# Competitive Analysis > Research how 2–4 mature competitors solve a specific business problem (billing, RBAC, search, onboarding, multi-tenancy, etc.) and produce a side-by-side comparison so the team can pick the right approach for their context. Uses web search + scraping; cites every source. - Skill: `viknesh20-20/competitive-analysis` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add viknesh20-20/competitive-analysis` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/viknesh20-20/competitive-analysis/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Research & Search - Author: viknesh20-20 (https://skillmd.com/u/viknesh20-20) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/viknesh20-20/competitive-analysis --- # /competitive-analysis Before designing a feature in a well-trodden domain, look at how 2–4 mature companies handle it. Faster than inventing. More robust than guessing. Cite every source — never copy product copy or terms-of-service language. ## When to use - Designing billing, dunning, refunds, plan changes, trials, onboarding. - Designing RBAC, workspace management, team invitations. - Designing notifications, digests, preferences. - Designing API rate limits, pagination, idempotency, error formats. - Designing search, filters, saved views. - Designing data export, deletion, retention. - Stuck on UX for a non-obvious flow (account merging, plan downgrade, account recovery). ## When NOT to use - The user's domain is unique enough that competitor patterns won't transfer (specialized B2B verticals, regulated industries with custom workflows). - The user has already decided. Don't second-guess; just ship. - Style and copy decisions — those are taste, not pattern. ## Operating method ### 1. Confirm the question Ask the user, in one round: - **What's the specific problem?** Not "how does Stripe work" but "how should we handle a failed-payment retry schedule and the user-facing dunning emails?" - **What's our context?** B2C / B2B / SMB / enterprise / specific vertical. Self-serve vs sales-led. Plan structure. - **What constraints are non-negotiable?** Compliance, no-third-party-data, must-self-host, etc. - **Which competitors should I look at?** If unsure, suggest 3–4 mature ones in the relevant space. Don't research without these answers. Researching the wrong question wastes a few minutes; *acting* on the wrong research costs a quarter. ### 2. Pick competitors deliberately Mature comparison sets by domain (suggest these as defaults; adjust per user): | Domain | Suggested competitors | |---|---| | **SaaS billing & dunning** | Stripe, Recurly, Chargebee, Paddle | | **B2B SaaS workspace + RBAC** | Linear, Notion, Slack, Asana | | **CRM** | Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Close | | **E-commerce checkout** | Shopify, Stripe Checkout, BigCommerce, WooCommerce | | **Marketplace fees + payouts** | Stripe Connect, Airbnb, Etsy, Uber | | **Customer support** | Intercom, Zendesk, HelpScout, Front | | **Project management** | Linear, Jira, Asana, Monday | | **ERP financials** | NetSuite, SAP, Odoo, Microsoft Dynamics | | **Inventory** | Shopify, NetSuite, Cin7, Brightpearl | | **Auth / SSO** | Auth0, Clerk, WorkOS, Okta | | **Notifications / engagement** | Customer.io, Braze, Iterable, Knock | | **Webhooks / events** | Stripe, GitHub, Segment | | **Analytics** | Mixpanel, Amplitude, PostHog, Segment | | **Search** | Algolia, Elasticsearch, Typesense, Meilisearch | | **Status / incidents** | StatusPage, Statuspal, Better Uptime | ### 3. Research each competitor For each: 1. **Read their public docs** for the specific feature. Use `firecrawl-scrape` MCP if available. Quote with attribution. 2. **Find dev-blog posts, conference talks, engineering decisions.** These reveal *why* not just *what*. 3. **Read 1–2 critical reviews** (G2, ProductHunt, Reddit, HN) to find the friction points. 4. **Note the version / date.** Patterns evolve; a 2019 blog post may not reflect 2026 behavior. ### 4. Extract the dimensions that matter Don't write narrative comparisons. Build a table where each row is a *decision point* and each column is a competitor. For billing failure-recovery: | Dimension | Stripe Smart Retries | Recurly | Chargebee | Paddle | |---|---|---|---|---| | Retry count | 4 (default) | configurable 1–5 | configurable 1–10 | 3 | | Retry window | 15 days | 21 days | configurable | 14 days | | Retry timing | ML-optimized | fixed cadence | fixed/custom | fixed | | Email cadence | day 1, 3, 7 | day 1, 5, 10, 15 | per template | day 1, 7 | | Grace period | bills marked past_due | suspend after final retry | configurable | suspend | | Customer self-rescue | `customer_portal` | hosted page | hosted page | hosted page | | Card update prompt | yes, in-product | yes, hosted | yes | yes | | 3DS / SCA handling | re-auth at retry | re-auth at retry | re-auth at retry | re-auth | ### 5. Recommend with reasoning End the analysis with: which patterns to adopt, which to skip, and why for *this specific project*. Cite the dimensions that drove the call. ``` ## Recommendation for Adopt: - Stripe's smart-retry timing (proven at scale, easy via Stripe Billing). - Recurly-style dunning email cadence (more touchpoints than Stripe; better for our SMB churn profile). Skip: - Customer portal self-rescue (we'll wait for v2 — not enough users to justify yet). Open question for the user: - Grace period: do we want past_due → readonly access (Stripe default) or past_due → fully-featured for 7 days then suspend? Affects our retention math. ``` ### 6. Save the research Write the result to `.claude/memory/reference/competitive-analysis--.md` so future sessions don't re-research the same thing. Add to `MEMORY.md`. ## Output format ``` ## Question ## Context - Business type: - Constraints: - Competitors compared: ## Comparison [Table — one row per dimension, one column per competitor] ## Patterns worth borrowing - — used by: . Why: . - — used by: . Why: . ## Patterns to skip - — used by: . Why we don't: . ## Recommended approach [2–4 paragraphs. What you'd build, citing competitor patterns by name where you adopted them.] ## Open questions for the user 1. … 2. … ## Sources - [Stripe docs — Smart Retries](https://...) - [Recurly engineering blog — Dunning](https://...) - [HN discussion: SaaS dunning best practices](https://...) ``` ## Boundaries - **Cite every source.** No "I read somewhere that …" - **Never copy product copy, terms-of-service text, or trademarked material.** Learn from the *approach*, write your own copy. - **Note the date** of every source. Stripe-2019 ≠ Stripe-2026. - **Don't recommend the most popular pattern** — recommend the pattern that fits the project's constraints. - **Don't research private information.** Public docs, blog posts, talks, public reviews only. - **Ask first** if the user already has strong preferences; this skill is for when they want input, not when they've decided.