Product

Competitor Analysis Template

A competitor analysis is only useful if it changes a decision. This template starts from the question you need answered, compares three or four competitors with a source and date on every claim, and ends with decisions, owners and a review date. Copy it, or start from the example closest to your market.

Updated 2026-10-27

Copy and adapt

The template

Competitor analysisTemplate

Competitor analysis: [your product] in [market], {{date}}

Owner: [name] Next review: [date, usually quarterly] Decision this feeds: [pricing change / positioning / what to build next / enter the market or not] Related: [[Product name]]

Competitors in scope

Direct: [same buyer, same problem, similar product]
Indirect: [same problem, different approach: spreadsheets, an agency, an in-house tool]
Doing nothing: [what the buyer does if they buy nobody]

Profiles

[Competitor A]

Sells to: [segment, size, region]
Positioning, in their words: "[homepage headline]" (source: [site], checked [date])
Pricing: [tiers and entry price] (source: [pricing page], checked [date])
Strengths: [what they do better than you]
Weaknesses: [where buyers complain]
What customers say: [themes from reviews] (source: [where], [n] reviews)
Recent moves: [launches, price changes, funding, hires]

[Competitor B]

Comparison on what buyers care about

Criterion	Us	[A]	[B]	[C]
[Criterion buyers named]
Price for [typical customer]

Where we win and lose

Won against [competitor] because: [reason, from deal notes]
Lost to [competitor] because: [reason, from deal notes]

SWOT for us in this market

Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Opportunities:
Threats:

So what: decisions

[Finding] means we will [decision] (@[owner]) @due(YYYY-MM-DD)

What we will not copy

[Thing a competitor does that we are choosing not to do, and why]

Sources and confidence

[Source], checked [date]. Confidence: [high / medium / low]

5 examples

Examples for different situations

The same structure, filled in for the situations people actually bring to it. Copy the one closest to yours.

1.SaaS pricing review before a price change

When it fits: Use this when you are about to change your prices, sales says you are too expensive, and you need to know whether that is true for the customers you actually want.

SaaS pricing review before a price changeExample 1

Competitor analysis: Rota in restaurant scheduling, 2026-10-27

Owner: Megan Tsai (product marketing) Next review: 2027-01-26 Decision this feeds: whether to raise the Pro plan from $3 to $4 per employee per month in January Related: [[Rota pricing 2027]]

Competitors in scope

Direct: ShiftHub, Crewbook, Tablestaff
Indirect: the scheduling module bundled with point-of-sale systems
Doing nothing: a printed schedule and a group chat, still common under 15 staff

Comparison on what buyers care about

Criterion	Rota	ShiftHub	Crewbook	Tablestaff
Price, 25 staff, monthly	$75	$99	$60	$70 (free up to 10 staff)
Shift swaps without a manager	yes	yes	no	yes
Tip pooling	yes	add-on, $1/staff	no	no
Payroll export	4 providers	9 providers	2 providers	1 provider
Review rating (n)	4.6 (380)	4.4 (2,100)	4.1 (240)	4.3 (150)

Where we win and lose

Won 11 of 14 deals against Crewbook in Q3: tip pooling was named in 9.
Lost 6 of 10 deals against ShiftHub: payroll integrations in 5, price in 1.
Lost 8 small cafes to Tablestaff's free tier. Average size 9 staff, below our target.

SWOT for us in this market

Strengths: tip pooling built in; highest review rating.
Weaknesses: four payroll integrations against ShiftHub's nine.
Opportunities: Crewbook has not shipped a feature since March, by its own changelog.
Threats: Tablestaff's free tier sets a price anchor for the smallest restaurants.

So what: decisions

Price is not why we lose to ShiftHub, so the $4 price goes ahead for new customers (@Megan) @due(2026-11-20)
Build the two payroll integrations named most in lost deals before the price change lands (@Owen) @due(2027-01-08)
Stop chasing restaurants under 12 staff in paid ads (@Jules) @due(2026-11-06)

What we will not copy

A free tier. Our churn under 12 staff is three times our average.

