20 Best Competitor Analysis Tools (for Various Use Cases)

19 min readMay 18, 2022

If you want to excel, you need to examine your work in comparison to your competition. Thankfully, there are many competitor analysis tools that track your rival brands’ performance, while you focus on outranking the market.

Have you tried analyzing your performance? Have you thought about using competitive analysis? Do you struggle to find the best solution for your business? For instance, the quality of the process is just as important as the money you spend. We’re here to help you.

Therefore, we assembled 20 of today’s top tools that break down your competition’s rankings on the following topics:

Social Media
SEO
Website Changes
Technology Lookup
Company Data

Find the competitive analysis tools that meet your needs below.

Competitor Analysis Tools for Social Media

When it comes to competitor research, nowadays, the best indicator of your success is undeniably your social media response.

Building brand awareness, communicating with customers, and growing your target audience has never been easier. Certainly, social media pave the way for your company’s visibility and engagement to increase. However, don’t forget that the same opportunities are given to everyone. The landscape of highly saturated areas, such as social media platforms, is competitive. As a result, it’s important for your business to turn to competitive monitoring.

So, what are the best competitor analysis tools for social media?

Tool #1: Mentionlytics

True to its name, Mentionlytics handles your brand’s mentions, as well as provides you with useful analytics for your strategy.

In other words, Mentionlytics is an AI-powered web and social media monitoring platform. Tracking every mention of your brand online, it presents three different reports to clients:

Top Mentions Report
Influencer Report
Share of Voice

Basically, a Share of Voice Report paints the picture of the market you belong to. For instance, it does so by showcasing how your competitors’ keywords compare to yours in the digital world.

Furthermore, its software grants you valuable insights that will help you understand specific metrics. Once you understand them better, you can work on profiting from them. Therefore, Mentionlytics can improve your content marketing campaign strategy.

Mentionlytics Features

Ideal for crisis management, as well as strategic planning, Mentionlytics has a great number of profitable features. In short, we assembled the best below.

Social Intelligence Advisor (SIA)
Wide Variety of Monitoring Channels (TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, Google Reviews, Youtube, Linkedin)
Scheduling and Publishing on Social Media
Sentiment Analysis on 24 Languages
Customizable Reports based on Top Keyword Data
Ability to Assign Tasks through Tags

Most importantly, these features keep on evolving to meet the customers’ growing needs.

Mentionlytics Pricing

If you’re interested in its features, you’re probably wondering how much it costs. To clarify, there are 5 subscription plans, depending on your business size.

Basic ($49/month)
Essential ($99/month)
Advanced ($199/month)
Pro ($299/month)
Agency ($450+/month)

You have the option to pay by the month or by the year. However, the second option saves you 2 months from your annual subscription. You can start a free trial today and find out if it suits you the best.

Tool #2: Sprout Social

Do you want to take a look at what rival brands post online or benchmark your performance against similar businesses?

Known for being easy to use, Sprout Social does your competitor research automatically. Moreover, capitalizing on social listening, it helps you plan your next move according to what’s trending on the market.

Sprout Social Features

With Sprout Social, the focus lies on your social media profiles and your better handling of the process. Some of its best features include:

Social listening for content strategy improvement
Scheduling and publishing on social media platforms
Engagement scaling tools
Helpful analytics
Employee advocacy encouragement
Competitive reports

Identifying customer feelings is certainly the first step towards a publishing plan for increasing engagement rate and organic traffic.

Sprout Social Pricing

Sprout Social’s subscription plans fall into 3 categories:

Standard ($89/month for annual payments and $99/month for monthly payments)
Professional ($149/month for annual payments and $169/month for monthly payments)
Advanced ($249/month for annual payments and $279/month for monthly payments)

A free trial is available at all times. Meanwhile, you’re also offered additional premium solutions that can be added to every plan.

Tool #3: Hootsuite

Keeping track of your comments and messages is vital for your engagement rate to increase. However, bigger businesses or brands that use multiple channels struggle to cope with the number of social reactions.

