Are you trying to get ideas about what competitive intelligence software is best for your business? Then you’ve come to the right place.
One of the brilliant decisions a business can make is one that is based on insightful data about the product, the target market, and the competitors.
You’ll gain tons of benefits by researching the top-performing companies. This will give a better idea of how you should position your brand, what other types of audiences you should target, and what marketing techniques bring the best results.
I’ve used these tools myself to know about marketing gaps between my brand and that of my competitors. This way, I can figure out areas that I still need to work on.
I compiled the cream of the crop for you so you can select which one matches your needs.
- What Is The Best Competitive Intelligence Software?
- 1. SEMRUSH- Top Pick
- 2. Similarweb – Best For Small To Mid-Sized Businesses
- 3. GrowthBar – Best For Bloggers
- 4. SpyFu – Best For Advanced Marketers
- 5. Moat – User-Friendly Interface
- 6. Ahrefs – Most Well-Rounded
- 7. Crunchbase – Best For Organizational Research
- 8. Talkwalker – Best For Social Media
- Conclusion
What Is The Best Competitive Intelligence Software?
If you’re in a hurry, check out my top 3 picks at a glance: SEMRUSH, SimilarWeb, and GrowthBar.
   4.9 |   4.6 |   4.2 |
| Best overall. Highly functional and tool-rich platform. Starts at $119.95/month. | Best for startups. Platform specializing in digital marketing. Free version available. | Best for bloggers. Efficient and user-friendly dashboards for new users. Starts at $29/month. |
| Try SEMRUSH | Try SimilarWeb | Try GrowthBar |
Here is the top competitive intelligence software that’ll give you a deeper insight into other companies.
1. SEMRUSH- Top Pick
Best Competitive Intelligence Software For Overall Online Visibility Management [Free Version | $119.95/month]
SEMRUSH covers every channel of your competitor’s presence. Mainly, it targets six areas:
- Advertising
- SEO efforts
- Website traffic
- Content and PR
- Marketing strategies
- Social media performance
For competitor analysis, there’s a traffic analytics feature. This benchmarks your website traffic metrics versus those of your competitors. It helps confirm growth and adjust efforts when a decline happens.
SEMRUSH also has an organic search tool for your search engine optimization efforts. This allows you to find out who your biggest contenders are and the opportunities you have for competing against them.
By simply entering a domain name, you’ll immediately get valuable insights to work with.
More for SEO, SEMRUSH features a backlink gap tool where you are put head-to-head with five of your top rivals. It’ll help you see what websites link to them, and not to you so that you can work on offering link-building opportunities to those sites.
Additionally, it has an advertising research capability where you get a detailed analysis of competitor ads. You’ll easily see gaps so you’ll know what you’ll work on next.
It also has a brand monitoring feature so PR teams can track online mentions and control your brand reputation.
Lastly, SEMRUSH has a social media tracker to give you a comprehensive analysis of your target audience’s preferences. This helps you find new ways to increase engagement and start nurturing more leads.
Burkhard Berger
SEMRUSH is specially made to steal and gather important information from your competitors, make sure to get the most out of it by going through their tutorials, videos, and guides. These materials can get you up to speed relatively quickly when you’re just starting out.
Pros And Cons Of SEMRUSH
| Pros | Cons |
| Has a competitive analysis tool for major digital channels | Social media reporting needs to be more in-depth |
| Has CPC estimation | Integration with Google Analytics can be made tighter |
| Comprehensive reporting function | |
| Great usability | |
| More than just helping competitive intelligence, it helps with overall visibility |
SEMRUSH Pricing Plan
SEMRUSH has a free version. With it, you can create and manage one project but will be limited in the use of tools and the ability to pull data. If this is too limited for your needs, you have three paid plans to choose from.
- Pro ($119.95/mo): The Pro plan is best for marketing newbies. It allows you to manage 5 projects, 500 keywords to track, keyword analytics, domain analytics, backlink analytics, 50 social profiles to monitor, and more.
- Guru ($229.95/mo): The Guru plan is made for marketing consultants and growing agencies. It includes everything in the Pro plan plus 10 projects to manage, 1500 keywords to track, historical data access, 100 social profiles to monitor, etc.
- Business ($449.95/mo): The Business plan is designed for large agencies. It includes everything in the Guru plan plus 40 projects to manage, 5000 keywords to track, API access, 300 social profiles to monitor, and many more.
Depending on how big your marketing efforts are, you can test out both the Pro and Guru plan for a limited trial period if you feel that the free version is too limiting for your needs.