Sources and confidence

Competitor pricing pages, checked 2026-10-26. High.
Review ratings from two review sites, 2026-10-26. Medium; small samples for Crewbook and Tablestaff.
Win and loss reasons from 41 deal notes, Q3 2026. Medium; reasons are as sales recorded them.

2.Local business scouting a second location

When it fits: Use this when you run a physical business, you are deciding whether and how to open near existing competitors, and your data comes from walking in, not from pricing pages.

Local business scouting a second locationExample 2

Competitor analysis: Second Pour coffee on Harlow Street, 2026-10-27

Owner: Dani Okafor (owner) Next review: after the lease decision, Nov 20 Decision this feeds: sign the Harlow Street lease or not, and if yes, how to be different Related: [[Harlow Street lease]]

Competitors in scope

Direct: Bramble Coffee (2 blocks), Kettle & Co (4 blocks), the chain cafe at the train station
Indirect: the bakery at Harlow and 3rd, which sells drip coffee
Doing nothing: the office building on the corner has free coffee machines on every floor

Visits (weekday 7:15 to 8:15 and Saturday 10:00, Oct 19 to 24)

Criterion	Bramble	Kettle & Co	Station chain	Bakery
Opens	7:00	8:00	5:30	6:30
12 oz latte	$5.75	$6.25	$5.45	no espresso
Seats	14	40	6	8
Line at 7:45 weekday	9 people	closed	4 people	2 people
Saturday 10:00	full	full, laptops	quiet	quiet

What customers say

Bramble: praised for coffee, complaints about waits and no seating (online reviews, 60 most recent).
Kettle & Co: praised for space, complaints that tables are taken by laptops all day.

SWOT for a Second Pour on Harlow

Strengths: our current shop does 220 drinks before 9:00 with a two-person bar.
Weaknesses: the Harlow space has 18 seats, so we cannot be the "stay all day" cafe.
Opportunities: nobody serves a fast espresso drink between 6:30 and 8:00.
Threats: the office building's free coffee caps weekday demand from its 600 workers.

So what: decisions

Sign the lease, with opening at 6:30 and a mobile order pickup shelf (@Dani) @due(2026-11-20)
Price the latte at $5.75, matching Bramble; compete on wait time, not price (@Dani) @due(2026-12-01)
No laptops on weekends before 2:00, posted from day one (@Jo) @due(2027-01-15)

What we will not copy

Kettle & Co's food menu. It needs a kitchen we do not have.

Sources and confidence

Our own visits, Oct 19 to 24. High for those times; one week only.
Online reviews, read 2026-10-25. Medium.

3.Lost-deal review against one competitor

When it fits: Use this when one competitor keeps beating you in a segment, sales has a theory, product has a different theory, and you need the deal notes to settle it.

Lost-deal review against one competitorExample 3

Competitor analysis: losses to Northbeam in mid-market, 2026-10-27

Owner: Carlos Ruiz (sales enablement) with Fatima Noor (product) Next review: 2027-01-25 Decision this feeds: what to change in the product and the pitch for 50 to 500 employee accounts Related: [[Northbeam]]

Competitors in scope

Direct: Northbeam only. It took 12 of our 19 mid-market losses in Q3.

Profile: Northbeam

Sells to: companies of 50 to 1,000 employees, US and UK
Positioning, in their words: "Expense reports in under a minute" (source: northbeam homepage, checked 2026-10-24)
Pricing: quote only on their site; buyers reported $6 to $8 per user per month (source: 7 deal notes)
Strengths: mobile receipt capture; a dedicated implementation manager for every account
Weaknesses: approval rules are rigid, according to three buyers who switched from them in 2025
Recent moves: launched corporate cards in September

Where we win and lose (12 losses, 9 wins in Q3)

Lost on implementation in 7 of 12: buyers wanted someone to configure it for them. Sales thought price was the reason; it came up in 2.
Lost on corporate cards in 3, all after the September launch.
Won on approval flexibility in 6 of 9: finance teams with multi-level approvals.

SWOT for us against Northbeam

Strengths: approval rules; faster month-end close in two customer case studies.
Weaknesses: self-serve setup that mid-market buyers do not want to do alone.
Opportunities: finance teams with complex approvals, which Northbeam handles poorly.
Threats: corporate cards make Northbeam the system of record for spend.

