How to do a competitor analysis: method, tool prices and what outsourcing costs

Who counts as a competitor, and how many rivals should you analyse?

Start from the buyer, not from an industry list. A competitor is whatever a customer weighs against you at the moment of choice: a company selling the same thing, a different product that solves the same problem, or doing nothing. The US Small Business Administration asks for competitors to be identified by product line or service and by market segment, indirect ones included.

Three to five rivals is our rule of thumb for a first pass; more only slow the table down. Build the list from three places:

• Search the five to ten phrases a buyer would type and note who appears in the ads and on page one, marketplaces and directories included.
• If you serve a local area, search Google Maps for your category and note who has the freshest reviews.
• Ask your last five customers who else they looked at before choosing you.

Leave the market giant off the sheet unless buyers really compare you with it; it makes every small rival look weak.

How do you do a competitor analysis, step by step?

1. Write the decision firstDecide what the analysis must settle: a price change, a new offer, where to advertise. A table without a decision becomes a scrapbook.
2. Choose three to five rivalsUse the list above and note why each rival is on it.
3. Fix the rowsUse the nine rows below and compare the same things for every rival. Add a row only if the decision needs it.
4. Collect facts with a date and a linkRecord what you can see, not what you suspect: the price on the page, the ad, the review text. Write “not published” when it is missing and screenshot pages that may change.
5. Mark the gapsFor each row note who is strongest and where every rival says the same thing. Where rivals look interchangeable, a credible difference is cheap to claim; where one is far ahead, think twice before competing head-on.
6. Decide, then set a re-check dateTurn the gaps into no more than three changes, each with an owner. Re-check price, ads and reviews quarterly and the rest yearly.

What goes into a competitor analysis template or table?

One row per thing a buyer weighs, one column per rival, plus one for you. This is the template: what to record, where to look and what checking costs.

Score every row from 0 to 2 against what buyers care about. Two readings matter more than the score: rows where all rivals say the same thing, and questions buyers ask that nobody answers. For example, if every rival hides its price behind “request a quote”, a published price is a difference buyers see in seconds (an illustration, not data).

Which free and paid tools do you need, and what do they cost?

Start free and buy a tool only when a row cannot be filled by hand. Prices are as printed on each vendor’s page on 2026-10-04; Semrush and Ahrefs showed euros when we opened them from Europe, so those stay in euros.

Treat every traffic and keyword number as an estimate. Similarweb’s own page calls its free data a high-level sample and links an article on why its figures differ from Google Analytics. Use estimates to rank rivals, not to quote a rival’s turnover.

What does it cost to outsource a competitor analysis?

Few firms publish a price for competitor analysis alone; most fold it into market research or an audit. The ladder joins the figures we could open with one stated piece of arithmetic.

Three things move the price: the number of rivals, the number of rows, and whether anyone talks to customers. IntoTheMinds’ own split shows the third costing most; a desk study on public pages is the cheapest honest version.

Should you do it yourself or buy it?

• Do it yourself when you have fewer than five rivals, the decision is small and reversible, such as a price test, and their sites take an afternoon to read.
• Buy it when you are about to launch, reprice or enter a market, when more than five rivals matter, or when nobody will keep the table fresh.
• Ask for the table and the sources, not a slide deck alone, so you can re-run the check yourself next quarter.

What would a competitor analysis cost with VITON¹³?

Competitor research is ticked. Add market research if you doubt demand, a marketing audit to review your own channels, or brand positioning if the table points to a gap you want to own. The totals add the live starting prices in both production modes.

The competitor research package returns a competitor landscape, demand evidence and opportunity directions. It takes 3–5 working days.