Attrifast Research
Original benchmarks on AI search and revenue attribution.
Eight original studies on the AI-traffic and AI-citation surfaces, drawn from the Attrifast 200-site Stripe-connected cohort and from prompt-tracking studies we run quarterly. Every study below names its sample size, exposes its methodology, and admits its limitations — the goal is not to win on rhetoric but to publish numbers other operators can replicate and check.
If you want one piece of context for everything that follows, read the 2026 AI Search Revenue Benchmark first — the per-engine RPV table is the data point most operators are missing.
The studies
- 200 Stripe-connected sitesThe 2026 AI Search Revenue BenchmarkReal data from 200 Stripe-connected sites — per-engine RPV, conversion rate, and ROI vs paid search. This is the piece I send when a CFO asks 'is this channel real?'
- 200 sites, ~12M sessionsAI Traffic Conversion Rate Benchmarks 2026What good looks like by channel, vertical, and AI engine — methodology disclosed, confidence intervals named, and the verticals where AI traffic underperforms are not hidden.
- 1,200 prompts × 4 enginesAI Citation Rates by Industry 2026A 1,200-prompt study across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. Citation rate by industry, with the categories where AI engines disagree dramatically about who to recommend.
- 200 sites segmented by ARRAI Citation Rate Benchmarks by Brand SizeStartup vs growth vs enterprise — the 200-site analysis showing citation rate by stage, and the structural pattern that lets smaller brands outpunch their domain authority.
- 200 sites, per-engine splitChatGPT vs Perplexity vs Claude Traffic QualityWhich AI engine sends the best visits — 200-site cohort study with per-engine RPV, conversion rate, and order-value breakdown. The volume-vs-quality trade-off named explicitly.
- 200 sites, paired channelsChatGPT vs Google Traffic QualityData from 200 sites — the conversion gap between AI-sourced and search-sourced visits. Includes the population-skew caveat most "AI traffic is great" claims gloss over.
- 200 sites, full distributionHow Much Traffic Comes From ChatGPT in 2026?The Attrifast 200-site cohort benchmark — what real ChatGPT referral volume looks like for SMB SaaS and e-commerce. With the percentile distribution, not just the average.
- 150 prompts × 3 runs eachWhich Brands Does ChatGPT Recommend in 2026?150-prompt, 450-run study across categories — the patterns in who ChatGPT names and why. Includes the categories where ChatGPT's recommendations are wildly inconsistent run-to-run.
A note on methodology
The Attrifast cohort is 200 Stripe-connected sites running our tracker across SaaS, e-commerce, indie products, and content businesses. The cohort is opted-in and anonymized for research use; no individual site is identifiable in any published number. Sample sizes named in each study reflect the subset of the cohort that met inclusion criteria for that specific question.
Prompt-tracking studies (citation rates, brand recommendations) are run by issuing the same prompt set against the public-facing chat interfaces of each engine, with at minimum 3 runs per prompt to capture run-to-run variance. We do not use vendor APIs unless explicitly noted, because the public chat interfaces are what real users see.
Where a study reports a limitation, the limitation is real and the number is the best we can produce honestly. If you find a methodological gap we missed, the contact form goes directly to me.
Your site, anonymized, in the next benchmark.
Attrifast customers are automatically included (anonymized, opt-out in dashboard) in the cohort we use for these studies. Two-minute tracker install, $29/mo, no engineering ticket required.
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