Best Phishing Simulation Tools for Businesses in 2026, Ranked on What Actually Changes Behavior

Every phishing simulation tool promises to make your employees safer. Here’s the awkward part: the best independent evidence says generic email training, the way most programs run it, barely moves the needle. Ho and colleagues ran a randomized trial with more than 19,500 employees at UC San Diego Health and found “no significant relationship between whether users have recently completed cybersecurity awareness training and their likelihood of failing” (Ho et al., IEEE S&P 2025). Training shown right at the moment of a click did help. By about 2%.

That doesn’t mean you should stop simulating. The same study found that what the email said changed failure rates seventeen-fold, and that tells you where the real leverage is. So this guide asks a narrower question than most rankings. Which tools are actually built around the things the evidence says make a difference? We look at ten phishing simulation tools for businesses across seven criteria, from how each lure fits the person to whether the results still mean anything a year from now. By the end, you’ll know what to ask on a demo and which tool suits your team.

What is a phishing simulation tool?

A phishing simulation tool sends your employees harmless versions of real attacks, keeps track of what each person does with them, and teaches from the result. The classic version is an email with a tracked link. Someone clicks, a page explains what they missed, and the admin gets a click rate.

That worked fine when the threat was mostly email. It works less well now. The 2026 Verizon DBIR found that 41% of social engineering breaches used something other than email, and the APWG Phishing Activity Trends Report for Q2 2026 found phishing attacks up 10.1% in a single quarter, with voice and SMS growing faster than email. Picture an attacker who emails an invoice and then calls the finance team about it. That’s one attack across two channels, and most tools only see half of it.

The frameworks expect this kind of practice, too. NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5, control AT-2(1), says organizations should “provide practical exercises in literacy training that simulate events and incidents” (FedRAMP). PCI DSS v4.0.1 Requirement 12.6.3.1 wants awareness training to cover “phishing and related attacks” and “social engineering.” ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A control 6.3 asks for training “as relevant for their job function,” and NIS2 Article 21(2)(g) lists “basic cyber hygiene practices and cybersecurity training” among the required measures. The New York Department of Financial Services goes the furthest. Its industry letter of 16 October 2024 says training on social engineering “can be effectively delivered through simulated phishing, and voice and video impersonation exercises.”

So what’s the difference between an older tool and a current one? An older tool is basically a template library and a click counter. A current one fits the lure to the person, rehearses the phone call that finishes the fraud, measures reporting as well as clicking, and keeps scanner noise out of the numbers. Brightside AI is built on that second model, pairing role-matched email with live AI phone calls in the same campaign.

What to look for in a phishing simulation tool

Here are seven questions. Each one is tied to something the research or the threat data says matters, and each comes with a check you can run during a trial.

Is each lure matched to the person’s role and work?

This is where the evidence is strongest. In the UC San Diego trial, an email about a vacation policy caught 30.8% of people, while a fake Outlook password notice caught just 1.8%. KnowBe4’s Q4 2025 phishing trends report found that “internal topics dominated engagement, appearing in 100% of the top 10 most-clicked subject lines” (KnowBe4). And relevance is cheap for attackers now. In a study by Heiding, Lermen, Kao, Schneier and Vishwanath, fully AI-automated spear phishing emails hit a 54% click-through rate, compared with 12% for a generic control.

A good tool picks or builds each lure for the employee’s actual job. To check, ask the vendor to show you the emails two people in different departments would get in the same campaign. If they’re identical, the tool is testing the template, and your people just learn the template.

Is difficulty graded on a published scale?

More relevant lures are harder lures, so you need a way to say how hard a drill is. The NIST Phish Scale rates an email on its visible cues and on how well its premise fits the recipient’s work. A tool that grades templates on a named scale lets you make drills harder on purpose. Without one, click rates can drop just because the drills got easier. Ask which scale the ratings use and how a template’s level gets set.

Does the tool test verification on a real call?

Against a convincing lure, the behavior that actually helps is verification. Hang up, call back on a number you know, check the request some other way. The FBI’s December 2024 public service announcement tells people to “verify the identity of the person calling you by hanging up the phone” (FBI IC3). The CISA and FBI advisory on Scattered Spider describes attackers who “posed as company IT and/or helpdesk staff using phone calls or SMS messages” (CISA). And the 2026 DBIR found phone-based simulations had a median click rate of 2%, compared with 1.4% for email.

Watch out, though. Three pretty different products all get sold as voice simulation. A live call rings the employee’s phone, and an AI agent talks back. A scripted call plays recorded or text-to-speech steps and waits for keypad digits. A browser session runs an AI voice conversation inside a lesson, with no phone involved at all. Only the first one tests whether someone verifies a request while a caller pushes back. The check is easy: ask the vendor to call you during the demo, and see whether your phone rings, a script plays, or a browser tab opens.