So what: decisions

Pilot a paid setup package ($2,500, two weeks) for 50 to 500 employee deals (@Carlos) @due(2026-11-30)
Rewrite the mid-market pitch around approvals, with the two close-time case studies (@Carlos) @due(2026-11-13)
Card partnership options and a recommendation for Q1 planning (@Fatima) @due(2026-12-11)

What we will not copy

A free implementation manager for every account. Our margin cannot carry it below 200 seats.

Sources and confidence

21 deal notes, Q3 2026, plus 6 buyer calls. High for reasons buyers gave; medium for pricing.

4.Market research before entering a market

When it fits: Use this when you have no product yet, the question is whether the market is worth entering at all, and the competitors include the workarounds people use today.

Market research before entering a marketExample 4

Market research: Spanish for US nurses, 2026-10-27

Owner: Tomás Herrera (solo founder) Next review: after interviews, Dec 15 Decision this feeds: build a medical Spanish course app, or drop the idea Related: [[Medical Spanish idea]]

The market, sized

About 3.2 million registered nurses are employed in the US (source: federal labor statistics, checked 2026-10-20).
Target: nurses in states where more than 20 percent of residents speak Spanish at home. Rough estimate: 600,000.
If 1 percent pay $15 a month: about $1.1M a year. Enough for a one-person business; not a venture-scale one.

Competitors in scope

Direct: two medical Spanish apps (MedHabla, ClinicoSpan), both last updated over a year ago
Indirect: general language apps; hospital-paid interpreter phone lines; community college courses
Doing nothing: bilingual coworkers translate, which 6 of 8 nurses interviewed said they do daily

Comparison on what buyers care about

Criterion	MedHabla	ClinicoSpan	General app	Community college
Price	$9.99 once	$12 per month	$13 per month	$420 per course
Clinical phrases	600	1,200	none	some
Counts as continuing education credit	no	no	no	yes
Usable on a 10-minute break	yes	no, 30-minute lessons	yes	no

What nurses said (8 interviews so far)

"I don't need to be fluent. I need pain scale, allergies and discharge instructions." (ICU nurse, Phoenix)
Five of eight would pay if it counted toward continuing education hours.
Nobody had heard of either medical Spanish app.

So what: decisions

Price out continuing education accreditation; if under $5,000, it becomes the main differentiator (@Tomás) @due(2026-11-20)
12 more interviews, outside Arizona and Texas (@Tomás) @due(2026-12-12)
Go or no-go: build only if 10 of 20 interviewees would pay $15 a month (@Tomás) @due(2026-12-15)

What we will not copy

30-minute lessons. Every nurse described learning in 5 to 10 minute gaps.

Sources and confidence

Labor statistics, high. Share of residents speaking Spanish at home by state, medium (census language data, 2023).
Interviews, low for sizing (8 people), high for what the problem feels like.

5.Product listing review for an online store

When it fits: Use this when you sell a physical product on a marketplace, the competitors are the listings next to yours, and their one-star reviews are the most useful research you have.

Product listing review for an online storeExample 5

Competitor analysis: Ashfield 10-inch cast iron skillet, 2026-10-27

Owner: Priya Shah (founder) Next review: 2027-02-01, after the holiday season Decision this feeds: what to change in the next production run (order placed Dec 4) and in the listing Related: [[Ashfield skillet v2]]

Competitors in scope

Direct: the four best-selling 10-inch cast iron skillets on our main marketplace, called A to D below
Indirect: carbon steel pans, which buyers mention as the alternative in reviews

Comparison

Criterion	Ashfield	A	B	C	D
Price	$44	$29	$39	$62	$34
Weight	5.1 lb	5.3 lb	4.6 lb	4.2 lb	5.5 lb
Helper handle	yes	yes	no	yes	yes
Rating (n)	4.5 (310)	4.6 (41,000)	4.4 (2,800)	4.7 (1,900)	4.3 (6,200)

What customers say (200 one- and two-star reviews across A to D, read Oct 20 to 24)

Rough cooking surface that food sticks to: 31 percent of complaints.
Too heavy to lift with one hand: 22 percent.
Arrived with rust or flaking seasoning: 18 percent.
Our own one-star reviews: 9 of 14 mention rust on arrival.

