> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.getcited.in/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Mention rate > Mention rate measures the percentage of AI-generated answers that reference your brand across tracked prompts. 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. ## 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 ``` mention_rate = (prompts_with_brand_mention / total_tracked_prompts) × 100 ``` **Inputs:** * `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. ``` mention_rate = (18 / 50) × 100 = 36% ``` This is a **moderate** mention rate — the brand appears in about one-third of relevant AI conversations. ## Cited Index benchmark — mention rate The following percentiles are computed from the [Cited Index](https://www.getcited.in/cited-index), March 2026 edition — a sample of 253 Indian brands across 8 categories, measured using 185 non-branded category prompts. These benchmarks measure non-branded category prompt performance only. If your own Cited dashboard shows higher mention rates, that is expected — your custom prompt library uses a broader mix of branded, comparison, and use-case prompts. ### 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% | **The median Indian brand has an 8% mention rate on non-branded category prompts.** The AI mentions them in roughly 1 out of every 12 relevant category searches. Even top-quartile brands only hit 16%. This is the real state of AI visibility for Indian D2C and B2B SaaS in early 2026. ### 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% | ChatGPT shows the highest mention rates at every percentile — its broader training corpus means it has seen more brands. Perplexity is strictest, with a full 25% of brands receiving zero mentions. Grok and Google's AI surfaces are tracked in individual brand dashboards but not yet included in the Cited Index pipeline. ### 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% | Consumer categories (Travel & Luggage, Skincare & Beauty, Audio & Wearables) outperform fintech and B2B SaaS categories at the median. This reflects two underlying realities: consumer brands typically have more third-party editorial coverage that LLMs have indexed, and category prompts for consumer products get more training-data coverage than B2B SaaS prompts. **How to read these benchmarks:** * 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 prompts go to competitors * Below p25 (under 5%): Largely invisible, urgent GEO work required Categories with fewer than 25 brands (Skincare & Beauty, Travel & Luggage, Audio & Wearables) have noisier percentile estimates — individual brand movements can shift the p75 by several percentage points. Larger categories (Credit Cards, Online Learning, CRM & Sales, Digital Payments) have more stable distributions. ## 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](/get-started/create-your-first-brand) against all tracked [AI platforms](/methodology/which-llms-we-track) at regular intervals. Each response is parsed for brand mentions using our [extraction pipeline](/methodology/mention-extraction). Mention rate is aggregated daily and reported per-platform and overall. ## Related concepts * [Citation rate](/concepts/metrics/citation-rate) — mentions with a link back to your domain * [Share of voice](/concepts/metrics/share-of-voice) — your mention rate relative to competitors * [Sentiment](/concepts/metrics/sentiment) — how the AI characterizes your brand when it does mention you * [Non-determinism](/concepts/foundations/non-determinism) — why mention rates fluctuate between runs ## Frequently asked questions 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. 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. Mention rate measures whether you appear at all. Share of voice measures how often you appear relative to competitors for the same set of prompts. You need a non-zero mention rate before share of voice becomes meaningful. 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. 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 prompts. 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 prompts. Compare against the per-category benchmarks above for a more specific answer.