Is reporting the behavior being trained and measured?

A click rate tells you who fell for a lure. A report rate tells you who spotted it and did something useful about it. Proofpoint has written that it sees more variation in reporting rates than in click rates and treats reporting as the better sign of behavior change (Proofpoint). Yahoo’s security team went a step further and swapped its click metric for one that counts users who both clicked and submitted credentials (Yahoo Paranoids). A good tool scores the report, tracks time to report, and knows what to do with the employee who clicks and then reports. Ask how that case gets scored and where time to report shows up.

What does the lesson after a failure actually show?

The research isn’t kind to the category here. UC San Diego’s summary of its trial says 75% of users spent a minute or less on the training page, and about a third closed it right away (UC San Diego). A separate set of experiments published in MIS Quarterly found that sharing the lesson with the whole group after a campaign improved scam recognition for months (USF). Our take: a generic video at the moment of failure is the weakest version of the lesson. The stronger version shows the exact message that fooled the person and what gave it away. Fail a test simulation yourself during the trial and see what you get.

Do the results measure people?

Email gateways and link scanners open links to inspect them, and every one of those visits can count as a click. Reused templates and an all-staff send at 9:00 make drills easy to spot, so clicks go down without anyone getting better at catching real attacks. A good tool separates scanner clicks from human ones, never sends the same attack to the same person twice, and staggers delivery. Ask how a mail scanner’s click is told apart from a person’s. If the answer is “you can exclude IP ranges by hand,” guess who’s doing that work.

Can improvement be shown against a stable baseline?

Vendor improvement figures are measured on the vendor’s own drills. KnowBe4’s 2026 benchmarking report puts the Phish-prone Percentage at 33.2% before training and 4.2% after one year (KnowBe4), but those are clicks on KnowBe4 simulations by KnowBe4 customers. To show real change in your own business, you need a before-training benchmark and history that doesn’t shift every time people join or leave. Ask what happens to last quarter’s numbers after a reorg.

How we evaluated

We scored every tool against the seven questions above: lure relevance, graded difficulty, a real phone test, reporting as the measured behavior, the lesson after failure, clean click data, and a stable baseline. The criteria come from independent research and official guidance.

The evidence we weighted most is how thoroughly each vendor documents how a feature works, in its own product pages, support articles and release notes. A capability explained step by step in the docs counts for more than one mentioned in a marketing headline. Any performance figures a vendor publishes about its own product are labelled as the vendor’s. Review scores come from G2 and Gartner Peer Insights.

1. Brightside AI

Brightside AI is a Swiss security awareness platform that runs email phishing and live AI voice phishing in one product, with interactive courses alongside. It’s the most complete answer to the seven questions on this list, since it covers every one of them in a single product. It holds 4.4/5 on G2.

What does Brightside AI do well?

• Lures matched to the person. Brightside matches each attack to the employee’s role and context and grades its email templates on the NIST Phish Scale.
• A real phone test. Brightside places live AI phone calls that adapt to what the employee says, and Voice + BEC delivers a call and a BEC email as one attack.
• Reporting at the center. In Brightside, an employee only fails by clicking or entering credentials before reporting, and Brightside tracks report rate and time to report.
• Numbers that measure people. Brightside’s hidden scanner-only link separates bot clicks from human clicks, and no employee gets the same attack twice.
• A lesson from the real mistake. After a failure, Brightside shows the exact email that fooled the employee, with every red flag highlighted.

One reviewer on G2 wrote: “I like that Brightside AI makes it easy to clone voices and create templates. The engine seems to work well and is effective, which makes it a great starting point. The interface is also very intuitive and useful, especially for certain functions. Additionally, I am able to create awareness about deep-fake threats. I appreciate how it manages to raise the level of awareness among collaborators about the availability of public or stolen data.”

What to know before you buy

• Video deepfakes are a managed service at Brightside. Its team produces and runs them, scoped per engagement. Voice cloning for calls is self-serve.
• As a newer vendor, Brightside has a smaller course library than the big suites: dozens of courses, in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.

Best for

Businesses that want one tool to rehearse email and phone attacks together, with results they can stand behind in front of a board.

2. Adaptive Security

Adaptive Security is an AI-era simulation platform that covers email, SMS, voice and deepfake video. It’s the closest match to Brightside on lure relevance and the phone. It holds 4.9/5 on G2 and on Gartner Peer Insights.

What does Adaptive Security do well?

