentorcliQ, Together
Grok 4.1 FastMentorloop
Two alternativesPushFar, Together
against: Chronus, Qooper
MentorloopHeld
One alternativeTogether Mentoring Platform
against: Chronus, MentorcliQ
Mentorloop, PushFar
Three alternativesMicroMentor, Qooper, Together
against: Chronus, MentorcliQ
MentorCity
Three alternativesMentorloop, Qooper, Together
against: MentorcliQ
no first choice
Four alternativesGuideflow, MentorCity, Mentorloop, Qooper
against: Chronus, ClickFunnels, Lurn, MentorcliQ, MicroMentor, Stayly and Stayly Academy, Together
Mistral SmallQooper
Two alternativesDreami, Together Corporate Mentorship
Qooper, Together Corporate MentorshipChanged
One alternativeMicroMentor
Mentorloop
Three alternativesADPList, GrowthMentor, MicroMentor
PushFarno first choiceagainst: Clarity.fm, Topmate
DeepSeek V4 FlashMentorloop
Two alternativesQooper, Together
against: MentorcliQ
MentorloopHeld
One alternativeQooper
against: Chronus, MentorcliQ, Together
PushFar
One alternativeMentorloop
against: Chronus, Qooper, Together
Mentorink, Together
Two alternativesADPList, MentorCity
against: Chronus, MentorCloud, MentorcliQ, Qooper
PushFar
Three alternativesGuider, MentorStack, Mentorloop
against: MentorcliQ, Qooper, Together
against: Chronus, Clarity.fm, MentorcliQ, Mentorloop, Qooper, Together
Llama 4 Maverickno first choiceMentorcliQChangedMentorloop
One alternativeMicroMentor
MicroMentor, PushFarno first choiceagainst: Chronus, MentorcliQ, Together
Qwen 3.7 FlashTogether
Two alternativesMentorCity, Mentorloop
against: Chronus, MentorcliQ
MentorcliQChanged
Two alternativesChronus, Ten Thousand Coffees
Mentorloop, Together
Five alternativesGrowthMentor, Mentornity, MicroMentor, PushFar, SCORE
MentorStack, Mentornity
Three alternativesCoachVantage, MicroMentor, PushFar
against: Mentorloop
no first choicenothing named
Kimi K2Mentorloop, PushFar
Two alternativesQooper, Together
against: Chronus
PushFarChanged
Two alternativesGuider, Mentorink
against: MentorcliQ, Together
PushFar
Two alternativesMentorloop, Ten Thousand Coffees
MentorCity, Together
Two alternativesPushFar, Qooper
no first choiceagainst: Automators AI, Chronus, Clarity.fm, Lurn, Mastermind.com, MentorcliQ, Together
GLM 4.7 FlashXMentorloop, PushFar
Two alternativesMentorCity, Qooper
against: MentorcliQ, Together
MentorloopChanged
One alternativeMentorCity
MentorCity, PushFar
Two alternativesQooper, Together
PushFar
Three alternativesADPList, GroupApp, GrowthMentor
no first choiceagainst: Chronus, MentorcliQ
MiniMax M2.5no first choicePushFarChanged
Two alternativesMentorloop, Together
GroupApp, Together
One alternativeGrowthMentor
MentorCity
Three alternativesMentorloop, MicroMentor, PushFar
no first choicenothing named
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

The 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-4-5-202510012026-10-01 09:07yes98 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 08:34yes34 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 08:07yes2526 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 11:48yes173 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 10:14yes2310 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 11:45yes53 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 09:15yes2333 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 09:27yes52 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 09:53yes530 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 11:58yes914 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 11:57yes1442 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 08:44yes1117 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 08:30yes96 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 07:56yes45 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 09:51yes1321 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 11:18yes183 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 11:23yes238 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 11:10yes53 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 09:08yes2523 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 09:31yes53 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 09:25yes17113 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 10:00yes1820 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 10:35yes23116 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 10:19yes1526 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 08:32yes1410 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 09:12yes27 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 09:26yes2030 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 11:13yes165 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 10:59yes199 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 10:13yes1914 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 10:12yes2524 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 11:28yes52 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 08:28yes943 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 09:37yes1931 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 08:26yes2437 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 10:03yes519 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 11:50yes106 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 10:26yes35 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 08:37yes1623 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 08:23yes184 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 09:20yes218 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 10:58yes52 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 09:49yes2354 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 09:18yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 11:01yes1346 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 12:03yes2039 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 10:51yes2225 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 07:42yes2030 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 07:52no05 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 07:51no05 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 09:44yes1021 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 10:22yes184 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 10:39yes138 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 08:24no06 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 11:37yes2333 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 09:21yes52 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 09:24no028 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 09:47yes517 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 08:33yes2219 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 11:48yes513 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 10:50yes188 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 08:13yes55 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 12:18yes1950 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 09:26yes202 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 07:42yes219 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 09:50yes55 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 07:46yes2137 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 10:53yes52 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 08:31yes1029 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 08:11yes2330 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 08:23yes2397 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 09:40yes1826 s

Normalization in this category

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

ShowHide
Category-scoped readings
None. Every name in this category resolved on its own.
Unresolved, counted raw
AMZMentors
Automators AI
ClickFunnels
Digital Altitude
Dreami
F6S
Mastermind.com
Mentlify
PazCare
Qubiks
SBA resource partner
SBDCs
Stayly and Stayly Academy
The Small Business Handbook
Together Mentoring Platform
Turazo
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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