This template is the structure we use for every Debriefing brief. It has been through more than 40 delivered reports across 14 companies, and the shape has stopped changing: a TLDR, a position table, actions, six signal sections, a watch list, and sources. The examples below are lightly anonymised entries from real reports.
The reason the structure works is the order. The reader gets the verdict in the first paragraph, the whole landscape in the first table, and the to-do list before any detail. If they stop after two minutes they still leave with a decision. The signal sections exist to justify the top, not to pad the bottom.
Time to complete: 4-6 hours for a first report on 5 competitors, 2-3 hours per follow-up cycle. Length: 1,500-3,000 words per report.
When to use it
- Biweekly competitive debrief. A repeatable report a founder or product lead reads in 10-15 minutes every two weeks to know what changed across the competitor set and what to do about it.
- Board or investor update. The TLDR and competitive position table lift straight into a board deck as the competitive slide, with dated sources behind every claim.
- Quarterly strategy review. Four cycles of the report stacked give a quarter of trend data on competitor pricing, hiring, and funding to inform roadmap and pricing decisions.
- New competitor onboarding. When a new competitor shows up in a lost deal, this structure gets them profiled and placed against the existing set in one session.
The template, section by section
TLDR
One paragraph that states your competitive position (strengthening, stable, pressured, or threatened) and why, followed by three to five bullets with the signals that drove that call. Each bullet carries a fact, a date, and a source. Written last, placed first.
Example:
Your position is PRESSURED because both camps you sit between (AI-native workflow builders and backend platforms) are moving into your exact space with more funding. Competitor A hit a $5.2B valuation (May 2026, per Tech.eu). Competitor B was acquired by an enterprise suite (Nov 2025, per company newsroom), which removes a comparable and shows incumbents now buy this capability. Your durability wedge is real but no longer unique: three open-source rivals sell it as their core.
Competitive position table
One row per competitor plus one for you. Columns: competitor, position (one line), direction (strengthening, stable, pivoting, weakening), key signal this cycle. This table is the report in 30 seconds and is what gets pasted into decks.
Example:
| Competitor A | Category leader, AI-native | STRENGTHENING | $5.2B valuation May 2026, deep AI node set |
| Competitor B | Integration platform | PIVOTING | Acquired Nov 2025, folding into enterprise suite |
| You | Workflow-to-backend | PRESSURED | ~50 customers, sales-led pivot, self-serve removed |
Recommended actions
Three to six numbered actions, each with a bold one-line instruction, the evidence from this cycle that justifies it, and what to do in the next 30 days. Actions come before signal detail because the reader may stop here.
Example:
Re-open a self-serve path, even a thin one. Every winning competitor in your set (five of eight) is bottom-up. A technical team with no growth function cannot run outbound; your cold-email test already showed that. Ship a free tier with a usage cap this month and let inbound do the first conversation.
Signal 1: Product and pricing
A table of every competitor’s pricing model, entry paid tier, higher tiers, and the date and URL you verified it. Below the table, one paragraph on what the pattern means for you. Direct checks of pricing pages, not third-party summaries.
Example:
| Competitor A | Per-execution, cloud or self-host | Starter €20/mo (2,500 executions) | Pro €50/mo, Business €667/mo | competitor-a.io/pricing, 2026-06-09 |
What this means: The market has settled on two shapes, per-execution credits and fixed-plan-plus-quota. Both are self-serve. You have no public price and a talk-to-us gate, which is a friction tax when a developer can sign up to a rival at $19/mo tonight.
Signal 2: AI adoption
What each competitor shipped or announced in AI this cycle: features, models used, positioning language. Note whether it is a real product change or a marketing relabel. Source from changelogs and product pages first, press second.
Example:
Competitor C added an agent builder to its changelog on 2026-05-28 (verified on their /changelog page). The homepage headline changed from ‘workflow automation’ to ‘AI agent platform’ the same week. Two of the three new AI features are wrappers on an existing node type; one (evaluation runs) is new capability.
Signal 3: Hiring and team
Open roles by function per competitor, pulled from careers pages and ATS feeds, plus headcount change since last cycle. Hiring is the earliest public signal of strategy: six enterprise sales roles means a move upmarket before any press release.
Example:
Competitor A: 41 open roles (+12 since last cycle), of which 9 are enterprise sales and 6 are solutions engineering. Competitor D: 3 open roles, all engineering, headcount flat at ~25. Pattern: the funded player is building a sales org; the lean player is not.
Signal 4: Funding and M&A
Rounds, valuations, acquisitions, and executive changes with date and source. Include what the money is stated to be for, in the company’s own words, because that is a roadmap statement.
Example:
Competitor E raised a $30M Series Pre-A (March 2026, per company blog) ‘to expand enterprise deployments in Japan and Europe.’ Competitor B’s acquisition closed (Nov 2025, per acquirer newsroom). No executive changes detected this cycle.
Signal 5: Content and distribution
Publishing cadence, top-performing pages, paid search presence, events, and community activity per competitor. This tells you where they are buying attention and where the gaps are.