• OSINT-built lures. Adaptive Security says its Auto-Phish builds simulations from “OSINT and LinkedIn, org chart and role, and past click history” (Adaptive Security).
• A live phone test. Adaptive’s voice agent holds a live two-way call, works its way through IVR phone trees to reach a human, and can target shared numbers and help desks. That’s handy for rehearsing the help desk attack from the Scattered Spider advisory.
• Channels in one scenario. An Adaptive scenario can chain email, SMS and voice, with results rolled up into one record per user.
• Deep reporting. Adaptive offers more than fifty pre-built reports with AI-written summaries, and its voice reporting covers pickup rates, callback rates and call durations.

Where does Adaptive Security fall short?

• No published difficulty scale. Adaptive rates simulations Easy, Medium or Hard, but there’s no published scale behind the labels. That makes it harder to show your drills got harder on purpose. Brightside grades its email templates on the NIST Phish Scale.

Best for

Teams that want the widest channel coverage and chained scenarios, and care more about report depth than a published difficulty method.

3. Hoxhunt

Hoxhunt is a behavior-change platform built around adaptive email simulation and reporting. It has since expanded to Microsoft Teams, SMS, callback phishing and deepfake video. It holds 4.8/5 on G2.

What does Hoxhunt do well?

• Per-recipient lures. Hoxhunt’s Spear Phishing Agent “builds each simulation from a unique combination of pretext, sender persona, lure and tone, then adapts the difficulty to the individual based on their training history” (Hoxhunt), with OSINT as an option.
• A report-first design. Hoxhunt delivers a micro-lesson the moment an employee reports or clicks, so reporting is the habit the program rewards.
• Adaptive cadence. Hoxhunt adjusts difficulty, cadence and scenario type for each user.

Where does Hoxhunt fall short?

• Voice never reaches a phone. Hoxhunt’s voice training runs an AI voice agent inside a browser or app session. No phone call, no phone number. It’s a decent rehearsal, but it can’t test whether an employee verifies a caller on the device the attack actually reaches. Brightside’s live AI calls ring the employee’s own phone.

Best for

Programs whose main goal is building a reporting habit through frequent, adaptive email drills.

4. Proofpoint ZenGuide

Proofpoint ZenGuide is the awareness product from one of the biggest email security vendors, and it leads this list on difficulty method for email. It holds 4.5/5 on G2.

What does Proofpoint ZenGuide do well?

• Lures from real attacks. Proofpoint’s AI ThreatFlip turns “phishing attacks detected in an organization’s environment into safe simulation templates” (Proofpoint), so relevance comes built in.
• Computed difficulty. Proofpoint’s Machine-Learning Leveled Phishing calculates email difficulty on the NIST Phish Scale from both cues and premise alignment, instead of having someone assign it by hand.

Where does Proofpoint ZenGuide fall short?

• No voice simulation. ZenGuide doesn’t do voice. Its vishing scenario is a TOAD email with a phone number as the call to action, so the failure event is still an email interaction. Brightside places a live AI call and can pair it with a BEC email as one attack.

Best for

Businesses already using Proofpoint email security that want simulations built from the threats they actually receive.

5. Cofense PhishMe

Cofense PhishMe is one of the longest-running names in phishing simulation, built around real-threat templates and the report button. It’s popular with security teams that triage reported email.

What does Cofense PhishMe do well?

• Real-threat templates. Cofense says PhishMe “leverages real phishing data for adaptive simulations” and targets the threats currently getting past a secure email gateway (Cofense).
• Reporting. The Cofense Reporter button gives employees one-click reporting.
• Faster setup. Cofense’s AI Assistant, released in May 2026, recommends simulations, difficulty levels and training from plain-language prompts (Cofense).

Where does Cofense PhishMe fall short?

• Voice is a managed service. Cofense’s vishing is a “fully managed and customizable vishing security solution” run by its professional services team using “Interactive Voice Response in any language,” and the lure is an email that gets the employee to call a number (Cofense). So it’s an engagement you book, not a drill you run yourself. Brightside admins build and launch live AI calls on their own.
• No published difficulty scale. Cofense’s AI Assistant recommends difficulty levels, but there’s no documented scale behind them. Brightside grades on the NIST Phish Scale.

Best for

Security teams whose priority is building the report-and-triage loop around real threats.

6. SoSafe

SoSafe is a European behavioral-science platform with documented email and SMS campaign builders and full public admin docs. It holds 4.5/5 on G2.

What does SoSafe do well?

