Competitive Intelligence Report: What It Includes

A competitive intelligence report is not a list of competitors. Most of the documents sold under that name are exactly that: a dozen logos, a paragraph lifted from each company’s About page, and a SWOT grid nobody reads twice. They describe a market. They do not tell you what to do in it.

A useful report answers one question, usually some version of “where is there room for us, and at what price?” Every section exists to serve that answer. Here is what those sections are, using our own published sample competitive intelligence report as the worked example. It is eleven pages on fashion and retail technology, prepared for a founder building two products, with the client’s name withheld.

Start with the question, stated on page one

The first page after the cover should state the question the report answers. In the sample it is “Where is there room for a new product, and at what price?” That sentence decides which companies get profiled, which numbers matter, and what the last page has to say.

If you cannot find the question in a report, the author did not have one. You will get a tour of the market instead of a decision.

The executive summary follows: a handful of findings, each stated as a claim and backed by one fact. “No company spans both sides of the market” is a finding. “The market is dynamic and competitive” is filler. An owner who reads only this page should know the answer.

The market map: who sells what, to whom

Next is the map. It sorts competitors into segments by what they sell and who buys it, and then says what each segment means for you: a rival, a channel to partner with, a data source to integrate, an incumbent to price under, or a complement.

That last column is the one most reports leave out, and it is the most valuable. In the sample, only some of the seven companies are real competitors. The rest are partners or integrations the client should plug into rather than fight. Getting that wrong means spending a launch budget attacking a company that could have been your best distribution channel.

A good map also shows the gap visually: a two-axis chart with the open positions marked. If the gap is real, it should be visible on one page.

Competitor profiles: price, ownership, and what each leaves open

Each profile should carry the same few facts so they can be compared:

• What it sells and to whom, in one line.
• Ownership and funding. Who controls the company changes how it will behave. A free product backed by a large strategic investor can afford to stay free. A profitable independent cannot match that, and neither can you.
• Published prices, tier by tier. Where a company does not publish prices, the report should say so and give estimates with their source, clearly marked as estimates.
• Our read. Two or three sentences on what the company proves about demand and what it leaves undone.

That final line is where the analysis lives. “Indyx proves that women will pay a person to organize a wardrobe. Its limit is reach.” That is a judgment you can act on, and it is the kind of sentence a list of logos never contains.

Comparative analysis: the price band nobody holds

Once each company is profiled, line the prices up. The sample plots monthly prices for four business products, entry plan to largest plan, and shades the band where nobody sells. That band becomes the recommended price.

This section is also where ownership gets compared. Who has bought whom, and for how much, tells you what the market is worth to a strategic buyer. If you are raising money or planning an exit, that comparable matters as much as the pricing.

Pricing work is where competitive intelligence pays for itself fastest. Owners routinely price against the one competitor they know, when the real reference point is a company two segments over. If pricing is the decision you are facing, our go-to-market work builds the price into a launch plan.

The capability matrix

A table of capabilities down the side, competitors across the top, each cell marked full, partial or none. It is the fastest way to show a skeptical investor that the gap is real, because they can check every cell themselves.

Two rules keep a matrix honest. First, score from published product and pricing pages, and say so on the page. Second, choose capabilities that matter to your product, not ones that make you look good. A matrix where you win every row persuades nobody.

Recommendations, then sources

The recommendation page names the position: the target customer, the price, the edge, and what to build that position on. One page, specific enough that someone could disagree with it.

The last page lists where every figure came from and states the limits: when the research was done, which prices are estimates, which numbers the companies reported about themselves. Prices change. A report that dates its research and names its sources stays useful; one that does not becomes a liability the first time a lender asks “where did this number come from?”

What a competitive intelligence report costs

Cost depends on scope: how many companies, whether public sources are enough or new interviews are needed, and whether the report has to stand up in front of investors or lenders. Fielding surveys costs the most. A desk study built on published prices, filings and announcements costs the least and answers most positioning questions.

CMA prices market research at two fixed sizes:

• One focused question: $1,250. A competitive intelligence report like the sample fits here: one decision, the companies that matter to it, and a recommendation.
• Full TAM/SAM/SOM sizing: $2,500. When you also need to know how big the market is, built from the top down and the bottom up.

Both are scoped on a short call and fixed before work starts.

When you do not need one

If the idea is early, do the first pass yourself. Read every competitor’s pricing page, sign up for their free tiers, and look up who owns them. You will learn most of what matters in a weekend. Pay for a report when someone else has to rely on it, or when a pricing or positioning decision has real money behind it.

If you have that decision in front of you, book a call and tell us the question in one sentence. We will tell you whether a report would change the answer.