competitor-analysis

Systematic competitor research — positioning, pricing, feature gaps, messaging analysis, and SEO footprint comparison. Use when analyzing competitive landscape for a product, service, or market.

Model	Source
sonnet	pack: recon

Full Reference

Competitor Analysis

Structured competitive intelligence — from identifying who you’re actually competing with, to mapping the whitespace where you win. Produces a competitor brief ready for strategy or sales use.

5 phases, each approval-gated:

Phase 1: Competitor Discovery — who to track and why
Phase 2: Positioning Matrix — where each player stands
Phase 3: Feature & Pricing Gap Analysis — what they offer and at what cost
Phase 4: Messaging Analysis — how they talk to customers
Phase 5: SEO Footprint Comparison — search visibility and content strategy

Quick Reference

Phase	Focus	Output
1: Discovery	Identify 3–8 direct + indirect competitors	Ranked competitor list with rationale
2: Positioning	Map on axes: price/quality, breadth/depth, ICP	Positioning matrix
3: Feature & Pricing	Feature comparison table, pricing tiers, gaps	Gap analysis table
4: Messaging	Headlines, CTAs, pain points targeted, tone	Messaging comparison matrix
5: SEO Footprint	Domain authority, keyword overlap, content volume	SEO gap summary

Item	Value
Output file	`reports/competitor-analysis-[YYYY-MM-DD].md`
Approval gate	Stop after Phase 2 — confirm competitor list before deep analysis
Minimum competitors	3 direct, 1 indirect
Maximum competitors	8 total — focus beats comprehensiveness

Phase 1: Competitor Discovery

Start by asking: “Who else solves the same problem for the same buyer?”

Inputs needed:

Your product/service description (1–2 sentences)
Target customer (ICP)
Geographic market

Discovery sources:

G2, Capterra, Trustpilot category pages
“X vs Y” Google searches
Reddit threads where your ICP asks for recommendations
LinkedIn job postings mentioning competing tools
Crunchbase category listings

Output: Ranked list with:

| Competitor | Type | Why They Matter | Priority |
|------------|------|-----------------|----------|
| Acme Corp  | Direct | Same ICP, overlapping pricing | High |
| BigCo      | Indirect | Adjacent problem, different buyer | Medium |

Types: Direct (same solution, same ICP), Indirect (different solution, same problem), Aspirational (where your ICP upgrades to).

Approval gate: Confirm the competitor list before proceeding to Phase 2.

Phase 2: Positioning Matrix

Map each competitor on two axes chosen for the market. Common axis pairs:

Market Type	Axis 1	Axis 2
B2B SaaS	Price (low→enterprise)	Complexity (simple→powerful)
Services	Specialization (generalist→niche)	Speed (slow→fast)
Consumer	Price (budget→premium)	Quality/prestige
Platform	Breadth (narrow→all-in-one)	Depth (surface→deep)

Output: Text-based matrix with whitespace analysis. See reference/positioning-matrix.md for the full framework and rendering format.

Deep extraction: Use firecrawl to crawl competitor homepages and key pages (pricing, about, features) — max 10 pages per competitor. This captures full messaging, positioning language, and page structure that WebFetch snippets miss.

Phase 3: Feature & Pricing Gap Analysis

Feature comparison: Build a table with rows = features, columns = competitors. Mark: ✓ present, ◐ partial, ✗ missing.

Focus on:

Core job-to-be-done features
Differentiating features (things 1–2 players have)
Table-stakes features (everything has them — note, don’t linger)
Gaps you can own (missing across all or most competitors)

Pricing analysis:

| Competitor | Entry Tier | Mid Tier | Top Tier | Model |
|------------|-----------|----------|----------|-------|
| Acme       | $49/mo    | $149/mo  | Custom   | Per seat |

Pricing models: per seat, usage-based, flat rate, freemium+paid, quote-only.

Gap identification: Where your product has a feature no competitor offers, or where pricing creates an unserved segment.

Phase 4: Messaging Analysis

Analyze each competitor’s:

Hero headline — what promise do they lead with?
Subheadline / value prop — how do they qualify?
Primary CTA — what action do they push?
Pain points targeted — what problem language do they use?
Social proof type — logos, numbers, testimonials, case studies?
Tone — enterprise/formal, startup/casual, technical/accessible

Sources to check: Homepage, pricing page, top-performing blog posts, G2 reviews (what customers say in their words).

Deep messaging extraction: Use firecrawl to scrape competitor homepages and landing pages for exact copy. Rate limit: max 5 firecrawl pages per competitor for messaging analysis.

See reference/output-format.md for the messaging comparison matrix template.

Phase 5: SEO Footprint Comparison

Compare search visibility and content strategy. See reference/seo-footprint.md for the full analysis framework.

Quick metrics per competitor:

| Competitor | DR | Organic Traffic (est) | Top Keywords | Content Volume |
|------------|----|-----------------------|--------------|----------------|

Tools: Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz (any one), plus free: Google site: search, Ubersuggest.

Key questions:

Which keywords do all competitors rank for? (table stakes — you must be there)
Which keywords does only one competitor rank for? (opportunity or irrelevant)
What content format dominates? (guides, tools, comparison pages, case studies)
Where are the content gaps? (topics your ICP searches but nobody covers well)

Reference Index

I want to…	File
Build a positioning matrix — axes selection, whitespace mapping, visualization format	`reference/positioning-matrix.md`
Run SEO footprint comparison — domain metrics, keyword overlap, content gap analysis	`reference/seo-footprint.md`
Format the final competitor brief — all section templates, messaging matrix, gap tables	`reference/output-format.md`

Usage: Read the reference file matching your current task. Each file is self-contained.

seo-audit — deep SEO analysis for your own site
link-analysis — competitor backlink reverse-engineering
content-strategy — content planning using competitive gaps
search-rank — keyword ranking comparison
cro-audit — conversion rate benchmarking against competitors
brainstorming — use findings to generate positioning strategy

Announcement

┏━ 🔍 competitor-analysis ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┃ Systematic competitive intelligence — position- ┃ ┃ ing, pricing, messaging, and SEO footprint ┃ ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