Hootsuite is another well-known analytics tool that specializes in managing your online profiles and spying on your competitor’s content. Furthermore, you can supervise customer conversations on any channel via one platform, observe your competitors and get real-time insights.

Similarly, competitive analysis, as mentioned previously, will help you plan the best next move for your brand’s digital image.

Hootsuite Features

While it focuses on improving your social network game, there is a wide selection of helpful features.

All-in-one management of your social media platforms
All-in-one monitoring of your social media channels
Creating, scheduling & publishing content
Campaign planning
Results analysis
Advertising optimization

In addition, expert training and coaching are some of the reasons why Hootsuite is so popular.

Hootsuite Pricing

Hootsuite’s features are available through 4 subscription plans, which are based on annual billing.

Professional ($39/month)
Team ($109/month)
Business ($669/month)
Enterprise (Custom solutions are provided after contact)

The first two plans offer a free 30-day trial, while the latter two require a demo request.

Tool #4: Talkwalker

Identifying as a Consumer Intelligence Acceleration platform, Talkwalker is an AI-powered research tool that capitalizes on social listening.

With this competitive intelligence tool, you’ll be able to understand better the constantly changing customer scene. It uses public data, as well as internal data (such as surveys and emails) to create profitable customer-centric strategies.

What’s more, it manages your social media profiles and sends automated notifications for important findings.

Talkwalker Features

Using AI technology, Talkwalker focuses on monitoring consumers’ feelings and market trends. Its main features include:

Campaign and channel management
Content and trend analysis
Social Content Ratings
Customer and market intelligence insights
Social intelligence monitoring
Talkwalker Activate professional consulting

As they put it, the goal is to augment, accelerate, or fully service your consumer intelligence needs.

Talkwalker Pricing

Talkwalker’s subscription plans are divided into 3 categories:

Corporate
Enterprise
Basic

According to G2, the Basic plan costs $9,600/year. However, the official website urges you to speak with their team and get a personalized price for your needs.

Competitor Analysis Tools for SEO

In order to be the best, your work has to be seen.

Above all, a good SEO strategy matches your type of content to the right keywords and links. However, sometimes your marketing efforts are not enough to outrank your competitors on SERPs. SEO competitor analysis is a vital part of your marketing strategy, as it points you in the right direction. Instead of taking your chances with keyword picking, find which specific keywords worked for a similar brand. Similarly, it’s important to find the ones that didn’t work as well.

SEO is a multidimensional field. Therefore, we’ll be featuring tools that help you analyze/monitor:

Backlinks
Keywords
Organic Traffic
Content etc.

So, what are some of the best competitor analysis tools for search engine optimization?

Tool #1: Ahrefs

It’s important for your company to attain high search rankings and website traffic, for your products to be seen.

Trusted by top businesses in the industry, Ahrefs is a software brand that produces SEO tools. Its competitive analysis techniques include the site explorer, which gives you metrics on any website’s organic keywords. In addition to reports on competitors’ backlinks, it makes sure you understand what works and what doesn’t in the industry.

For Ahrefs, an educational role is of equal significance.

Ahrefs Features

Focusing on teaching how to create a better digital marketing strategy, it provides customers with guiding articles and tutorial videos. Its best features include:

Keyword Research
Link Building
Website Audit
Rank Tracker
Content Research
SEO Checker

In addition, it helps with crisis management, sending you email alerts every time your brand is mentioned online.

Ahrefs Pricing

Ahrefs gives you 4 options when it comes to subscription plans:

Lite ($99/month)
Standard ($179/month)
Advanced ($399/month)
Agency ($999/month)

Trials are available for the first two plans and cost $7.

Billing has the option to be monthly or annual. Paying annually will save you 2 months.

Tool #2: SEMrush

Understanding who your competition is and how to outrank them is linked with SEMrush’s run.

SEMrush is a leading online visibility management software-as-a-service platform. It’s a real time SEO competitor tool, which provides you with valuable insights on a number of topics.

For example, you can analyze your competitor’s top paid keywords and backlink profile to optimize your own marketing efforts.

