SaaS competitor analysis: a one-page template
A competitor analysis you can finish in an afternoon: pick three rivals, fill in one page for each, and end with one decision. Template included.
By DanPublished 3 min read
Most competitor analyses end up as a 40-slide deck that nobody opens after the meeting. The research was fine. The format was the problem. A deck is built to be presented once, and a competitor changes its pricing the month after.
This guide gives you a smaller version. You fill in one page per competitor, for three competitors, and you end with one decision. A small SaaS team can finish it in an afternoon and keep it current in ten minutes a month.
Pick three competitors
A list of twelve competitors feels thorough and tells you nothing, because you can't keep twelve pages current. Pick three:
- The one you lose deals to. Ask whoever does sales which name comes up most.
- The one your customers used before you. Check your signup notes or ask five customers.
- The one that would hurt most if it copied you. Often a bigger product next door to yours.
If you can't name three, search for your own product category plus "alternatives" and read the first page of results. The companies that appear there are the ones buyers compare you with.
The one-page template
Each row answers a question a buyer or a colleague will ask you. Every answer comes from a public source you can link, so anyone can check it later. Here it is filled in for a made-up competitor.
- Who they sell to
- Sales teams of 5 to 50 people. The home page headline says “The CRM your reps will open”.
- Pricing
- €19 per seat a month on the entry plan, €49 on the top plan. Free for 2 seats. Annual billing saves 20%.
- What they lead with
- Speed of setup. Three of the five home page sections are about the first day.
- What they added lately
- SSO on every paid plan in September. An AI call summary in beta in August.
- What customers complain about
- API limits that break syncs, and support that answers after two days.
- Where they beat us
- Price below 10 seats. A mobile app. More integrations.
- Where we beat them
- Reporting. EU data hosting. No API limits on any plan.
- Our one move
- Add “no API limits” to the pricing page and to the comparison page this month.
Where each answer comes from
Their own website
The home page, pricing page and changelog answer the first four rows. Copy their words. Don't paraphrase.
Public complaints
Forum threads and review sites show what annoys their customers. Look for the same complaint from several people.
Your own deals
Sales notes and churn emails fill in where each side wins. Five real quotes beat any opinion in the room.
Who they sell to
Read the home page headline, the customer logos and the job titles in the testimonials. A page full of "VP of Sales" quotes sells to a different buyer than a page that says "set up in five minutes".
Pricing
Write down the price of each plan, the unit (per seat, per project, per usage), the free tier and the annual discount. Note the date. Pricing is the row that goes stale first, so track pricing changes instead of trusting a number from the spring.
What they lead with
Count the sections on the home page and note what each one is about. The topic that gets the most space is the one they believe wins deals.
What they added lately
Read three months of the changelog. You are looking for direction. Three releases about enterprise security say more than one big launch.
What customers complain about
Search public forums for the product name plus "alternative", "switching from" and "problem". Keep complaints that more than one person makes. Complaint signals in Plainrival collects these posts for each competitor you track.
Where each side wins
Fill these two rows last, and be honest in the first one. A page that says the competitor wins nowhere is a page your sales team will stop trusting after one lost deal.
End with one move
The last row is the reason the page exists. Write one thing you will do this month because of what you found. It can be a line on your pricing page, a feature you move up the roadmap or a question you add to sales calls.
If the row stays empty, the analysis changed nothing. That is a fine result once. If it stays empty three months in a row, you are tracking the wrong competitor.
Keep it current
A competitor analysis is out of date the day a rival edits its pricing page. Put a "last checked" date at the top of each page and set a monthly reminder to reread the pricing page, the home page and the changelog.
Plainrival does the rereading for you. It checks each competitor's public pages once a day, shows what changed with the before and after, and sends a weekly brief of the changes that matter. When a row on your page goes stale, you hear about it that week.
Pricing page
Orbit Analytics · checked daily
| Plan | Sep 21 | Sep 28 |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | €29 / month | €35 / month |
| Team | €79 / month | €79 / month |
| SSO | Business only | All paid plans |
Starter plan up from €29 to €35 a month, SSO in every paid plan
Why it matters: Orbit now includes SSO from €35 a month. If yours costs less, say so on your pricing page.
Pricing page · before and after
When a page is solid, turn it into a battlecard your sales team can use on a call.
Questions
Questions about competitor analysis
How many competitors should a startup analyse?
Three. One you lose deals to, one your customers came from, and one that could copy you. You can keep three pages current. You can't keep twelve.
How often should I update a competitor analysis?
Reread the pricing page, home page and changelog once a month, and update the page the same day you notice a change. Redo the whole page once a year.
What is the difference between a competitor analysis and a battlecard?
A competitor analysis is for deciding what your company does next. A battlecard is one page a salesperson reads before a call. The analysis comes first and the battlecard is built from it.