Free competitive analysis template: Your market on one map, filled in from your competitors' websites

Your customers compare before they buy. They open your website, then 2 or 3 others, and they make up their minds fast. A competitive analysis template helps you see that comparison through their eyes. A competitor analysis template does the same job, and the tool on this page fills one in for you.

The trouble is that you rarely know what your competitors' websites say this month. Their offer changes, their prices move and a new promise shows up on their home page. Your sales team often hears about it from a prospect.

Compare brands on facts and you will see where you can win. The template table, the perceptual map, the example and the battlecard below use 4 fictional brands, so you can copy the method for your own market.

What is a competitive analysis?

A competitive analysis is the study of the brands your buyers could choose instead of you. You look at what they sell, who they sell to and how they prove it. Then you decide where you can win.

Competitive analysis, competitor analysis and competitive landscape

• Competitive analysis covers your whole market, including indirect alternatives like spreadsheets or doing nothing.
• Competitor analysis zooms in on named competitors, one by one.
• Competitive landscape is the big picture of who is in the market and where each brand stands.

In practice, a good template covers all 3.

What it is for

• Pick a position that no other brand holds.
• Write messaging that shows your differences.
• Prepare your sales team for the objections they hear.
• Spot gaps in your offer or your proof.
• Plan content that answers the comparisons buyers already make.

What to compare in a competitor analysis template

A useful template compares the same 6 criteria for every brand. Keep each cell short and factual, and write only what the website says:

• target: who the website speaks to;
• offer: what the brand sells;
• promise: the main benefit the home page puts forward;
• proof: how the brand backs its promise;
• public prices: whether buyers can see a price without a sales call;
• tone: how the brand sounds.

Here is the template filled in for one market, staff scheduling software for restaurants. The 4 brands are fictional.

Read the table row by row. The promise row shows who talks about time, cost or team. The prices row shows who lets buyers qualify themselves before a call.

The perceptual map (positioning map)

A perceptual map places brands on 2 axes. Each axis runs between 2 opposite poles. The map shows where each brand stands and which spots stay empty. Strictly speaking, a perceptual map plots how buyers perceive each brand, from surveys or interviews, while a positioning map plots what each brand says and offers. The tool draws the second from websites: check it with a few customers to turn it into a true perceptual map. Pick axes that pass 3 tests:

• customers really look at this criterion when they choose;
• the axis has 2 opposite poles, like simple and advanced;
• you can place each brand from observable facts on its website.

The most common axes are price (low to high), specialization (generalist to specialist), level of service (self-service to done for you), simplicity (quick setup to deep configuration) and company size (small business to enterprise).

Axes to avoid

• "Quality" or "innovation", because every brand claims them.
• 2 axes that move together, like price and enterprise focus: brands line up on a diagonal and the map shows nothing.
• Criteria you can't check on a website, like customer satisfaction.
• Axes that matter to you more than to buyers, like your tech stack.

A perceptual map template

1. Name the horizontal axis and write its 2 poles at the left and right ends.
2. Name the vertical axis and write its 2 poles at the top and bottom.
3. Place each brand and add 1 sentence that explains why, based on a fact from its website.
4. Circle the empty zones and ask whether buyers want them.

A competitive analysis example

Back to the 4 restaurant scheduling brands. The horizontal axis runs from quick setup on the left to deep configuration on the right. The vertical axis runs from single restaurants at the bottom to multi-site groups at the top.

• Servio sits bottom left. Its home page speaks to owners and promises a schedule in minutes.
• Rush sits on the left, near the middle. It targets franchisees with a simple mobile app.
• Brigade sits bottom right. It speaks to single restaurants but offers detailed kitchen roles and shift rules.
• TablePlan sits top right. Its pages talk about forecasts, payroll exports and many locations.

The free position is top left: no brand offers a simple tool built for small groups with a few locations. Servio could move there with a clear promise and proof from group customers. Check one thing before you move: an empty zone can also mean that nobody needs it, so ask buyers first.

The competitive matrix

A competitive matrix is a grid: brands go in the columns and criteria in the rows, and each cell holds a short fact or a checkmark. The perceptual map shows positions on 2 axes, while the matrix compares many details at once.

Start with the map when you decide where to stand. Use the matrix when buyers compare details, for example on a comparison page.

The battlecard: the tool for your sales team

A battlecard is a 1-page sheet per competitor for your sales team. It holds their strengths (so reps don't deny them in front of a prospect), their weaknesses based on facts, how to win against them and answers to the objections reps hear. Here is Servio's battlecard against TablePlan:

• TablePlan strengths: labor cost forecasts across locations, payroll export, logos of restaurant groups on its website.
• TablePlan weaknesses: no public prices, so buyers need a sales call to get a quote, and pages that speak to head offices more than to restaurant managers.
• How to win: go after deals where 1 owner decides alone and wants to start soon, and show your public price page early in the call.
• Objection "TablePlan forecasts labor costs": ask how many locations the prospect runs. With 1 site, a clear weekly schedule and a time clock may cover the need.
• Objection "You look too simple for us": ask which rules they need, then show how Servio handles them in a live demo.

How to keep it up to date

• Rerun the analysis every quarter, and after any competitor launch or price change.
• Ask sales to log new objections after their calls.
• Date each battlecard and give it an owner.
• Remove lines that no longer match the competitor's website.

How to run your competitive analysis with the tool

1. Enter your website address. You don't need to sign up.
2. Add 1 to 3 competitor websites if you want. With none, Mark finds the websites that rank for the same Google searches.
3. Mark reads up to 3 pages of each website: the home page, the offer page and the pricing page when it is public.
4. An AI compares the brands from these pages. You get a comparison table (target, offer, promise, proof, public prices, tone), a positioning map on 2 axes picked for your market with the place of each brand and why, the positions nobody holds, the strengths and weaknesses of your website, and a battlecard per competitor.

Everything comes from the pages read. The tool adds no market share, no revenue and no customer review, and every figure it cites is checked against the pages of the brand it describes. Still read the analysis before you share it: an AI can misread a page.

Read and share the analysis

Copy the analysis or download it as a PDF: it works as a ready-to-use competitive analysis template, filled in with real data from the websites. Share the battlecards with sales and the map with your leadership team, then add what websites don't show, like what you hear on sales calls.

Mistakes to avoid

1. Comparing on criteria customers ignore. Ask 3 recent customers what they compared before they signed.
2. Forgetting indirect alternatives. Many restaurants still plan shifts in a spreadsheet or on paper. That habit competes with you too.
3. Judging on impressions instead of facts. "Their website looks cheap" tells your team nothing. Write down what the page says and link to it.
4. Running the analysis once. Competitors change their offer, prices and promise. An old analysis sends your reps into calls with wrong answers.
5. Drawing nothing from it for your content. A free position helps only if your pages claim it. Turn each difference into a page, an article or a sales email.

How to apply this today

1. Run the tool on your website, with or without competitors.
2. Read the comparison table and fix any line your team knows is outdated.
3. Ask 3 customers whether the 2 axes of the perceptual map match how they chose, and check them against your buyer personas.
4. Choose 1 free position and write the promise that claims it with the brand messaging framework generator.
5. Send each battlecard to sales and collect new objections for 2 weeks.
6. Plan a comparison page and 2 articles on your differences in your content calendar, and run a free GEO audit to compare your visibility in AI answers with your competitors'.

Competitive analysis: frequently asked questions