SEMrush Features

Specializing in Google optimization, SEMrush allows you access to important features such as

Organic Keyword Analysis
Competitor Research
Site Audit
Backlink Analysis
Content Marketing Metrics
PPC Keyword Research

Considered the best at monitoring your competitor’s domain, it advises you on how to outrank them in SERPs.

SEMrush Pricing

SEMrush provides you with 3 subscription plans:

Pro ($119.95/month)
Guru ($229.95/month)
Business ($449.95/month)

The first two plans come with a free trial. Moreover, if you pay annually you can save up to 17% of the plan price.

Tool #3: SE Ranking

If you want a more in-depth analysis of your competitor’s marketing strategy, take a look at SE Ranking.

SE Ranking is an all-included SEO software that paints a well-rounded image of your and your competitor’s website’s performance. You can keep yourself updated on standard analysis of backlinks and paid keywords while spying on Google Ads marketing campaigns.

Releasing a historical data update that tracks past mistakes and successes, SE Ranking established itself as one of the most valuable SEO tools.

SE Ranking Features

Focusing on every category that is important to an SEO marketing strategy, the system provides a number of features.

Keyword Rank Tracker
Backlink Checker
Competitive Research
Website Audit
Page Changes Monitor
Report Builder

In addition to traditional SEO tools, SE Ranking provides you with extra features, like Social Media Management and Digital Marketing Plan to optimize your digital services.

SE Ranking Pricing

SE Ranking’s billing plans are affected by your choice of using frequency. You can choose to check rankings daily, every 3 days, or weekly. The pricing plans for daily use are:

Essential ($23.17/month)
Pro ($52/month)
Business ($111.17/month)

Its many additional discounts make SE Ranking the perfect tool for smaller businesses.

Tool #4: Moz

To succeed in SEO, you need to fully understand your viewing audience.

Moz is an all-in-one SEO tool family that offers solutions to different problems. Its products vary from Moz Pro to Moz Local and several other platforms.

One significant tool that applies to competitive analysis is MozBar. MozBar is a browser extension that provides metrics for a website’s domain authority and therefore likelihood to rank high in search engines.

Moz makes SEO strategies easy by guiding you through every step.

Moz Features

In order to fully understand your own potential and your audience’s website visiting tendencies, Moz Pro offers features such as

Site Audit
Rank Tracking
Backlink Analysis
Keyword Research
Page Optimization
Customizable Reports

On top of that, Moz Pro shows you new opportunities for link-building outreach to help increase your search engine ranking.

Moz Pricing

Moz Local’s pricing plans are perfect for small businesses, while Moz Pro provides 4 plans for paying:

Standard ($99/month)
Medium ($179/month)
Large ($299/month)
Premium ($599/month)

All plans include a 1-on-1 walkthrough and 24-hour online support, while you can save 20% with annual billing.

Competitor Analysis Tools for Website Changes

The digital reality of today makes it impossible for things to stay the same. Change is inevitable.

Website pages change every second, making monitoring tools a necessity for competitive marketing strategies. You need to fully understand when, how, and why competitors’ sites change if you want to beat them at their own game.

So, what are some of the best competitor analysis tools for website changes?

Tool #1:VisualPing

Text changes are easy to track, but today’s climate makes it vital for a visual message to be detected as well.

With more than 1.5 million claimed users, VisualPing is considered to be the best website changes monitoring platform. Moreover, the platform attracts both individual customers and businesses.

Its Chrome app makes it easy for you to monitor landing pages in a few steps.

Whether it’s for a pricing race with your rival brands or important news, VisualPing is the tool you need.

VisualPing Features

With multiple checks from every 5 minutes to every week, the system’s features include

Competitive Monitoring
Instant Update Messaging (via email, text, Slack, API, etc)
Compliance and Configuration Updates
Search engine Optimization
Document (like PDF) Checker
Pricing and Status Tracking

Understanding website changes can be easy if you search for the right tool.

