What are phishing simulation benchmarks?

Benchmarks are reference rates for clicking, credential submission and reporting that let an organisation compare its results against a wider population rather than only against its own last campaign.

What are the current reference numbers?

The median click rate for email simulations is around 1.4%, and phone centric simulations fail at roughly 40% higher rates (Verizon, 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report, 2026, p. 50).

Are benchmarks reliable for comparison?

Only with caution. Scenario difficulty, industry, audience and even how a click is counted vary between programmes, so a benchmark sets context rather than a target.

What should you compare against instead?

Your own trend, segmented by department and by channel. The useful question is whether reporting is rising and time to report is falling in the groups that carry the most risk.

Which metrics belong in a board report?

Susceptibility by channel, reporting rate, time to report, repeat exposure, and how those move across quarters. Completion counts belong in a compliance record rather than a risk report.

How often should you benchmark?

Quarterly is enough to see a trend. Monthly comparison usually measures scenario variation rather than any change in behaviour.

Phishing Simulation Benchmarks: How Does Your Organization Compare?

Phishing simulation benchmarks help organizations evaluate their security awareness and identify areas for improvement. Learn how to use these benchmarks to strengthen your defenses.

Ozan Ucar, Founder and CEO of Keepnet

Last Updated: 2026-10-22

Phishing Simulation Benchmarks: How Does Your Organization Compare?

Phishing simulation benchmarks should come from independent datasets, not vendor marketing. The Verizon 2026 DBIR reports median click rates of ~1.4% for email simulations and ~2% for phone-centric scenarios (~40% higher, p. 50). Use these medians to grade cohorts, not to celebrate low single-digit clicks alone.

Phishing simulation benchmarks at a glance (2026)

Channel	Median click rate	Use in benchmarking
Email	~1.4%	Default SAT baseline
Phone / SMS / voice	~2%	Multi-channel programs
Gap	~40% higher on phone	Justifies vishing/smishing sims

DBIR 2026 simulation medians

How to compare your organization

Benchmark by role and channel. Finance and help-desk cohorts often exceed company-wide medians on callback and BEC templates. Pair click data with reporting rate and time-to-report. Gartner found that 84% of security leaders track training completion as a top metric (G00840741, n=65), while fewer than 10% of breaches at midsize enterprises involve phishing (G00811878).

Why this matters

A 1.2% email click rate means little if phone sims fail at 4% and nobody reports.

What security leaders should do

Publish channel-specific medians in QBRs. Cross-check with SBCP metrics and phishing statistics 2026.

Cohort reporting benchmarks

Track repeat-failure cohorts after each campaign. Compare year-over-year medians against DBIR published sim statistics, not against arbitrary industry blog percentages.

Sources

Verizon 2026 DBIR summary
Gartner G00811878, G00840741 (2025 and 2026).

Editor's Note: This article was updated on March 12, 2026.

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