Get started with SEMRUSH by visiting their site.
2. Similarweb – Best For Small To Mid-Sized Businesses
All-In-One Competitive Intelligence Software For Digital Marketers [Free Plan| Quote Based]
Similarweb targets all marketing efforts in the digital sphere. Its competitive intelligence function targets four main areas:
- SEO and content analysis
- Marketing strategy analysis
- Affiliates and referral research
- PPC and display campaign intelligence
To begin, it helps in growing organic traffic by optimizing your keyword usage. It also reviews the traffic share by category. With that, it identifies the most viewed content and trending keywords where you can pattern the content you will be creating.
To help your website rank higher, Similarweb reveals valuable and high-relevance websites your competitors refer to with which you can collaborate.
For marketing strategy analysis, it assesses the competitor’s channel performance and identifies those with the highest traffic share.
It then evaluates the channel traffic’s quality using engagement metrics like pages per visit, visits duration, and bounce rate. It also exhibits the most effective tactics in each platform and reveals which websites are leading in each channel.
Moreover, to prove that the referral partnership will be worthwhile for the parties involved, it also reveals your traffic share across sources.
Lastly, for those running paid ads, Similarweb compares your search ads against your competitors to identify the gap and improve your performance.
It also uncovers the publishers of your competitor and its ad networks so you can optimize your pavement strategy for ads you run.
Pros And Cons Of Similarweb
| Pros | Cons |
| Covers all major digital marketing platforms | Correlating some trending apps can be confusing |
| Easy to use | Some statistics are a bit off |
| Easily accessible traffic share among brands | Conversion rate data needs to be clearer |
| Has a keyword analyzer to optimize content | |
| Shows interesting trends through traffic data and historical context |
Similarweb Pricing Plan
Similarweb has only two pricing options, a free plan, and a paid plan.
- Free: This free version provides 5 results/metrics, 1 month of mobile app data, and 3 months of web traffic data. It’s just a teaser to get the paid plan.
- Enterprise (Customized Pricing): For the Enterprise plan you get unlimited results per metric, 28 months of mobile data app, 3 years of web traffic data, global and country-level data, keywords analysis, industry analysis, and more.
Before committing to the paid version, try out the free one first. Once you’ve decided that the Enterprise plan is more suited to your marketing needs, talk to a consultant to get a complete idea of what you’ll be getting and what features are customizable.
Start with SimilarWeb by visiting their site.
3. GrowthBar – Best For Bloggers
Beginner-Friendly Competitive Intelligence Software With An Intuitive Interface [Free Trial | $29/mo]
The third top competitive intelligence software in this list is GrowthBar.
It’s user-friendly, efficient, and doesn’t require much power from your computer. It also utilizes the robust OpenAI GPT-3 AI technology.
Moreover, its Chrome extension, which gives you analytics straight from Google’s SERPs, is incredible. I love how it’s readily available while I’m surfing the web and that it has a minimalistic design.
It also has the following features:
- Facebook ads
- Keyword tracking
- Keyword analysis
- Content generation
- Competitor analysis
- Webpage word count
The keyword suggestions and content creation functionalities are the high points of this tool. You can also export data via a CSV download.
Pros And Cons Of GrowthBar
| Pros | Cons |
| Easy-to-navigate interface | On-off toggle sometimes doesn’t work if you click too quickly |
| Quick and accurate information on keywords | Doesn’t offer as many tools as its competitors |
| Transparent and reasonable pricing |
GrowthBar Pricing Plan
Growthbar has a 5-day free trial. It also offers a 7-day money-back guarantee.
- Standard ($29/mo): This plan enables unlimited of use the following features: keyword research, AI blog ideas, Chrome extension, as well as competitor backlinks, Google Ads, and organic keywords. It also gives full access to the writing marketplace, allows you to get email support, have 15 AI content outlines, and track 25 keywords across a single website.
- Pro ($$79/mo): The Pro plan has the majority of the features from the Standard plan. The difference is that it lets you have more ai content outlines (50) and tracked keywords (75 across three sites).
- Agency ($129/mo): As for the agency plan, it has most of the features from the other two. But, it allows you to track 150 keywords across 10 websites, 150 AI content outlines, and enjoy phone support.
The Standard plan is good for bloggers and marketers that are still in the beginning stages of their businesses. However, if you’re running multiple campaigns for several companies, the Agency plan is best suited for you.
Interested? Start with Growthbar now.
