How to do a competitor analysis: method, comparison areas and template

The purpose of a competitor analysis is not to collect everything about your rivals but to find evidence for one specific decision. Pricing, product choices, entering a new market and rewriting your website each call for different comparisons. Write down the decision before you start collecting.

The method in four steps

1. State the decision. For example, “which price tier for the new product” or “whether to enter Southeast Asia”. Without a clear decision the report becomes a pile of facts.
2. Pick the right competitors. Three to five that genuinely compete for the same customers: direct competitors, the alternative a customer uses if they don’t buy from you, and one benchmark you want to catch up with.
3. Collect evidence by area. Put a source and date in every cell: website, pricing page, marketplace listings, job posts, reviews, filings or press coverage. Mark what you can’t find as unknown rather than guessing.
4. Conclude and decide next steps. Answer: where are we ahead, where are the gaps, and what still needs checking.

What to compare

Area	What to look at	Typical sources
Target customers	Who they sell to and for which use cases	Home page, case studies, ad copy
Product	Core features, specs, what’s missing	Product pages, manuals, trials
Price	Pricing model, tiers, discounts	Pricing pages, marketplaces, sales quotes
Channels	Where they win customers and sell	Stores, trade show lists, social accounts
Content and reputation	How they describe themselves; what customers say	Blogs, social posts, reviews, forums
AI visibility	Who gets mentioned when buyers ask AI, and how	Answers to a fixed question set in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and others

The last row is a newer area: some buyers now ask an AI assistant before searching for a brand. Running the same questions for you and each competitor and comparing mention rate shows who holds a place in AI answers.

Competitor analysis template

Copy this structure:

Decision: ____ (what this analysis supports)
Date: ____  Owner: ____

Competitors: direct A / B / C, alternative D, benchmark E

Comparison table: competitor × six areas, each cell "fact + source + date"

Conclusions:
- Where we're ahead:
- Where we have gaps:
- Still uncertain, needs checking:

Next steps: who does what, by when

Using AI for competitor analysis

AI research tools are good at gathering public information and drafting the comparison table quickly, but every fact still needs checking against its original source. When you need to know how customers actually buy, add interviews or first-hand research. To see how your brand and competitors appear in AI answers, see how to check brand visibility in ChatGPT.