Competitor Analysis Template
Who else the customer could buy from, what they are good at, and where they are weak.
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As at October 14, 2026.
| Competitor | Their strength | Their weakness | Who they serve |
|---|---|---|---|
| [add one competitor per line] |
Where we win
[the thing you do that none of the above do — if you cannot name it, that is the finding]
What is a Competitor Analysis?
A competitor analysis is a written record of who else your buyer could give the money to, what each of those options is genuinely good at, and where each one leaves a gap. It matters because pricing calls, sales objections and product bets otherwise get made on hearsay. A team that cannot name the three alternatives it loses to tends to discount by reflex, build features nobody asked for, and get surprised in deals it thought were safe.
Marketing and product teams write one before a pricing change, a launch or an annual plan. Sales teams turn it into a battlecard so a rep has an answer ready when a buyer says a rival name out loud. Founders build one for an investor deck; agencies build one in the first fortnight of a new account. The usual trigger is uncomfortable: a run of lost deals against the same name, a rival cutting price, or a new entrant appearing in your search results.
Two areas of law shape what you can do with the finished document, and they differ by market. Publishing a side-by-side comparison is comparative advertising, governed by the CAP Code and the ASA in the UK, the Lanham Act and FTC guidance in the US, the ASCI code in India, the Australian Consumer Law, and national implementations of the EU directive on misleading and comparative advertising. Separately, competition law limits what you may exchange directly with a rival, pricing especially. Check both with a qualified adviser before anything internal goes public.
It does not size a market, and it does not choose a strategy. A grid showing you behind on four features says nothing about which of those four a buyer would pay to fix, and that decision needs customer evidence you gather separately. It is also not a published asset by default: the internal version records rumour, sales gossip and half-verified pricing, none of which should appear in an advertisement without substantiation. Keep the internal analysis and the customer-facing comparison as two different documents.
What to put in a Competitor Analysis
These are the details this template asks for. Anything left blank is marked in red on the preview so you can see what is still missing.
| Field | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Business name | For example: Barton Supply Co. |
| Your address | For example: Unit 7, Barton Road, Columbus, OH 43212 |
| Competitors | One per line: Competitor | Their strength | Their weakness | Who they serve |
| We (differentiator) | For example: make small orders profitable to serve, so we actually want them |
How to write a Competitor Analysis
List every option, including doing nothing
Start with the alternatives a buyer actually weighs: named rivals, adjacent tools that half-solve the problem, the incumbent spreadsheet, an in-house build, and carrying on exactly as they are. In most markets the status quo wins more deals than any competitor does. Ask three recent losses what they chose instead, and record the answer verbatim rather than the answer you expected to hear.
Fix the comparison to one buying situation
A rival can be stronger for enterprise procurement and weaker for a two-person team. Pick one segment and one job the buyer is hiring the product to do, then compare inside that frame. Write the frame at the top of the document. Without it, two people read the same grid and reach opposite conclusions because each had a different customer in mind.
Record evidence with a source and a date
Every cell should carry where it came from and when: a pricing page checked on a date, a review quote with its site, a line from a win-loss call. Pricing moves and feature gaps close. A table quoted confidently from a price list that changed last year will lose you a deal more surely than having no table at all.
Score on the criteria the buyer uses
Take the questions buyers ask in evaluation calls — security review, migration effort, support hours, integration with the system they already run — and score against those. Scoring against features your own team is proud of produces the same result every time: you win everywhere. If the analysis never shows a rival ahead of you, it was not an analysis.
End with three decisions and an owner
A competitor grid with no consequence is reading, not work. Close with what changes: a page to rewrite, an objection to script, a feature to schedule or drop, a segment to stop chasing. Give each one a named owner and a date, and set the review interval — quarterly for most markets, monthly if a competitor is actively repricing.
Common mistakes
- Listing only companies that look like yours misses the spreadsheet and the do-nothing option that quietly win most lost deals, so the resulting plan attacks the wrong opponent.
- Copying claims straight from a rival's own website repeats their marketing as fact, and a rep who quotes it gets corrected by the buyer mid-call.
- Leaving pricing undated lets a figure from an old price list survive in the document, and a quote built on it is wrong before it is sent.
- Scoring on the features you are proud of rather than the criteria buyers apply produces a grid where you win everything, which is exactly the analysis that precedes a losing quarter.
- Circulating unverified negative claims about a named competitor outside the company turns an internal working note into an advertising complaint or a defamation problem.
Frequently asked questions
How many competitors should I include?
Three to five that a buyer would genuinely shortlist, plus the status quo. Beyond that the document becomes a directory nobody reads. Keep a longer watch list separately with a line each, and promote a name into the main analysis only when it starts appearing in your lost deals or your search results. Depth on the ones you actually meet beats coverage of the ones you do not.
How do I find pricing when a competitor hides it?
Ask your own buyers what they were quoted and record it as a reported figure with the date and the deal size, not as a published price. Public procurement portals, resellers, app store listings, published rate cards and customer case studies often carry numbers. Mark every entry as either evidence or inference. Do not misrepresent who you are in order to obtain a quote.
What is the difference between a competitor analysis and a SWOT?
A SWOT looks inward at one organisation across four boxes. A competitor analysis looks outward across several organisations on the criteria a buyer applies, and it ends with a decision about what you will do differently. Many teams run a SWOT per competitor inside the wider analysis. The analysis is the container; the SWOT is one way of summarising a single entry in it.
How often should a competitor analysis be updated?
Refresh pricing and positioning quarterly for most markets, and immediately when a rival launches, repositions or changes price. The parts that age fastest are pricing, packaging and headline claims; underlying strengths and weaknesses move slowly. Put a last-checked date on each row so a reader can see at a glance which parts are current and which need re-verifying before they are quoted.
Can I name a competitor in my marketing?
In most markets you can, provided the comparison is accurate, verifiable, compares like with like, and does not denigrate them or misuse their trade marks. The detailed conditions differ — the CAP Code in the UK, FTC guidance in the US, ASCI in India, the Australian Consumer Law, and national implementations of the EU comparative advertising rules. Have a qualified adviser check the specific claim before it runs.
This page explains general practice and is not legal advice. Requirements differ between countries and, in some cases, between states — check what applies where the document will be used.