4. SpyFu – Best For Advanced Marketers
Best PPC-Focused Competitive Intelligence Software [Starts at $33/mo]
While you can enjoy a deep feature set from Spyfu, it can be a bit too complex for beginners.
Having said this, it is best for those who have tried online visibility platforms, SEO optimization, and ad optimization before.
For its competitive intelligence tools, SpyFu has:
- Rank tracking feature
- Domain comparison function
- Competitor backlinks checker
- PPC research using Google Ads to find competitors
For rank tracking, it allows you to discover promising keywords and plan how you can take advantage of them.
You can also do customized organization of your saved keywords, doing it using names, labels, and groups. After this, you can also export them to save them as an offline file.
With the keywords you add to a specific project, you get weekly updates on your domain’s standing.
The PPC-focused workflow is by far the best feature of SpyFu.
With this tool, you can take a peek at the competitor site’s paid keywords and history on ad spending. It also reveals highly-relevant keywords for ads you should utilize.
Additionally, it allows you to go deeper into ad copy and keyword groups to help you get a better strategy for your ad campaigns.
SpyFu also enables you to “spy” on the competitor’s organic traffic efforts. It’ll reveal what links competitors use to rank better and the inbound links they get that you can take advantage of.
Moreover, this competitive intelligence software lets you discover keyword gaps so you can start creating content targeting these keywords.
Pros And Cons Of SpyFu
| Pros | Cons |
| Provides creative insight | PPC spend accuracy needs to be more accurate |
| Gets you comprehensive data on the competitor’s PPC efforts | Sends out too many service emails |
| Helps identify questions people have that you can answer in your content | |
| Gives a guide on future campaigns |
SpyFu Pricing Plan
SpyFu has no free version or free trial. However, it provides a 30-day money-back policy.
- Basic ($33/mo): The Basic plan gets you 10 reports each for small domain SEO and Google Ads Advisor PPC report, 6 months of historical data, top lists on PPC spenders, track ad placement, and more.
- Professional ($58/mo): The Professional plan gives you everything from the Basic plan but with 30 reports each for small domain SEO and PPC, 15 years of historical data, unlimited search results, unlimited data exports, and more.
- Team ($199/mo): The Team plan allows you to use all the features of the Professional plan including unlimited reports for small domain SEO and PPC and multiple user accounts.
If you plan to use this competitive intelligence software for the long term, choose the annual plan. The savings can start from $69 for the Basic plan and a staggering $1,200 for the Team plan than if you choose a monthly subscription.
Picking SpyFu as your go-to competitive intelligence software? Visit their site now.
5. Moat – User-Friendly Interface
Top Competitive Intelligence Software For Paid Ads [Free Extension| Quote Based]
Moat is not as comprehensive as the four competitive intelligence software mentioned earlier. But it’s still a good tool to use to delve deeper into competitor ads.
Moat Analytics will help you identify high-performing creatives and channels so you can understand your ad performance and optimize your spending better.
It’ll provide you with three years worth of data to understand trends.
You can also sort and filter the data so you just get the most relevant insights you need.
Lastly, Moat has a browser extension where you can detect and analyze ads based on their placements so you’ll gather data on whichever website you visit.
Pros And Cons Of Moat
| Pros | Cons |
| Offers granular metrics of competitor ads | No clear pricing plan |
| Easy to navigate interface | Can experience data exporting issues |
| Allows for report customization | |
| Breaks down each creative in a campaign for deeper analysis |
Moat Pricing Plan
Moat’s browser extension is free to download. You just have to provide some personal details and confirm your email to start using it.
However, for the rest of the analytic tools, you have to request a product demo first before you get a good idea of the price you will be paying.
Start with Moat by visiting their site.
6. Ahrefs – Most Well-Rounded
Feature-Packed Competitive Intelligence Software [Starts at $99/mo]
If you don’t want to jump from one app to another, Ahrefs provides great functionality for your overall digital marketing needs.
For its competitive intelligence function, it has a Site Explorer feature where you can get in-depth competitor insight on the following:
- Paid traffic
- Organic traffic
- Backlink profile
You’ll also get a keyword explorer tool where you’ll be given a list of sites that use a keyword you’re targeting so you can optimize your content.
The domain comparison feature will benchmark your website’s backlink metrics and compare them with the competitors so you can uncover areas you need to work on.
Speaking of gaps, to get more in-depth in this area, Ahrefs has a content gap tool that finds the keywords your competitors use that you don’t so you can create content targeting those.
