Competitor analysis example: what finished looks like
A complete competitor analysis example for a hypothetical coffee brand and three rivals: matrix, channels, pricing, messaging, SWOT and dated actions.
This is a complete competitor analysis example: one hypothetical business, three rivals, and every section filled in, from the comparison matrix to dated actions. Use it to see what "done" looks like. For the blank version to fill in yourself, use the competitor analysis template.
The business and every number are invented. The sources are real and free, and each one is named so you can repeat the work for your own market.
The brief
The business. Hollow Oak, a hypothetical online coffee roaster in the US selling whole bean subscriptions at $18 a 12 oz bag, delivered every two or four weeks.
The question. New subscriptions fell from about 140 a month in June to 95 in September. Is a competitor behind it, and what should change in the fourth quarter?
The rivals. The three that new customers named most often when asked "what else did you consider?" at checkout: a national subscription brand (the Leader), a premium brand sold in supermarkets (the Grocery brand) and a café roaster in Hollow Oak's own city (the Local roaster). Asking customers is the fastest way to find your real competitors rather than the ones you assume.
Date and time spent. 4 October 2026. One afternoon of research.
Starting with a question is what separates an analysis from a collection of facts. Everything below is there because it helps answer it.
1. The comparison matrix
| Hollow Oak | Leader | Grocery brand | Local roaster | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price per 12 oz bag | $18 | $16.50 | $12.99 | $20 |
| Shipping | Free over $30 | Always free | Free on subscriptions | $5, or free bike delivery in the city |
| First order offer | 10% off | First bag free | None | None |
| Roast date on the bag | Yes, ships within 48 hours | No, "roasted fresh" | Best-before date only | Yes |
| Skip or pause | By text message | In account | In account | Email the shop |
| Coffees on offer | 9 | 30+ | 6 | 5 |
| Rating | 4.8 from 1,150 (Trustpilot) | 4.2 from 9,800 (Trustpilot) | 4.5 (retailer reviews) | 4.9 from 420 (Google) |
Sources: each brand's own site and pricing page, Trustpilot and Google, all read on 4 October.
What it says. The Leader beats Hollow Oak on price and range. Hollow Oak beats the Leader on freshness and reviews. The Local roaster matches Hollow Oak on freshness and wins locally, but barely ships beyond the city. For the full method behind a grid like this, see the competitive matrix template.
2. Channels
| Channel | Hollow Oak | Leader | Grocery brand | Local roaster |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active Meta ads | 8 | 64 | 12 | 0 |
| Google Ads | Own brand name only | "Coffee subscription" and similar | Own brand name only | None |
| Position for "coffee subscription" | 34th | 3rd | Not in top 50 | Not in top 50 |
| Instagram posts a week | 2 | 5 | 3 | 6 |
| Email sign-up offer | 10% off | A free bag | Recipes | None |
Sources, all on 1 October: the Meta Ad Library, the Google Ads Transparency Center plus searches for the terms to see whose ads appear, a logged-out search for the ranking, and each brand's Instagram grid.
The finding that matters. The Leader has 64 active Meta ads, and the ad library's start dates show 51 of them began on 4 August, every one leading with "your first bag is free". Hollow Oak's sign-ups started falling the same week.
3. Pricing and offers
What changed since June, read from the Wayback Machine and each rival's sitemap:
| Rival | Change | When |
|---|---|---|
| Leader | Launched "first bag free" for new subscribers | 4 August |
| Leader | Raised the bag price from $15.50 to $16.50 | July |
| Grocery brand | Added "subscribe and save 15%" on its own site | September |
| Local roaster | No change |
Then the arithmetic, for a customer taking two bags a month:
| First month | Every month after | |
|---|---|---|
| Hollow Oak | $32.40 | $36.00 |
| Leader | $16.50 | $33.00 |
| Grocery brand | $22.08 | $22.08 |
| Local roaster | $45.00 outside the city | $45.00 |
What it says. The Leader's offer halves the first month, but after that it is only $3 a month cheaper. The offer buys trials; it does not undercut the subscription. That changes the response: Hollow Oak does not need a lower price, it needs to win the second month.
