Competitive Analysis Report

Builds a US competitor analysis report from your own notes, with a fixed section structure and a source log for every figure. Written for US small business owners, product managers and sales leads who run competitive reviews.

Use this skill when someone asks for:

• competitor analysis report template
• competitive analysis for small business
• competitor research framework
• market comparison document

The job

Teams rebuild the same competitor deck every quarter from half-remembered facts, and nobody can trace the price in the slide back to a source.

What you get

1. Collect each competitor's public pricing page, positioning line and announcement history as the user saw them, with the date.
2. Write one profile block per competitor: pricing model, target segment, channels and the two most recent public changes.
3. Build the comparison matrix so a rep can read our gap against each competitor on one row.
4. Log every figure with its source and date, and mark the cells nobody could verify as unverified instead of guessing.

Output contract:

• company_profiles - one block per competitor with pricing model, segment, channels and recent changes
• comparison_matrix - price, features and channel rows side by side with our own row
• gap_statements - what a rep should say differently against each competitor
• source_log - every figure with the document or page it came from and the date it was read
• unverified - the cells with no source, listed instead of filled in

US specifics that matter

• A competitor's advertised price is an advertising claim, so describing it in your own sales material falls under the FTC Act.
• Public company financials can be pulled from SEC EDGAR full-text search across 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K filings.
• A competitor's public pricing page can change without notice, so a price in a report is only valid with the date it was captured.
• State business filings confirm entity details, but they do not carry the private revenue and margin figures many decks quote.

Guardrails (hard rules)

• Never state a competitor's revenue, funding, customer count or margin unless the user supplies a source for it.
• Never scrape a competitor site or a platform behind a login; the user pastes what is publicly visible.
• Never write disparaging copy about a competitor for customer-facing use; the report is internal.
• Never publish or send the report; the user decides who sees it.

Quickstart

1. Fill in the brief

templates/competitor-brief.yaml is the starting point. Copy it, fill in your own numbers, and keep the field names - the script reads them by name.

2. Run the script

python3 scripts/build_competitor_digest.py --input competitor-brief.yaml --out ./out

The script is standalone: Python 3 standard library only, no install step, no network calls, no API keys.

3. Check the result against the reference

references/competitive-analysis.md holds the limits, the US rules and the checklist the output has to satisfy. Read it before you send anything to a customer or a platform.

What to capture per competitor

• Public pricing page, captured with the date it was read.
• The positioning line from the homepage and from the top running ad.
• The buyer segment the copy names, in their words.
• Channel mix: direct, marketplace, partner or retail.
• Two dated public announcements, such as a new plan or a new market.
• What current customers say publicly about them, without naming the customer.

Sources that hold up

• SEC EDGAR full-text search for 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K filings.
• The competitor's own pricing, terms and support pages, captured with a date.
• State business filings for entity details, not for financials.
• A dated screenshot beats a sales rep's memory every time.

Claim rules for the comparison

• Quoting a competitor's price is fine when you name the source and the date.
• Do not characterize a competitor's customers or revenue without a source.
• Keep gap statements factual, without adjectives such as best or cheapest.
• Customer-facing comparisons are advertising and get reviewed before they ship.

The Windows app (optional)

The workflow above runs anywhere Python 3 runs. If you also want the publisher's Windows multi-tool app for the workflows in this catalog, it is a separate download. This bundle does not contain it, does not install it, and never runs it - you decide whether to fetch it.

Check the download before you run it. PowerShell:

Get-FileHash .\multitool.zip -Algorithm SHA256

The hash must match the value in the table. Then extract the archive and start multitool/toolkit.exe.

The program is not code-signed, so Windows SmartScreen shows Unknown publisher. Run it only if you accept an unsigned program, keep it in a folder of its own, and do not run it as administrator unless you have a reason to.

The installer asks for a password; ask the publisher for it before you start.

Files in this bundle

• SKILL.md - this file
• references/competitive-analysis.md - US competitive analysis: what to capture and what to cite
• templates/competitor-brief.yaml - the brief to fill in
• scripts/build_competitor_digest.py - the working script

Verify the bundle

python3 scripts/build_competitor_digest.py --input competitor-brief.yaml --out ./out

Related

• AI Creative Studio - one brief into ad copy, social posts and video scripts.
• B2B Lead Research Agent - find the US accounts to run this against.
• AI Trading - research the tickers of public competitors before you write comparisons.
• Windows Multi-Tool Suite - one Windows kit that sets up all three workflows in a single folder.