VisualPing Pricing

VisualPing is a free tool for individuals most of the time. However, when it comes to professional subscription, starting offers include the 3 Business plans:

4K ($20/month) for 130 checks per day
10K ($48/month) for 333 checks per day
30K ($135/month) for 1,000 checks per day

Paying annually will save you 2 months of the initial price.

Tool #2: Distill.io

Technology-related data can be quite difficult to read into. That’s why you need platforms that simplify metrics, rather than confuse you with too much information.

Distill.io is another website competitor analysis tool that supports cloud monitors as well as local monitors. It features automating steps like logging in websites, exporting data, using custom proxies, and managing versions.

Its automated nature of running research on your competitor’s domain is amplified by advanced elements.

Distill.io Features

Distill.io’s complex-but-simple system displays a number of helpful features, such as

Visual Selector
Custom Tracking Frequency
Smart Conditions for Notifications (Single and Compound)
Changes in PDFs and Private Pages Tracking
Password Protected Pages Monitoring
All-Monitors Managing on a Single Dashboard

What’s more, you can always find a history of all changes, to help you put things in order.

Distill.io Pricing

While it provides a satisfying free tool solution as well, business subscription plans include

Starter ($12/month)
Professional ($28/month)
Flexi ($80+/month)

A 20% discount is earned by paying annually.

Tool #3: Wachete

How do you monitor pages that want to avoid tracking?

Wachete is an intelligent competitor monitoring service in the website changes field. It allows you to monitor specific parts of your competitors’ sites, including crawled sub-pages.

Furthermore, it collects and stores digital content, as well as website change history for up to six months. That gives you the power to track past web pages or important changes when you need to.

Wachete Features

Some of Wachete’s most popular features include

Password Protected Pages Monitoring
Website Health Check
Defacement Detection
Numeric Data in Graphs
Data Download as Excel Sheet
Email and Mobile Notifications

In addition to password-protected pages, Wachete specializes in dynamic and JavaScript pages, as well as pages that require clicks or submission of values.

Wachete Pricing

Wachete offers you a payment scale, where you can choose your subscription plan and subsequent available features.

Starting from free use, it gradually gives the following prices

$4.90/month
$9.90/month
$49.90/month
$299.90/month

Annual billing can save you more than 6% of the original price.

Tool #4: Versionista

Websites undergo changes all the time, but what you really need is to track the ones that you care about.

Versionista is a change monitor service that allows you to choose filters for your research. By doing so, it helps prioritize relevant content changes for your interests.

The system focuses on monitoring website changes at scale. What does this mean? That, with one click you can analyze a web page, but also every page that is featured inside the original page’s links.

Versionista Features

Easy to use and excellent at gathering detailed analytics, Versionista displays a number of features.

Sortable and Filterable List of all Monitored Pages
Color-coded Data Graphs for Visual Comparison
Page Categorizing for Easier Management
Detailed Tracking and Archiving of Every Page Version
Resource Lifecycles Tracking
Comprehensive Email Summaries and Alerts

Moreover, the platform optimizes team collaboration, granting admins access to manage users and users to collaborate for team projects.

Versionista Pricing

Apart from the Free Forever option, Versionista offers the ability to create a custom plan that best reflects your needs. The 4 subscription plans, that already exist, are the following:

Premier Plus ($99/month)
Gold ($139/month)
Enterprise ($249/month)
Enterprise Plus ($379/month)

All plans come with a 7-day free trial.

Competitor Analysis Tools for Technology Lookup

In order to outperform your competitors, sometimes, you need to know their resources.

Technological information can be confusing. But it’s vital to your performance. In other words, you’re going to need to know what digital tools and software your competition is using. What technologies are their websites built on? In order to discover a website’s technology stack, you’ll need help.

So, what are some of the best competitive research tools for technology lookup?

Tool #1: Wappalyzer

Wappalyzer is a website competitor analysis tool that profiles and categorizes web technology profiles.

You can instantly find out the technology stack of any domain, such as CMS, e-commerce platform, or payment processor. Likewise, you can get company and contact details as well. Furthermore, you can compare market shares and technology trends, to fully understand the digital landscape of your leads.

View quick and effortless results from market research and competitive intelligence analysis.

