When asked for the best LLM API provider, 6 AI assistants named 5 brands between them this month. Anthropic was named most often, followed by OpenAI and Groq. 2 brands were named by every assistant that answered: Anthropic, OpenAI.
Who named whom
| Brand | ChatGPT | Perplexity | Claude | Grok | DeepSeek | Cohere | Named by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 6 of 6 |
| OpenAI | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 6 of 6 |
| Groq | · | · | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | · | 3 of 6 |
| Mistral | · | ✓ | ✓ | · | ✓ | · | 3 of 6 |
| OpenRouter | · | ✓ | ✓ | · | ✓ | · | 3 of 6 |
Share of voice
What each assistant said
ChatGPT
Named 2 brands, in this order: OpenAI, Anthropic.
Choosing the best LLM (Large Language Model) API provider for a small business depends on several factors, including cost, features, ease of use, and specific business needs.
Perplexity
Named 4 brands, in this order: OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter, Mistral.
For a small business, the best LLM API provider depends on your main priority: lowest friction, lowest cost, or open-model flexibility.
Claude
Named 5 brands, in this order: OpenAI, Anthropic, Groq, Mistral, OpenRouter.
Here's a practical breakdown to help you decide:
Grok
Named 3 brands, in this order: OpenAI, Groq, Anthropic.
The "best" LLM API provider for a small business depends on your specific needs (budget, use case, latency requirements, and data sensitivity), but here's a practical breakdown based on real-world usage by small teams.
DeepSeek
Named 5 brands, in this order: OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, Groq, OpenRouter.
There's no single "best" — it depends on your priorities.
Cohere
Named 2 brands, in this order: OpenAI, Anthropic.
Choosing the best Large Language Model (LLM) API provider for a small business depends on several factors, including cost, ease of integration, scalability, and specific use cases.
The questions asked
- What is the best LLM API provider for a small business?
Asked between 2026-09-26 and 2026-09-26. Not answering this month: Gemini, Mistral.
Track what AI assistants say about every client, with white-label reports your clients can read.
See the GEO suiteHow this was measured
Each month we ask every assistant the same plain buyer questions, worded the way a person shopping for this kind of product would ask them, with no brand suggested in the question except where the question itself names the market leader to find alternatives to. Each assistant answers in a fresh session with no earlier conversation, so an answer reflects what the assistant says to anyone who asks, not what it was steered towards.
From each answer we keep the product and company names it recommends. A name counts only when it appears in the answer as a proper name, is not a heading such as "Best for" or "Pricing", and is confirmed by a second assistant naming it too, by a website the answer cites, or by being the market leader named in the question. Share of voice is each brand's share of all brand mentions in the category this month. Assistants that could not answer this month are listed as not answering, never counted as naming nobody.
Cite this page
https://mentionfox.com/ai-recommends/llm-api-providers