Overview Leaderboard Methodology
Industry Report

VPN Services

Consumer virtual private network subscription services.

Brands tracked: 31
Brands analyzed: 31
Last updated: 2026-04-23
Model: OpenAI GPT-5
Prompts: 251
Total responses: 1,260
Top Brand Overall?
NordVPN
97/100

Highest overall AI Visibility Score in this industry.

LBA Leader?
NordVPN
95

Highest score on the LBA metric in this industry.

Authority Leader?
NordVPN
94

Highest score on the Authority metric in this industry.

TOM Leader?
NordVPN
100

Highest score on the TOM metric in this industry.

NordVPN is the default answer in AI responses for VPN Services

When users ask ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini about VPN Services, NordVPN is the brand that surfaces first - unprompted, consistently, and usually at the top of any list the model generates. Proton VPN is a close second, but the gap between them is meaningful. If you're competing in this space and you're not in the top handful, you're effectively invisible to AI-driven discovery.

Brand Leaderboard All 31 VPN Services brands ranked

Ranked by overall AI Visibility Score (smoothed geometric mean of LBA, Authority, and TOM with an LBA-based floor on Authority and TOM, see methodology). Click any brand for the full report.

# Brand LBA Authority TOM Overall
1
NordVPN
nordvpn.com
 95
94
100
97
2
Proton VPN
protonvpn.com
 91
79
83
84
3
ExpressVPN
expressvpn.com
 93
64
87
81
4
Surfshark
surfshark.com
 83
66
75
74
5
Mullvad
mullvad.net
 84
40
72
62
6
CyberGhost
cyberghostvpn.com
 77
10
24
28
7
Private Internet Access
privateinternetaccess.com
 84
13
17
28
8
IVPN
ivpn.net
 72
7
22
24
9
TorGuard
torguard.net
 72
7
7
18
10
Windscribe
windscribe.com
 72
7
7
18
11
AirVPN
airvpn.org
 69
7
7
17
12
hide.me
hide.me
 68
7
7
17
13
HMA
hidemyass.com
 70
7
7
17
14
Hotspot Shield
hotspotshield.com
 70
7
7
17
15
IPVanish
ipvanish.com
 70
7
7
17
16
PureVPN
purevpn.com
 70
7
7
17
17
TunnelBear
tunnelbear.com
 68
7
7
17
18
VyprVPN
vyprvpn.com
 65
6
6
16
19
Astrill VPN
astrill.com
 63
6
6
15
20
Brave
brave.com
 59
6
6
15
21
StrongVPN
strongvpn.com
 60
6
6
15
22
VPN Unlimited
vpnunlimited.com
 60
6
6
15
23
ZenMate
zenmate.com
 59
6
6
15
24
PrivadoVPN
privadovpn.com
 54
5
5
14
25
FastestVPN
fastestvpn.com
 45
5
5
12
26
VPN.ac
vpn.ac
 47
5
5
12
27
OVPN
ovpn.com
 44
4
4
11
28
Trust.Zone
trust.zone
 39
4
4
10
29
CactusVPN
cactusvpn.com
 34
3
3
9
30
Goose VPN
goosevpn.com
 33
3
3
9
31
ZoogVPN
zoogvpn.com
 33
3
3
9

How is this calculated? Methodology

Every brand in this leaderboard is scored against the same set of 251 shared VPN Services prompts. The same prompts, same model, same iterations. So differences in scores reflect actual differences in AI visibility, not differences in measurement.

Overall AI Visibility Score
Smoothed geometric mean of LBA, Authority and TOM. Authority and TOM are floored at LBA × 0.1 before the geometric mean (the same floor used in the per-metric cards above, so brand cards and the composite tell the same story). Formula: composite = ((LBA + 5)(Authority + 5)(TOM + 5))^(1/3) - 5. The floor keeps brands the model clearly recognises but doesn't yet recommend from collapsing to zero, while a single genuinely weak metric still pulls the composite down. Full methodology.
Shared industry prompts
For Authority and TOM, all brands in the industry are scored against the same 251 category prompts (e.g. "best SEO tools for agencies"). This makes brand-to-brand comparisons valid - everyone faces identical inputs. LBA prompts are per-brand because they ask brand-specific questions.
Latent Brand Association (LBA)
5 brand probes + 1 control prompt, each run 5 times in recall mode (no web search). LBA = quality × meta × stability × share × recognition × 100. Read the full LBA methodology →
LLM Authority
50 organic category prompts (discovery, comparison, problem and transactional intents), each run once in recall mode and once in retrieval mode. Score = frequency × log-decayed prominence × intent weight, then 50/50 averaged across the two modes. Read the full Authority methodology →
Top of Mind (TOM)
15 high-volume discovery prompts (sourced from Keywords Everywhere search-volume data), each run 5 times in pure recall mode (no web). Score = frequency × (0.5 + 0.5 × log-prominence), volume-weighted. Read the full TOM methodology →