Wappalyzer Features

Wappalyzer claims to empower your sales and marketing teams with its number of insightful features, such as

Website Profiling and Monitoring
Data Enrichment
Custom Reports
API Access
CRM Integration
Browser Extension

Features of this platform help you identify new future possibilities and augment your market audience.

Wappalyzer Pricing

Most importantly, Wappalyzer includes a free use option, with limited features. However, its main pricing plans are 3.

Starter ($99/month)
Team ($249/month)
Business ($449/month)

2 free months are granted by annual billing.

Tool #2: WhatRuns

Are you looking for quick and free answers?

WhatRuns is a free competitive analysis tool that specializes in technology lookup. What does this mean? To clarify, you can type a website’s URL and discover instantly the technology that the website uses.

WhatRuns is a browser extension. You can add it on Chrome or Firefox and get technology information by just clicking on a button.

WhatRuns Features

Its recognition algorithm promises accurate and fast detections even of the latest web technologies. The main features include

Competitor Analysis
Sales Intelligence
Website Profiling
Paid Web Apps Detection
CDN Hosting Detection
WordPress Plugins Detection

Moreover, WhatRuns notifies you when a website starts or stops using a certain technology, to help you stay ahead of your competition.

WhatRuns Pricing

Subscriptions can be tough on a small or new company. What makes WhatRuns a valuable tool is the fact that it is completely free of charge.

Tool #3: BuiltWith

Do you want to look up the scripts, services, and plugins a site uses by just typing its URL?

BuiltWith is a website profiler, lead generation, and competitive analysis tool. Its platform gives useful technology and market insights. The technology of a website domain provides you with knowledge on usage analytics, the number of users, or even their market share.

It’s easier to build a competitive strategy when you know what CMS, widgets, and web servers a rival company uses.

BuiltWith Features

While the main focus lies on a domain’s technology, BuiltWith’s tool displays a wide range of features, including

Lead Generation
Market Analysis
Sales Intelligence
API Access
CRM Integrations
Data Coverage

On top of that, BuiltWith informs your business about trends in web technology usage and global e-commerce sales.

BuiltWith Pricing

BuiltWith provides its customers with 3 subscription plans

Basic ($295/month)
Pro ($495/month)
Team ($995/month)

Annual billing will save you 2 months.

Tool #4: WhatCMS

Sometimes, you need fast results for basic yet essential information.

WhatCMS is a straightforward comprehensive analysis tool that provides you essential knowledge on the Content Management Systems that your competitor’s website domain uses.

WhatCMS is a part of a detection add-ons/extension family that specializes in technology lookup analysis. The other services focus on Hosting Providers, WordPress Themes, and Shopify Themes.

WhatCMS Features

Focusing on WhatCMS.org, its essential features include

CMS Detection
Tech Reports
API Documentation
Batch Detection
Technology Profiling Lists
Detection Methods for 595 Different CMS

The website is accurate, flexible, and easy to use.

WhatCMS Pricing

An API subscription will give you access to all three detection services (WhatCMS.org, Who-Hosts-This.com, and ThemeDetect.com).

The first 1.000 detections are free. After that, there are many subscription plans to choose from, starting from 10.000 detections for $10/month. The highest plan includes 1.000.000 detections and costs $360/month.

Competitor Analysis Tools for Company Data

Data research is the quintessential part of a successful competitive strategy.

Companies change their data all the time. You need to stay updated and adequately informed about your competitors. Whether it’s their contact, location, funding, or event information, you need to be fully prepared.

So, what are some of the best competitor analysis tools for company data?

Tool #1: Crunchbase

Spying on your competitors (or even possible future partners) is easy with a trustworthy globally known brand, such as Crunchbase.

Crunchbase is the leader in private company data. Most importantly, it provides customers and visitors with a network to find new startups. Moreover, it acts as a connecting link between businesses. If you type a company name, you’ll be instantly informed about important details. For instance, you’ll get information on their investors, employees, partners, revenue streams, and upcoming events.

Use metrics as a way to crush your competition or a method of approaching new people.