SWOT for Ashfield

Strengths: smoother surface than A, B and D, per our own side-by-side test.
Weaknesses: rust on arrival, which is a packaging problem, not a pan problem.
Opportunities: C wins on weight at $62; nobody offers a light pan under $50.
Threats: A's review count makes it the default choice at $29.

So what: decisions

Add a desiccant packet and a sealed bag to every box in the December run (@Priya) @due(2026-12-04)
Get a quote for a 4.5 lb version at the same price (@Priya) @due(2026-11-13)
Lead the listing with a photo of the cooking surface and its weight (@Sam) @due(2026-11-10)

What we will not copy

A's $29 price. We cannot match it and keep the smoother finish.

Sources and confidence

Listing data, checked 2026-10-24. High.
Review themes, hand-coded by Priya and Sam. Medium; 200 reviews from four products.

Start from the decision

Most competitor analyses start with a list of competitors and a list of features and grow from there. They end up long, accurate on the day they are finished and unused a month later, because nobody wrote down what they were for.

Start instead with the decision the analysis feeds. "Should we raise the Pro plan to $4?" tells you to compare prices for the customers you want, and to find out why you lose deals. "Should we open on Harlow Street?" tells you to stand in four cafes at 7:45 on a weekday. The decision sets the scope, the criteria and the point at which you have enough.

Choosing the competitors

Pick three or four, in three groups:

Direct competitors. Same buyer, same problem, similar product. These are the names that come up in deals.
Indirect competitors. Same problem, solved differently: a bundled module, an agency, a general-purpose tool.
Doing nothing. The spreadsheet, the group chat, the bilingual coworker. For new products this is usually the biggest competitor, and the one most analyses leave out.

Where the data comes from

Good competitor data comes from a few places, each with a different reliability:

Their own pages. Pricing, positioning and changelogs. Reliable on the day you check, so record the date.
Your deals. Why you won and lost, from deal notes and buyer calls. The most useful source for what to change, and the one most teams never collect.
Customer reviews. One- and two-star reviews are a free list of what buyers wanted and did not get. Count themes across a fixed number of reviews rather than quoting the most vivid one.
Trying the product. Sign up for the trial, or buy the skillet. Note what surprised you.
Walking in. For local businesses, a week of visits at the hours that matter beats any database.

Every claim in the analysis gets a source and a "checked" date. When someone asks "is that still true?", you know where to look.

Turning findings into decisions

This is the part the top templates leave out. A SWOT summarizes; it does not decide. After the SWOT, write each important finding as a sentence that ends in a decision: "Price is not why we lose to ShiftHub, so the price increase goes ahead." Give each decision an owner and a date. If a finding does not change anything you will do, it can stay in the profile, but it does not belong in the conclusion.

Then write what you will not copy. Competitors make choices that fit their business, not yours. A free tier, a free implementation manager or a $29 price may be exactly what is winning them deals and exactly what would break your margins. Writing it down stops the next meeting from proposing it again.

Competitor analysis and market research

The two overlap. Market research asks whether a market is worth entering: size, buyers, current alternatives. Competitor analysis asks how you stack up inside a market you have already chosen. Before you have a product, the competitors are mostly workarounds, and the analysis needs a sizing section and interview evidence instead of win and loss data. The fourth example shows that version, used as a market research template with a go or no-go threshold at the end.

Keeping it current

Give the analysis one owner and a next review date, usually quarterly. Recheck prices and positioning at each review, add the quarter's won and lost deals, and update the decisions. Keep the dated old versions: a year of a competitor's price changes and launches tells you more about where they are going than any single snapshot.

Common mistakes

No decision attached. The analysis grows until nobody reads it.
Your features as the criteria. You win on rows nobody chose you for.
Undated claims. Six months later, the sales deck quotes a price the competitor changed in spring.
Ignoring doing nothing. The real competitor is often the habit, not the vendor.
Copying the leader. Their choices fit their business. Write down what you will not copy, and why.

