Competitor analysis template
A competitor analysis is only worth having if every line can be traced to evidence and the fast-moving parts get refreshed. This template has eight sections. Each field says what to write, where to find it, and how quickly it goes stale, so you know which parts to write once and which to check every week.
8 sections · 28 fields · free, no sign-up
1. Snapshot
Company
OnceName, website, and the one line they use to describe themselves.
Where to find it: Homepage and About page.
Size and location
QuarterlyApproximate headcount, headquarters, and where they hire.
Where to find it: About page, careers page, LinkedIn company page.
Funding and ownership
Quarterly · trackableLast round, investors, or parent company.
Where to find it: Press page and news coverage.
Target customer
QuarterlyWho they say they sell to: company size, industry, buyer role.
Where to find it: Homepage headline, customer stories, plan names on the pricing page.
2. Product
Core product
OnceWhat it does, in one sentence, in your words rather than theirs.
Where to find it: Product pages and the docs overview.
Key capabilities
QuarterlyThe five to eight capabilities a buyer actually compares.
Where to find it: Feature pages and the docs navigation.
Recent launches
Weekly · trackableWhat shipped in the last 90 days, each with a date and a link.
Where to find it: Changelog, release notes, product blog.
Integrations
Monthly · trackableIntegrations added or removed recently.
Where to find it: Integrations directory and changelog.
Retired features
Monthly · trackableProducts or features they removed or sunset.
Where to find it: Changelog and deprecation notices in the docs.
3. Pricing and packaging
Plans and entry price
MonthlyPlan names, the cheapest paid price, and the billing unit (per seat, usage, flat).
Where to find it: Pricing page.
Free plan or trial
MonthlyFree tier limits, trial length, and whether a card is required.
Where to find it: Pricing page and the sign-up flow.
Recent pricing changes
Weekly · trackableAny change to a plan, price, limit or bundle, with the date it happened.
Where to find it: Pricing page over time, changelog, blog.
Sales motion
QuarterlySelf-serve checkout, a contact-sales form, or both.
Where to find it: The buttons on the pricing page.
4. Positioning and messaging
Headline
MonthlyTheir homepage headline, quoted exactly.
Where to find it: Homepage.
Claimed differentiators
QuarterlyThe three things they say make them different.
Where to find it: Homepage and their comparison pages.
Who they compare against
QuarterlyWhich competitors they write "vs" or "alternative" pages about. It tells you who they think they fight.
Where to find it: Site search and their sitemap.
Proof they lean on
Monthly · trackableCustomer stories and named customers they publish.
Where to find it: Case studies page and blog.
5. Go-to-market
Channels
Monthly · trackableWhere they find customers: content, ads, events, partners, community.
Where to find it: Blog, events page, ad libraries.
Partnerships
Monthly · trackableNew partners and alliances, with dates.
Where to find it: Press page, partner directory, news.
Expansion
Quarterly · trackableNew regions, segments or industries they are entering.
Where to find it: Press releases and careers page locations.
Hiring
Monthly · trackableWhich teams are hiring. Headcount follows strategy.
Where to find it: Careers page.
6. Customer perception
Review themes
QuarterlyThe three praises and the three complaints that repeat.
Where to find it: Review sites, community forums, Reddit.
Why customers leave them
QuarterlyReasons you hear from prospects who switched.
Where to find it: Your CRM notes, sales calls, support tickets.
7. Strengths and weaknesses
Where they are stronger
QuarterlyWrite it the way their best sales rep would. If you cannot, you do not know them yet.
Where to find it: Everything above.
Where they are weaker
QuarterlyOnly weaknesses a prospect can verify for themselves.
Where to find it: Everything above.
8. Threat assessment
Overlap
QuarterlyHigh, medium or low, and in which segment.
Where to find it: Your win/loss data.
What to watch
MonthlyThe one move that would change your plan if they made it.
Where to find it: Your own judgment.
Your response
MonthlyWhat you will do about it, and who owns it.
Where to find it: Your own judgment.
The label on each field is how often its answer changes. Fields marked trackable are dated public changes, so a monitoring tool can collect them for you. Spyingbee watches a competitor’s changelog, pricing page, blog, docs, news feed and product catalogue, checks each source on its own interval (every few hours for pages that keep changing, every few days for quiet ones), and classifies every change it finds. That covers the fields marked Weekly. The judgment fields stay yours: no crawler knows why you win.
The evidence fields, filled for Vercel from the last 90 days
Recent launches
Integrations
Retired features
Recent pricing changes
Proof they lean on
Channels
Partnerships
Each row is a change Spyingbee detected on a page it tracks for Vercel, classified automatically and linked to where it was published. Everything we tracked for Vercel. Fields of the competitor analysis template that tracked changes cannot fill stay blank here.
- 1
Pick three to five competitors
Choose the ones you lose deals to, not the biggest names in the category. A competitor you never meet in a deal belongs on a watchlist, not in an analysis.
- 2
Fill the slow fields once
Snapshot, core product and target customer rarely change. Fill them from the competitor’s own site in one sitting.
- 3
Fill the fast fields with dates
Launches, pricing changes and integrations go stale in weeks. Write each one with the date it happened and a link to where it was published.
- 4
Write strengths and weaknesses last
Write them only after the evidence is in, so every claim points back to something above it.
- 5
Set a refresh rhythm
Check weekly fields every week and quarterly fields each quarter. An analysis with an old date on it does more harm than none, because people still trust it.
What should a competitor analysis include?
At minimum: who the competitor sells to, what their product does, how they price it, how they position it, how they reach customers, what customers say about them, and an honest read of where they beat you. This template groups those into eight sections and adds a refresh rate to every field.
How often should a competitor analysis be updated?
It depends on the field. Pricing changes, launches and integrations move week to week, so they need weekly checks. Positioning and target customer move over quarters. Company basics barely move at all. Updating everything at the same rhythm wastes time on the slow fields and lets the fast ones go stale.
How many competitors should I analyze?
Three to five in full. Pick the competitors that show up in your deals. Keep a lighter watchlist for everyone else and promote a company to the full analysis when it starts appearing in deals.
Can a competitor analysis be automated?
The evidence fields can. Launches, pricing changes, integrations, partnerships and hiring are public, dated changes, and a monitoring tool can collect them. The judgment fields cannot: where they are stronger, overlap, and your response need someone who knows your market.
Is this template free?
Yes. Copy it as Markdown or download it as a CSV that opens in Excel or Google Sheets. There is no sign-up to use it.
Want the trackable fields kept current without doing it by hand? See how competitor monitoring works.
Keep the fast-moving fields current automatically
Spyingbee watches a competitor’s changelog, pricing page, blog, docs, news feed and product catalogue, checks each source on its own interval (every few hours for pages that keep changing, every few days for quiet ones), and classifies every change it finds. That covers the fields marked Weekly. The judgment fields stay yours: no crawler knows why you win.