Crunchbase Features

Famous for being best at prospecting, Crunchbase’s many features include

Data Enrichment
Lead Builder
Competitive Intelligence
Data Collection and Filtering
Market Insights
Account Identification

In addition, Crunchbase Pro offers you real-time alerts when it comes to competitor analysis.

Crunchbase Pricing

Crunchbase provides its customers with 3 subscription plans

Starter ($29/month)
Pro ($49/month)
Enterprise (Custom billing after contact)

The billing is annual.

Tool #2: ZoomInfo

You want the best tools for your business. What better way to determine your selections based on the opinions of other successful companies (such as Google)?

ZoomInfo is a globally trusted data analysis tool. It contains a large B2B database of business information for public, private, and new startup companies. It is also checked manually, adding a human professional tone to its work.

The brand is praised for its comprehensive technology that helps companies make the right decisions.

ZoomInfo Features

Known for its focus on intelligence, some important features of ZoomInfo include

Data Enrichment
Web Form Enrichment
Cluster Profiling
Look-a-like Companies
List Building
Sales Intelligence

Its features make the platform an essential asset to successful sales and competitive marketing.

ZoomInfo Pricing

ZoomInfo offers 3 subscription plans:

Professional
Advanced
Elite

The Professional plan comes with a free trial. Pricing information for every plan cannot be accessed before contact.

Tool #3: Apollo.io

An important factor when choosing the tools that fit your needs is to know if it’s easy to set up and use.

Praised for being user-friendly, Apollo.io is an all-in-one sales intelligence platform that helps its customers prospect, engage and drive more revenue. The main focus is on finding new companies. However, it also offers a large database to spy on your competitors with accurate and quickly updated data.

Apollo.io also gives valuable insights on market leads that can help you outperform your sales competitors.

Apollo.io Features

Using modern software, Apollo.io has established as well as new features, including

Prospect Searcher
Data Enrichment
LinkedIn Integration
Job Change Alerts
Database Availability
Lead Enrichment and Analysis

In addition, Apollo’s Intelligence Engine gives great recommendations and analytics for your specific needs.

Apollo.io Pricing

Apart from a free plan of 50 email credits per month, Apollo provides 2 more subscription solutions,

Basic ($49/month)
Professional ($99/month)

as well as a custom plan that you can put together.

Annual billing offers a discount on the original price.

Tool #4: Lusha

Sometimes you might find yourself in need of a more customer-centric treatment from a slightly smaller company.

Lusha is a company data analysis platform that focuses more on lead nurturing. The tools of the platform give access to accurate B2B data. It extracts leads from social networking platforms, such as LinkedIn, email accounts, or webpages. Consequently, Lusha’s extension builds a large CRM database for your business in an effortless way.

While it’s mostly used by sales representatives, Lusha is a user-friendly tool that can also help you with comparative strategies.

Lusha Features

Apart from lead enrichment, which acts as the main focus of the platform, Lusha’s features include

Data Enrichment
Integration to CRM
Marketing Automation
Team Management
Prospect Searcher
Bulk Enrichment

In addition, there’s the “character” of Lusha who acts as a Chief Knowledge Officer. The Lusha character pops up and provides customers with market and sales insights.

Lusha Pricing

Apart from the free Starter option, Lusha provides its customers with 3 additional plans

Professional ($29/month)
Premium ($44/month)
Enterprise (Custom pricing after contact)

Save 25% of the original price by paying annually.

Now Over to You

We tried giving you the idea behind these analysis tools along with essential information.

Do you want to understand competitor analysis better? It’s your turn to look for more details. There are many questions to be answered. For instance, why it should be the next step for your brand? Similarly, how can you profit by comparing your performance to your competition?

Whether it’s for social media, SEO, or any of the use cases discussed above, find tools that meet your needs.

In conclusion, start taking small steps towards more effective business work. In short, consult an expert, organize your acquired data and build your business strategy prior to acting.

Originally posted on Mentionlytics: https://www.mentionlytics.com/blog/best-competitor-analysis-tools