Burkhard Berger
Combine Ahrefs with Google Search Console plus Google Keyword Tools and you’ll have a very effective set of tools that you can use to gather valuable data on your online marketing strategies.
Pros And Cons Of Ahrefs
| Pros | Cons |
| Has a comprehensive set of features to make a deep competitor analysis | Learning curve is a bit deep |
| Provides detailed keyword research for SEO and PPC | New and lost referring domains are a bit confusing to analyze |
| Includes a content gap analysis to quickly identify what makes competitors rank better | |
| Allows for competitive backlinks hunting |
Ahrefs Pricing Plan
Ahrefs has four pricing plans, while there’s no free trial version, they allow for a 7-day use for the first two plans to test out the features.
- Lite ($99/mo): The Lite plan allows you to search 175 domains/week, 700 URLs/week, 6 months of historical data, top 10 competing pages, and more.
- Standard ($179/mo): The Standard plan gets you all the features of the Lite plan plus allows you to search 700 domains/week, 3500 URLs/week, 24 months of historical data, and more.
- Advanced ($399/mo): The Advanced plan gets you all the features of the Standard plan plus allows you to search 1750 domains/week, 14000 URLs/week, full historical data, and more.
- Agency ($999/mo): The Agency plan gets you all the features of the Advanced plan plus allows you to search 7000 domains/week, 35000 URLs/week, and more.
While there’s no free version, you can get two months of subscription if you choose the annual payment plan. Start with Ahrefs by visiting their site.
7. Crunchbase – Best For Organizational Research
Best Competitive Intelligence Software For Startups [Free Version| $29/mo]
If you want to focus on being competitive on an organizational level, Crunchbase is the best choice for you.
It has a research tool that generates insight based on industry competitors. It’s now quite at par with the rest of the tools that give you a competitive analysis for digital marketing efforts.
Along with other relevant details, you’ll learn about the following:
- Organizational name
- Where they are located
- Category they belong to
- How long they have existed
The data you get is best when you have to analyze competitor strengths, make strategic pricing plans, address customer needs better, and get ideas for new products or services to launch.
Pros And Cons Of Crunchbase
| Pros | Cons |
| Provides a comprehensive list of startup firms | Alerts need to be more timely |
| A good way to find funding information | Poor mobile version |
| Has an easy to use the search functionality | Sometimes has miscategorization and data discrepancies |
| Has custom filtering capabilities |
Crunchbase Pricing Plan
Crunchbase has a free version, plus three paid pricing plans:
- Starter ($29/mo): The Starter plan provides you with data on the company, funding, and investors, as well as 1,000 companies monitoring capabilities, company list importing, and more.
- Pro ($49/mo): The Pro plan gets you everything in the Starter plan including access to verified contact data, 100,000 companies monitoring capabilities, etc.
- Enterprise (Contact sales to get a quote): The Enterprise plan gives you all the features in the Pro plan plus real-time updates, API access, and so much more.
The Starter plan is the best place to start with. It already provides you with ample data to analyze competitors. Visit Crunchbase’s website now and get started.
8. Talkwalker – Best For Social Media
Most Suited For Targeting Consumer Needs [Free Version| Quote Based]
Talkwalker is best for analyzing complete customer needs. It helps you uncover changes so you easily adapt and get ahead of your competitor.
Its competitive intelligence tool helps you realize how your brand ranks in the mind of the consumers.
It also allows you to discover where the competitors are leading so you can get more of the market share.
Talkwalker provides you with information about the competitors’ marketing strategies and tactics to see what opportunities you can take advantage of.
Lastly, it benchmarks your performance and compares it with others in the industry so you can uncover strengths you can leverage and weaknesses you can improve on. You get data-driven insight to make better-informed decisions.
Pros And Cons Of Talkwalker
| Pros | Cons |
| Has real-time monitoring | No monitoring for LinkedIn and Facebook |
| Includes social media analytics | Steep learning curve |
| Monitor online mentions to control brand reputation | |
| News tracking on topics that interest your field |
Talkwalker Pricing Plan
Talkwalker has no set pricing plan. You have to contact their sales team to get a quote and to personalize the services you get depending on your brand needs.
If you’re gunning for Talkwalker, start by visiting their site.
Conclusion
Among the competitive intelligence software listed, SEMRUSH is by far the best tool to use.
While it has core competitive intelligence features, you get more for the package you pay. It comes with tools you can use for every aspect of digital marketing efforts you can make to improve your online visibility and get ahead of the competition.
Take advantage of its free version and see the good competitive insights you get.
