Every category where a model named Paychex 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	Since September 2026
PEO providers	Core HR and payroll	4%	7 of 53	18%	11	accepted challenger
401(k) providers	Compensation and total rewards	0%	17 of 78	27%	11	criticized challenger
HSA and FSA administrators	Compensation and total rewards	0%	33 of 111	0%	2	under 10 labels · led by HealthEquity at 29%
Compensation management	Compensation and total rewards	0%	132 of 140	100%	1	under 10 labels · led by Pave at 18%	newNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 0% now.
Earned wage access	Compensation and total rewards	0%	20 of 54	0%	1	under 10 labels · led by Tapcheck at 38%	=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
Leave and absence management	Core HR and payroll	0%	64 of 95	0%	1	under 10 labels · led by BambooHR at 28%	newNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 0% now.

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for Paychex yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment and per category, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated Paychex across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.

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Model	First choice	Alternative	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	0	1	2	1	4
GPT-5.4 mini	0	1	0	0	1
Gemini 3.5 Flash	0	0	1	1	2
Perplexity Sonar	2	1	1	0	4
Grok 4.1 Fast	0	2	3	0	5
Mistral Small	0	1	0	0	1
DeepSeek V4 Flash	0	0	1	1	2
Llama 4 Maverick	0	0	0	0	0
Qwen 3.7 Flash	2	0	0	0	2
Kimi K2	0	0	1	1	2
GLM 4.7 FlashX	0	1	0	1	2
MiniMax M2.5	0	0	1	0	1
GPT-6 Luna	0	0	0	0	0
Muse Glimmer 30B	0	0	0	1	1

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

Direct8 labels1

Paraphrase12 labels2

Comparative23 labelsNone

Budget-constrained14 labels1

Scale-constrained5 labelsNone

Negative36 labels2not counted in share

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative98 labels in all, every segment counted; 4 of the 6 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.

“Best overall for midsize businesses: Paychex — multiple guides explicitly position it as a strong fit for midsize companies.” Perplexity Sonar · PEOs · direct prompt · first choice

“SAFE BET: Stick to large, publicly traded PEOs (like Paychex, ADP TotalSource, Rippling)” Qwen 3.7 Flash · PEOs · negative prompt · first choice

“Paychex appears to be one of the more budget-friendly options for very small teams” Perplexity Sonar · PEOs · budget prompt · first choice

“or Paychex (integrated within large corporate HR platforms)” Qwen 3.7 Flash · Earned wage access · negative 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.

“User complaints about persistent accuracy issues ... slow resolution times, and poor customer support” Kimi K2 · Compensation management · negative prompt · hard negative

“Common Examples: *ADP Retirement Services and Paychex*... these bundled payroll 401(k) plans historically carry high administrative and recordkeeping costs” Gemini 3.5 Flash · 401(k) providers · negative prompt · soft negative

“A major drawback users mention with Paychex is issues with accurate time-tracking and payroll processing” Claude Haiku 4.5 · PEOs · negative prompt · soft negative

“Paychex and some legacy mutual fund firms have mixed reviews on fees and service.” GLM 4.7 FlashX · 401(k) providers · negative prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Paychex, over the 98 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Paychex was named but was not.

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ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

ADP Retirement Services37 of 983Not among the top eight

Guideline27 of 9812Not among the top eight

ADP TotalSource25 of 987Compare →

Human Interest25 of 983Not among the top eight

Vanguard24 of 983Not among the top eight

Justworks22 of 989Compare →

TriNet22 of 983Compare →

Insperity20 of 980Compare →

Rippling19 of 985Compare →

Fidelity Advantage 40119 of 983Not among the top eight

A head-to-head page exists where both products are among a category's top eight. 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 Paychex. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, five of the fourteen in this edition, so these counts come from 92 of the 98 answers that named Paychex and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

forbes.com39

business.com34

fitsmallbusiness.com25

peoplemanagingpeople.com23

adp.com22

g2.com20

spotsaas.com19

reddit.com18

uschamber.com18

guideflow.com17

235 of the 235 domain citations in answers naming Paychex came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

forbes.com/advisor/business/software/best-peo-services18

business.com/categories/best-peo-services15

fidelity.com/retirement-ira/small-business/compare-retirement-plans15

themodernwallet.com/roundup/best-401k-providers-for-small-business14

betterment.com/top-401ks-for-small-businesses-in-202613

business.com/categories/best-employee-retirement-plans12

duncanins.com/best-401-k-plan-for-small-business12

fitsmallbusiness.com/best-401k-companies12

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Search and answers

paychex.com is not in Google's top ten for any of the category's searches. In the answers, Paychex takes 4% of first choices and Justworks takes 24%.