• Clean click data. SoSafe’s Trusted Clicks filter automatically removes bot clicks from its simulation analytics, for data from 4 March 2026 onward (SoSafe).
• Targeting. SoSafe’s Smart Targeting “maps every user’s role, location, and prior behaviour,” and its sends are randomized.

Where does SoSafe fall short?

• Voice is a browser lesson. SoSafe’s vishing runs “entirely within the browser at the end of an e-learning lesson,” with no phone numbers collected and the use of AI disclosed before the call starts (SoSafe). Since employees know it’s coming, it can’t test verification under real pressure. Brightside’s live AI calls reach the employee’s phone unannounced.

Best for

European businesses that want strong documentation, multilingual content and click data filtered for bots.

7. KnowBe4

KnowBe4 has the biggest template and content library on the market and handles personalization through its AIDA agents. It holds 4.6/5 on G2.

What does KnowBe4 do well?

• Graded generated templates. KnowBe4’s AIDA Template Generation Agent creates phishing templates with difficulty set “according to the NIST Phish Scale Framework” (KnowBe4).
• Sheer amount of content. KnowBe4’s library is the biggest on this list, which helps programs that need content for lots of roles and languages.

Where does KnowBe4 fall short?

• The phone test ends on the keypad. KnowBe4’s simulated vishing, announced in July 2026, builds calls from uploaded audio or text-to-speech steps with localized caller ID (KnowBe4). The employee fails by entering four to twenty digits at a set failure step and passes by hanging up (KnowBe4 support). That tests a keypad response. Brightside’s agent responds to what the employee actually says, like a real caller would.
• Improvement measured on its own drills. KnowBe4’s headline drop from 33.2% to 4.2% comes from clicks on its own simulations, so it shows improvement against the drill. Brightside’s baseline round and stable history let you show change in your own business.

Best for

Large programs that need the broadest content library and already use KnowBe4 for training.

8. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Attack simulation training

Attack simulation training is the tool a lot of businesses already have. It comes with Microsoft 365 E5 or Defender for Office 365 Plan 2, and E3 tenants get a trial version limited to a Credential Harvest payload and two training experiences (Microsoft Learn).

What does Microsoft Attack simulation training do well?

• Real payloads. Microsoft’s payload automations turn harmless versions of real phishing messages detected in Microsoft 365 into simulation payloads.
• In-tenant click tracking. Attack simulation training tracks clicks through Safe Links from inside the tenant, so there’s no allowlisting to set up.
• Predicted results. Microsoft shows a predicted compromise rate for each payload, based on “aggregated and anonymized compromise rates from other simulations,” so admins can compare predicted and actual results.

Where does Microsoft Attack simulation training fall short?

• Email only. Microsoft’s techniques are all email-based, with links sent as URLs or QR codes. There’s no voice, SMS or deepfake simulation. Brightside adds live AI calls and Voice + BEC on top of email.

Best for

Businesses on Microsoft 365 E5 that want a free email baseline before deciding what else they need.

9. usecure uPhish

usecure uPhish is an email simulation tool made for MSPs and smaller teams, with a multi-tenant portal and white-labelling. It holds 4.6/5 on G2.

What does usecure uPhish do well?

• Varied timing. usecure’s AutoPhish “handles the schedule, sending simulations on your terms and at varied times” (usecure), so drills don’t all land at once.
• Automatic follow-up. usecure says compromised users “are automatically enrolled in short, relevant training.”
• Current lures. usecure offers a “library of pre-built brand impersonations based on current attack trends,” plus spear-phishing and internal domain-spoofing tests.

Where does usecure uPhish fall short?

• Email-led. usecure doesn’t document SMS or voice simulation, or a difficulty scale. Brightside tests the phone and grades email on the NIST Phish Scale.

Best for

MSPs and small IT teams that want automated email drills across several client tenants.

10. Keepnet Labs

Keepnet Labs has the biggest advertised template library on this list, “47,000+ simulation templates,” with simulations “across email, voice, SMS, QR and deepfake” (Keepnet).

What does Keepnet Labs do well?

• Documented smishing. Keepnet’s Smishing Simulator is fully documented, with scenarios tagged by detection method (Keepnet).
• Library breadth. Keepnet’s library covers more channels than most tools here.

Where does Keepnet Labs fall short?

• The self-serve call is decided on the keypad. Keepnet’s self-serve vishing simulator is a five-step text-to-speech script that moves forward with keypad digits (Keepnet). A live two-way agent costs extra, and voice cloning is only available as a managed engagement. Brightside’s live adaptive calls and self-serve voice cloning come in one product.

Best for

MSPs and resellers, since Keepnet leads on multi-tenant operation with reseller tenancy and white-labeling.

Which phishing simulation tool is best for your team?