4. Messaging
| Homepage headline | Claims they repeat | Reviews praise | Reviews complain | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hollow Oak | "Small-batch coffee, roasted to order" | Small batch, ethical sourcing | Freshness (310 mentions), skipping by text (140) | Slow delivery to the west coast |
| Leader | "Great coffee, delivered. Your first bag is on us." | Choice, convenience | Range, easy setup | Stale or "flat" taste (210 mentions), hard to cancel |
| Grocery brand | "Café quality at home" | Value, availability | Price | Bitter, inconsistent |
| Local roaster | "Roasted in the city since 2014" | Local, craft | The café, the staff | Slow shipping outside the city |
What it says. Hollow Oak's headline claim, "roasted to order", is one the Local roaster also makes. Its two most praised qualities, freshness and texting to skip, appear nowhere in its headline. And the Leader's most common complaint is staleness, which is exactly Hollow Oak's strength. That is the most useful finding in the whole analysis.
5. SWOT, derived from the evidence
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|
| Ships within 48 hours of roasting, date on the bag. Rated 4.8, and reviews single out freshness. | $1.50 a bag above the Leader. Nine coffees against 30+. 34th for "coffee subscription". |
| Opportunities | Threats |
| The Leader's 210 staleness complaints. Reddit threads from people who cancelled the Leader after the free bag. | The Leader's free bag, backed by 64 ads. The Grocery brand's subscription at $11.04 a bag. |
Every point comes from sections 1 to 4, which is why this SWOT is short. If yours needs points that are not in your research, the research is not finished. More filled versions are in these SWOT analysis examples.
6. Actions
| # | Action | Owner | By |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rewrite the homepage headline around freshness: "Roasted, then shipped within 48 hours. The date is on the bag." | Marketing lead | 18 October |
| 2 | Meta ads for people who have tried a subscription before: "Tasted flat? Check the roast date." No rival named. | Paid social | 25 October |
| 3 | Test half price on the first bag against 10% off for four weeks, judged on third-month retention, not sign-ups | Founder | Starts 1 November |
| 4 | Publish a dated comparison page showing roast dates, prices and skip options for all four brands | Content | 15 November |
Decided not to do: match the free bag. At 95 sign-ups a month it would give away about $1,700 of coffee a month at retail price before knowing whether those customers stay, and section 3 shows the Leader's lasting price advantage is only $3 a month. Also not doing: adding 20 coffees to match the Leader's range.
Re-check: the Leader's ads and pricing page weekly; the whole analysis again in January.
What makes this competitor analysis example finished
It answers the question it started with. The sign-up drop lines up with the Leader's offer, and the response is chosen because of the arithmetic, not panic.
Every number has a source and a date. Anyone can check it, and anyone can tell when it is stale.
It shows where Hollow Oak loses. Price, range and search. An analysis where you win every row has been written to reassure, not to decide.
It ends in owners and dates, and in what not to do. The "not doing" line is often the most valuable sentence, because it stops a costly reaction.
The sections that go stale first are channels and pricing. Here the key finding came from a burst of new rival ads and a pricing page change landing in the same week. Figo checks exactly those things for each competitor every week, new Meta, Google and TikTok ads, pricing page changes, new pages, rankings and reviews, and emails what changed on Monday. Ours, so judge accordingly. It tells you when to redo the analysis; it does not do the thinking in sections 4 to 6.
Questions people ask
How many competitors should a competitor analysis include?
Three to five. Pick the ones customers actually compare you with, which you can find by asking new customers what else they considered. Ten competitors analysed shallowly is worth less than three analysed properly.
How long does a competitor analysis take?
The first one takes an afternoon to a day for three rivals, most of it in ad libraries, pricing pages and reviews. Keeping it current takes about 30 minutes a week if you only check what changed.
What is the difference between a competitor analysis and a market analysis?
A market analysis sizes the opportunity: how many buyers, how much they spend, how fast it is growing. A competitor analysis looks at the specific businesses competing for those buyers and what they are doing.
Should a competitor analysis include the competitors' revenue?
Only if it is public and changes a decision. For private companies the published estimates are often wrong, and price, offers, channels and reviews tell you more about how they compete.
See it on your own competitors
Figo checks their ads, pages, rankings and reviews every week, then tells you what to do in plain words. Set up in two minutes.
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