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In search

Google, US estimates

Position for “peo”

–

not in the top ten

Position for “peos”

–

not in the top ten

Searches for its name, Google: 550,000 a month (“paychex”)
AI search demand for its name, est.: 4,777 a month
Organic visits to its site: about 2,394,396 a month
Searches its site ranks for: 76,731 · 6,987 in the top three
Sites linking to it: 14,409
Paid Google search: No ads found in the estimate; that does not mean it runs none

Ads on GoogleDetailLess

98+ ads · 74 text, 22 video, 2 image · 68 shown in the last 30 days

First shown July 2023, as PXC Inc, verified. Ads started 2025-10 to 2026-09: 53 in the year, 45 before. 22 more by other advertisers linking to it.

On Google's pages: 1 2 3 4

In answers

This edition

Share of first choices

rank 7 of 53 in peos

Segment leader

24%

Justworks

First choices: 4 across its categories
Named in: 98 answers
Its own site cited: in 92 of the answers that named it

Search figures are US estimates from DataForSEO, read September 28, 2026; AI search demand is its modeled, directional estimate, not a count of queries to any assistant. The answers are this edition's. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.

What it publishes

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Addresses on paychex.com

2,944

subdomains included

Content

2,034

counted in the table below

Documentation

Product · Integration

0 · 1

Kind	Pages	Last 90 days	Latest
Blog	696	4	2026-09-24
News or press	601	6	2026-09-21
Podcast or video	503	27	2026-09-24
Glossary or explainer	119	14	2026-09-18
Report or ebook	57	0	2026-06-11
Comparison	37	0	2026-06-29
Template or tool	17	0	2025-12-17
Case study	2	0	2020-09-29
Webinar or virtual event	2	0	2020-10-06

Most recent

2026-09-24Week in review season 6 episode 55 podcast or video
2026-09-24Pay transparency readiness scorecard blog
2026-09-22Hubspot angie odowd ai crm agentic platform podcast or video
2026-09-21Paychex newsweek americas greatest companies 2026 news or press
2026-09-18What is a paycard glossary or explainer
2026-09-18What is a simple ira plan glossary or explainer

How it is countedHide how it is counted

Every page paychex.com exposes, subdomains included. Kind is read from the address and title. The last 90 days, the latest date and the twelve months count pages by when they were published, from the site's feeds, a date in the address, or the page's own publication date, read from up to a hundred of its most recently changed pages; a page that says only when it last changed is counted in its kind but not in when, so the recent counts are a floor, and a kind none of whose pages gives a publication date reads undated. An event counts as online when its address or title says so (webinar, on demand, virtual or online summit); a conference, summit, trade show, expo or roadshow that does not say so is counted as a conference or event, which on a vendor's site is mostly in person. Read September 29, 2026.

Follow Paychex

An email the morning each edition publishes: where this product moved, where it held, and by how much against the noise floor. One address, confirmed by a click; a stop link in every email.

Already following? Everything you follow, with a stop for each.

The company

Paychex is its own company.

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In its own words

Stated by the vendor, not checked

Positioning: Payroll & HR Solutions
paychex.com
For: the needs of any size business
paychex.com
Price stated: Paychex Flex pricing depends on your employee count and business needs. paychex.com
Free plan or trial: three (3) months of free payroll services paychex.com
Integrations claimed: 70 paychex.com/partnerships/financial-advisors/plans
Customers named: Tommy StuckeyHunter GarrettFeghali FoodsAudrey and Jordan ZybalaRon HashemiJanet GauchDeStefano Gauch & Associates CPA IncLago 210
Not stated on the pages read: Starting price, certifications, hosting

What Paychex's own pages state, read September 28, 2026: paychex.com, paychex.com/partnerships/financial-advisors/plans, paychex.com/worx/compliance, paychex.com/integrations. A claimed page can correct any of them.

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when Paychex's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as Paychex, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

What a new claim receivesHide what a new claim receives

A new claim receives the current edition's vendor brief for Paychex by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:

where Paychex is named, by buyer and by framing, and which cells hold its first choices;
the claims the models make when they name it, ranked, with the strongest and the weakest quoted;
its vocabulary against the segment leader's, and the pages the models cited;
who was chosen in the answers that did not name Paychex, and every reason the record gives;
a battlecard for each top rival: the head-to-head split, why they win, and the reservation quoted against them;
one page of published figures cleared to show a buyer.