Your situation	Tool	Why
Invoice fraud and executive impersonation that finish on the phone	Brightside AI	Live AI calls and Voice + BEC as one attack, with self-serve voice cloning. See Brightside for financial services
Results you have to defend to a board	Brightside AI	Scanner clicks separated, reporting-based failure, a baseline round and history that doesn’t drift
Healthcare, where HIPAA’s 45 CFR 164.308(a)(5)(i) requires a training program for the whole workforce	Brightside AI	Email and phone drills for clinical and admin staff in one tool. See Brightside for healthcare
Widest channel coverage and chained scenarios	Adaptive Security	Email, SMS, voice and deepfake in one scenario
A reporting habit built through frequent email drills	Hoxhunt	Micro-lessons at the report or click, adaptive cadence
Already on Proofpoint email security	Proofpoint ZenGuide	Lures built from your own detected threats, computed NIST difficulty
Microsoft 365 E5 and a tight budget	Microsoft Attack simulation training	Included in the license, no allowlisting
MSPs managing many clients	usecure or Keepnet Labs	Multi-tenant portals and white-labelling

What to ask on a demo

1. “Show me the emails two people in different departments would get in this campaign.” A good answer shows different lures matched to each role. If the emails are identical, the drill is testing the template.
2. “Which scale are your difficulty ratings based on?” A good answer names one, like the NIST Phish Scale, and explains how a template’s level gets set.
3. “Call me now.” Your phone should ring, and the caller should respond to what you say. With Brightside, the admin can do a test launch of the live call before any employee gets one. If a script plays and asks for digits, or a browser tab opens, you’re looking at a different kind of product.
4. “How do you score someone who clicks and then reports?” A good answer treats that person differently from someone who clicks and says nothing, and shows time to report.
5. “How do you tell a mail scanner’s click from a person’s?” A good answer is automatic, like Brightside’s hidden scanner-only link or SoSafe’s Trusted Clicks filter. Manual IP exclusion means extra work for you.
6. “What happens to last quarter’s results after we reorganize?” A good answer is that history stays as it was, measured against the people who worked there at the time.

FAQ

Are AI-powered phishing simulations more effective?

Brightside AI uses AI to match each attack to the employee’s role and context, with templates created with AI help and reviewed by people before use. It also uses AI to run live phone calls that adapt to what the employee says. The case for AI comes down to relevance. Heiding and colleagues found fully AI-automated spear phishing emails hit a 54% click-through rate, the same as emails written by human experts, compared with 12% for a generic control. A simulation that ignores what attackers can now do cheaply is testing for an older threat.

Is a low phishing click rate a good sign?

Not by itself. Scanner clicks can push it up, and repeated or easy drills can push it down without anyone getting better. Vendor benchmarks, like KnowBe4’s drop from 33.2% to 4.2% after a year, measure clicks on the vendor’s own drills. A low click rate means a lot more when it comes with a rising report rate, graded difficulty and filtered bot clicks.

What metrics beyond click rates should organizations track to measure phishing simulation program effectiveness?

Brightside AI tracks report rate and time to report alongside open, click and credential submission rates, per employee, group and campaign. Its baseline option makes the first round the benchmark for later ones. Report rate shows who spotted the attack and did something. Credential submission separates a curious click from a real compromise. Time to report shows how fast a real attack would reach the security team.

Do phishing simulations actually reduce breaches?

The independent evidence is mixed. The UC San Diego trial found the effect of embedded training statistically significant “but of only 2%,” and an ETH Zurich study by Lain, Kostiainen and Čapkun found embedded training “can have unexpected side effects that can make employees even more susceptible to phishing” (arXiv). The UK NCSC calls simulations “the layer that is often over-emphasised” (NCSC). Both studies tested generic email programs, so they don’t settle whether relevant, multi-channel, report-focused programs do better. What they do show is that generic email drills alone aren’t enough.

Is there a free phishing simulation tool?

Yes. Gophish is “an open-source phishing toolkit designed for businesses and penetration testers,” released under the MIT licence (Gophish). It sends email campaigns with landing pages and tracks opens, clicks and submitted credentials. But it comes with no training content and no voice or SMS, and its latest release, v0.12.1, is from September 2022 (GitHub). Microsoft 365 E3 tenants also get a trial version of Attack simulation training.

What’s the real goal of a phishing program if it’s not a 0% click rate?

Verification and reporting. CISA’s advice is that “if you are unsure whether an email request is legitimate, try to verify it by contacting the company directly” (CISA). A program that gets people to double-check unusual requests some other way, and to report what they catch quickly, protects the business even on the days someone clicks.