Mention rate is the percentage of tracked prompts for which an AI platform mentions a brand by name in its generated answer. It is the most fundamental AI visibility metric — if you are not mentioned, nothing else matters.Documentation Index
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Why it matters
Mention rate answers the simplest question in AI visibility: does the AI know you exist? Before you can optimize for citation position, sentiment, or share of voice, you need to appear in the answer at all. A 0% mention rate on a platform means you are invisible to every user who asks that AI about your category.Formula
prompts_with_brand_mention— number of prompts where the AI mentioned your brand by name (with or without a link)total_tracked_prompts— total number of prompts in your prompt library that were run against this platform
Example calculation
A D2C skincare brand tracks 50 prompts across ChatGPT. In the latest run, ChatGPT mentioned the brand in 18 out of 50 answers.Cited Index benchmark — mention rate
The following percentiles are computed from the Cited Index, March 2026 edition — a sample of 253 Indian brands across 8 categories, measured using 185 non-branded category queries. See the benchmarks methodology for how these numbers are computed and what they do and do not measure. These benchmarks measure non-branded category query performance only. If a brand’s own Cited dashboard shows higher mention rates, that is expected — dashboards use a broader mix of branded, comparison, and use-case queries.Overall distribution
Across 281 brand-category observations from 253 unique brands:| Percentile | Mention rate |
|---|---|
| p10 | 2.5% |
| p25 | 5.0% |
| p50 (median) | 8.0% |
| p75 | 16.0% |
| p90 | 34.0% |
By platform
Different AI platforms have different source selection rules and mention thresholds:| Platform | p25 | p50 | p75 |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 5.0% | 10.0% | 24.0% |
| Gemini | 4.0% | 8.0% | 20.0% |
| Claude | 4.0% | 8.0% | 15.0% |
| Perplexity | 0.0% | 5.0% | 12.0% |
By category
Mention rates vary significantly by category, driven by how saturated the category is and how much AI-ready content exists:| Category | Brands | p25 | p50 | p75 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Travel & Luggage | 21 | 10.0% | 19.0% | 32.0% |
| Skincare & Beauty | 21 | 9.0% | 12.0% | 30.0% |
| Audio & Wearables | 22 | 7.0% | 11.5% | 16.5% |
| HR & Payroll | 31 | 5.0% | 10.0% | 28.1% |
| Credit Cards | 42 | 6.0% | 9.0% | 12.0% |
| Online Learning | 34 | 6.3% | 8.0% | 13.8% |
| CRM & Sales | 55 | 2.5% | 5.0% | 10.0% |
| Digital Payments | 55 | 2.5% | 5.0% | 7.5% |
- Above p90 (over 34% overall): Category leader tier
- p75-p90 (16-34%): Strong presence, visible in most relevant searches
- p50-p75 (8-16%): Average visibility, room for significant improvement
- p25-p50 (5-8%): Below average, most category queries go to competitors
- Below p25 (under 5%): Largely invisible, urgent GEO work required
What changes this metric
- Content volume and freshness — more indexed, recent content increases the chance an LLM has seen your brand
- Editorial coverage — third-party mentions in publications that LLMs cite
- Structured data — schema markup helps LLMs understand what your brand does
- llms.txt — explicitly telling AI crawlers about your site’s key pages
- Prompt specificity — branded prompts will always have higher mention rates than generic category prompts
How Cited measures it
Cited runs each prompt in your prompt library against all tracked AI platforms at regular intervals. Each response is parsed for brand mentions using our extraction pipeline. Mention rate is aggregated daily and reported per-platform and overall.Related concepts
- Citation rate — mentions with a link back to your domain
- Share of voice — your mention rate relative to competitors
- Sentiment — how the AI characterizes your brand when it does mention you
- Non-determinism — why mention rates fluctuate between runs
Frequently asked questions
What is mention rate in AI search?
What is mention rate in AI search?
Mention rate is the percentage of tracked prompts for which an AI platform — such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini — mentions a brand by name in its generated answer. It is the most fundamental metric in AI visibility measurement.
How is mention rate different from citation rate?
How is mention rate different from citation rate?
Mention rate tracks whether a brand is named at all in an AI answer. Citation rate is stricter — it tracks whether the AI includes a direct link to the brand’s domain. A brand can be mentioned without being cited.
How is mention rate different from share of voice?
How is mention rate different from share of voice?
Why does my mention rate change between runs?
Why does my mention rate change between runs?
LLMs are non-deterministic — the same prompt can produce different answers on different runs. Cited accounts for this by running multiple passes and reporting statistical aggregates rather than single-run snapshots.
What is a good mention rate?
What is a good mention rate?
It depends on your category and prompt mix. According to the Cited Index March 2026 benchmark, the median Indian brand has an 8% mention rate on non-branded category queries. The top quartile (p75) reaches 16%, and the top decile (p90) reaches 34%. Customer dashboards typically show higher numbers because they include branded and comparison queries. Compare against the per-category benchmarks above for a more specific answer.