Example:
Competitor A published 11 blog posts this cycle (vs 4 last cycle), 7 of them ‘X vs Competitor A’ comparison pages. They now bid on your brand name in Google Ads (observed 2026-06-02, screenshot in sources). Nobody in the set has a page targeting ‘production AI workflows’, which is your headline claim.
Signal 6: Market and regulation
Category-level moves that change the ground for everyone: platform policy changes, regulation, analyst reports, big-tech entries. Keep it to what affects your decisions this quarter.
Example:
A major cloud provider added a native workflow builder to its AI studio (announced 2026-05-20). It is basic today, but it is free for existing customers of that cloud and will compress the low end of the market within two quarters.
What to watch
Three to five specific things to check next cycle, each phrased as a question with a trigger. This makes the next report faster and keeps the reader looking forward.
Example:
Does Competitor A ship the on-prem tier their careers page implies (three ‘deployment engineer’ roles)? Does Competitor D’s pricing page change after their Series A closes? Does the cloud provider’s builder add version control (the feature that would make it a real threat)?
Sources
Every URL used, grouped by competitor, with the date accessed. A report without dated sources cannot be trusted next quarter and cannot be defended in a board meeting.
Example:
Competitor A: competitor-a.io/pricing (2026-06-09), competitor-a.io/careers (2026-06-09), tech.eu/2026/05/… (2026-06-09). Competitor B: acquirer.com/newsroom/… (2026-06-09).
Tips
- Write the TLDR last. It is a summary of the signal sections, and writing it first produces a guess that the evidence then has to fit
- Put a date and a URL on every factual claim. ‘They raised a round’ is gossip. ‘They raised $30M on 2026-03-12 per their blog’ is intelligence
- Check competitor sites directly (pricing, changelog, careers) rather than relying on news. News is what they want you to know; the careers page is what they are actually doing
- Keep the competitor set to 5-8. Track the companies you lose deals to, not the biggest logos in the category
- Rate your own position honestly in the table. A report that always says ‘stable’ is not read after the second issue
- Reuse the structure every cycle so the reader knows where to look. Change the content, never the headings
- End every signal section with ‘What this means for you’. A table with no interpretation is a data dump, not a report
How to use this template
Copy the section list into a document. Fill the six signal sections first, from direct checks of each competitor’s site plus a news sweep. Then write the recommended actions from what the signals show. Then write the TLDR from the actions. Then fill the position table. Then list what to watch. Sources accumulate as you go.
Repeat every two weeks. Keep the headings identical between issues so a reader can compare cycle to cycle.
Step 1: Fix the competitor set
Five to eight companies. Pick them from lost deals and from your customers’ stated shortlists, not from analyst quadrants. Write one line on why each is in the set. Revisit the set quarterly, not every issue.
Step 2: Collect the six signals
Work through the signals in order. For each competitor:
- Product and pricing: open their pricing page, changelog, homepage, and integrations page. Record what is there with today’s date. Diff against last cycle.
- AI adoption: what did they ship or claim in AI. Changelog first, press second.
- Hiring and team: count open roles on their careers page by function. Note headcount from LinkedIn.
- Funding and M&A: check Crunchbase and their newsroom for rounds, acquisitions, and executive changes.
- Content and distribution: count posts published, note comparison pages, check whether they bid on your brand in search.
- Market and regulation: one sweep for category-level moves.
Each signal section gets a table and a “what this means for you” paragraph. The paragraph is the work. The table is evidence.
Step 3: Write the actions
Three to six. Each one is a bold instruction, the evidence behind it, and a 30-day step. If an action has no evidence in the signal sections, cut it. If a signal section produces no action, say so in one line; not every signal needs a response.
Step 4: Write the TLDR and the position table
The TLDR is one paragraph on your position and why, then three to five bullets that carry the strongest dated facts from the signal sections. The position table is one row per competitor with direction and the single key signal. Both should be readable by someone who has never seen the company before.
Step 5: List what to watch, then sources
Three to five questions with triggers for next cycle. Then every URL, grouped by competitor, dated.
A note on cadence
Two weeks is the right interval for most companies. Weekly produces reports with nothing in them and trains the reader to skip. Monthly misses pricing changes by three weeks. Every two weeks, four cycles per quarter, gives you a trend by the quarterly review.
If you want this done for you, Debriefing delivers the first report free in 10 minutes. Send us your competitor list and compare the result against your own draft.
FAQs
What is a competitive intelligence report?
A dated, sourced document that states your position against a fixed set of competitors, what changed since the last report, and what you should do about it. It differs from a competitive analysis (a one-off snapshot) by being recurring and by building a record.
How long should a competitive intelligence report be?
1,500-3,000 words. A 10-15 minute read. The TLDR and position table should stand alone in under two minutes.
How often should I produce one?
Every two weeks. See the cadence note above.
What is the difference between this and a battlecard?
A battlecard is for a sales rep in a live deal: one competitor, one page, how to win. This report is for a founder or product lead: the whole set, what changed, what to decide. The report feeds the battlecards. See our how to create battlecards.