Competitive battlecard template for small B2B teams (free)

A battlecard is one page a seller reads in two minutes before a call where a competitor's name has come up. Large companies have whole teams that keep dozens of them up to date. A small B2B team needs far less: one page per serious competitor, written from real deals, with a date at the top so everyone knows how fresh it is.

This guide gives you a template to copy, explains what goes in each section, shows a filled example and ends with a routine that keeps the cards current.

What a battlecard is for

A battlecard answers the questions a seller has right before or during a competitive call:

• Who does this competitor usually sell to, and is this prospect one of them?
• Where are they better than us, honestly?
• Where are we better, and how do I prove it?
• What should I ask to bring up the things that matter?
• What do I say when the prospect repeats their pitch back to me?

It is not a feature-by-feature spreadsheet and it is not marketing copy. A useful test: if a seller can't say a line out loud to a prospect, or use it to decide what to ask, cut it.

Start with the two or three competitors you meet most often in deals. A card for a rival you never see is a card nobody will read.

The template

Copy this into a doc, a wiki page or your CRM's notes. Keep it to one page. If a section grows past five lines, keep the strongest five.

BATTLECARD: [Competitor name]
Owner: [name]

1. WHO THEY SELL TO
- Typical customer: [size, industry]
- Typical buyer: [role]
- Their headline: [word for word]
- Price: [entry plan, how they charge,
  date checked]

2. WHERE THEY WIN
- [A real strength, said plainly]
- [A second real strength]
- We usually lose to them when:
  [situation]

3. WHERE WE WIN
- [Strength]
  Proof: [what to show or send]
- [Strength]
  Proof: [what to show or send]
- Our best deal against them:
  [situation]

4. LANDMINES (questions to ask)
- "[Question about a need where
  they are weak]"
- "[Question about a need where
  they are weak]"

5. OBJECTION ANSWERS
- They say: "[objection]"
  We say: "[one or two sentences]"
- They say: "[objection]"
  We say: "[one or two sentences]"

6. PROOF
- Customers who switched from them:
  [names, if they agreed]
- Case study or public review: [link]
- Demo moment that shows the
  difference: [what to show]

7. LAST UPDATED
- Date: [YYYY-MM-DD]
- What changed since last time:
  [one line]
- Sources: [pages and call notes,
  with dates]

How to fill in each section

1. Who they sell to

Write down the customer the competitor is built for, using their own words where you can. Their home page headline, their pricing page and the logos they show tell you who they want. Add the entry price and how they charge (per seat, per usage, flat), with the date you checked, because this is the line that goes stale first.

This section tells the seller one thing fast: is this prospect the competitor's ideal customer, or a stretch for them?

2. Where they win

This is the section most teams skip, and the one that makes the card trustworthy. If the card says the competitor is bad at everything, the seller stops believing it the first time a prospect has seen a good demo of theirs.

List two or three things they do well. Then finish the sentence "we usually lose to them when". Look at your last few lost deals to answer it. That line helps sellers qualify out early or bring in help.

3. Where we win

Each strength needs proof a prospect can check: a demo moment, a customer story, a public doc, a number from your own product. "Easier to use" with no proof is a claim every vendor makes. "Setup takes one call; here is the checklist we send" is something a prospect can test.

Finish with the deal you are most likely to win against them. Sellers use it to decide where to spend their time.

4. Landmines

A landmine is a question the seller asks that leads the prospect to notice a gap on their own. It works when the gap is real and matters to this buyer. It backfires when it is a trick or something the buyer doesn't care about.

Good landmines start from the buyer's needs, not the competitor's flaws. "How often do you need to change this setup, and who does it today?" is a fair question if your product makes changes easy and theirs needs a specialist. Write each one as a question, in the words a seller would use.

5. Objection answers

Collect the objections from call notes and from your sellers. Most competitive deals come back to the same handful: price, a feature they have and you don't, "we already use them", or the size and age of the company.

Keep each answer to one or two sentences. A pattern that works: agree with what is true, say what matters more for this buyer, and point to proof. Long answers don't get used on a live call.

6. Proof

Only real proof goes here. A customer who switched and agreed to be named, a public review, a case study, a short demo path. If you don't have proof yet, leave the line empty and make getting it a task. An empty line is more honest than an invented one, and it tells you what to ask your next happy customer.

7. Last updated

Put the date, one line on what changed and where the information came from. Sellers should see at a glance whether the card is from last week or last year. A card without a date gets treated as out of date, and usually is.

A filled example

Both companies here are made up. Your company sells Cedar Support, a help desk for small software companies. The competitor is Birchdesk.

BATTLECARD: Birchdesk
Owner: Sam (sales lead)

1. WHO THEY SELL TO
- Typical customer: support teams
  of 20 to 200 people
- Typical buyer: head of support
- Their headline: "The help desk for
  growing support teams"
- Price: from €49 per agent a month,
  billed yearly (checked 2026-09-28)

2. WHERE THEY WIN
- Deep reporting for large teams
- Many ready-made integrations
- We usually lose to them when: the
  buyer has more than 30 agents and
  a reporting analyst

3. WHERE WE WIN
- Live in a day.
  Proof: our setup checklist
- Monthly billing, no yearly contract.
  Proof: our pricing page
- Our best deal against them: teams
  under 10 agents with no admin

4. LANDMINES (questions to ask)
- "Who will set up and change the
  workflows?"
- "How much of the reporting will you
  use in the first six months?"

5. OBJECTION ANSWERS
- They say: "Birchdesk has more
  integrations."
  We say: "They do. Which three do
  you need? We cover the common ones
  and have an API."
- They say: "Birchdesk is the safe
  choice."
  We say: "For a large team, often.
  For five agents, you pay for
  features you won't use."

6. PROOF
- Customers who switched from them:
  two, both happy to take a
  reference call
- Demo moment: build a working inbox
  live in ten minutes

7. LAST UPDATED
- Date: 2026-09-28
- What changed: their entry plan is
  now billed yearly only
- Sources: their pricing page
  (2026-09-28), call notes from two
  deals in September

Where to keep them

Keep every card in one place the whole team can open in two clicks: a shared folder, a wiki page per competitor, or a link on the competitor's record in your CRM. Give each card one owner. In a small team that is often the product marketer or the founder who runs sales.

Tell sellers where the cards live and ask them to flag anything wrong. A seller who says "this objection answer didn't work" is giving you the best update you will get.

How to keep them current

A battlecard goes stale the moment a competitor changes a price, a plan or their headline. Three habits keep it fresh:

1. Watch the pages behind the card. Section 1 depends on their home page and pricing page; sections 2 and 3 depend on their product pages and changelog. Check them once a week, or let a tool do it. Pricing tracking and website change tracking cover this part.
2. Update after every lost deal against them. Five minutes with the seller: what did the prospect say, which objection didn't we answer? Add it to section 5.
3. Review each card at least once a quarter, even if nothing seems to have changed. Update the date when you do.

If you only change cards when someone remembers, they drift. Tie the update to a routine you already have, like a weekly competitor update or the sales meeting.

Let Plainrival tell you when a card needs an update

Plainrival checks your competitors' public pages every day, pricing included, and keeps a dated before and after of every change. Every Monday, the weekly brief lists at most 7 changes that matter, each with why it matters and one suggested move. Often that move is "update the battlecard", and the brief links to the source you need for section 7.

Start free and add the competitors you already have cards for.