Customization tips

Start from the decision
Write the decision this analysis feeds on the second line, before you research anything. It decides which competitors are in scope, which criteria go in the matrix and when you can stop. An analysis with no decision attached grows until nobody reads it.
Use the buyer's criteria, not your feature list
Fill the comparison rows with what buyers named in deals, interviews or reviews. A matrix built from your own feature list will show you winning on things nobody chose you for, and miss the one row that loses deals.
Date every claim
Competitor pricing and features change without notice. A claim with a source and a "checked" date can be trusted or rechecked; a claim without one quietly goes stale and ends up in a sales deck six months later.
Include doing nothing
For most products, the biggest competitor is the spreadsheet, the group chat or the habit the buyer already has. Put it in scope. If you cannot beat doing nothing, beating the other vendors does not matter.
Limit it to three or four
Three or four competitors in depth beat twelve in a list. Pick the ones you meet in deals or that show up next to you in search. Note the rest in one line under Competitors in scope.
Turn it into market research when there is no product yet
Before you have a product, add a market sizing section with the method shown, replace Where we win and lose with interview findings, and make the last decision a go or no-go with a threshold. The market research example above shows the shape.

In the app

How to do this in Scribelet

Open Desk Settings, then Templates, tap Add Template, paste the competitor analysis template and set the category to Research. Add #competitors as a default tag so every analysis is one tag away.
Keep one note per competitor and link it from analyses, deal notes and meeting notes with [[Northbeam]]. The competitor's backlinks panel then lists every lost deal and call where they came up, which is the raw material for Where we win and lose.
Attach screenshots of competitor pricing pages to the analysis. Scribelet extracts the text from each image, so the prices are searchable and you keep a dated record of what the page said.
Write decisions as - [ ] Rewrite the mid-market pitch (@Carlos) @due(2026-11-13) so they appear in the Tasks view until done. The analysis then ends in work, not a slide.
On Pro, background verification compares factual claims in a note against the web and proposes corrections you accept or dismiss, which helps catch a competitor price or feature that changed since you checked it.

Templates, template variables and AI generation are documented in Note templates.

Frequently asked questions

How do you write a competitor analysis?

Write down the decision it feeds, pick three or four competitors (including doing nothing), and profile each one with a source and date on every claim. Compare them on the criteria buyers actually named, add what you have learned from won and lost deals, and finish with decisions that have owners and dates. The examples above each follow this order.

What are the 5 steps of a competitive analysis?

One common version: identify competitors, gather information on each, compare them on the criteria that matter to buyers, analyze strengths and weaknesses (often with a SWOT), and decide what to do. The step most guides skip is the last one. Without decisions, owners and a review date, the analysis is a document, not a plan.

What are the 4Ps of competitor analysis?

Product, price, place and promotion: what each competitor sells, what it costs, where and how it is sold, and how it is marketed. They make good rows in a comparison matrix, especially for physical products and retail. For software, add the criteria buyers name in deals, such as integrations or setup help, which the 4Ps do not cover.

What is the best tool for competitor analysis?

For the analysis itself, a document or note with a table is enough, as long as every claim has a source and date. SEO and ad-intelligence tools help with traffic and keyword data, and review sites help with customer sentiment. The bottleneck is rarely the tool; it is turning findings into decisions and keeping the analysis current.

How often should a competitor analysis be updated?

Quarterly for an active market, and immediately after a major competitor move such as a price change or a big launch. Put a next review date at the top and one owner on it. Keep the old versions; seeing how a competitor's pricing moved over a year is useful in itself.

Is a market research template different from a competitor analysis template?

Market research asks whether a market is worth entering: how big it is, who buys, and what they use today. Competitor analysis asks how you compare with the alternatives in a market you are already in. The template above covers both: for market research, add a sizing section and interview findings, as in the fourth example.

Competitor research that is still true next quarter

Keep one note per competitor in Scribelet, link every deal and call that mentions them, attach dated pricing screenshots, and turn findings into tasks with owners. Free to start.

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