How to Organize Competitor Research Notes: Sources, Facts, and Hypotheses

Opening one competitor's pricing page after another can leave you with plenty of information but little confidence about which service offered what. Filling in a comparison table may send you back to read the same explanations again.

Keep evidence with each source page, then compare services under consistent conditions. This article uses a fictional example: researching three competitors before revising the team plan for your own inquiry management tool. The aim is to keep each decision connected to its sources.

Write down the decision before collecting pages

Start with one sentence describing what the research should help you decide. For example: “Review how we explain pricing and present features for teams of about five people.”

Then define the same questions for each competitor:

• The cost and contract terms for five people.
• Features promoted for teams and the plans that include them.
• How users can export their data.
• Questions that public information does not answer.

Also note differences in the target audience and positioning. Defining relevant questions first helps you avoid adding every interesting feature to an ever-growing list.

Separate facts, hypotheses, and open questions

“The pricing page displays an annual billing option” is different from “They prioritize long-term users.” The first is a fact observed on the page; the second is your hypothesis. Writing them together can lead you to treat your own interpretation as an official claim later.

Use three headings in each page note:

These are examples of how to write notes, rather than specifications for a particular service. When recording prices or plan names, include the number of users, currency, and whether billing is monthly or annual.

Record the conditions with each URL

A service's pricing, features, and help are usually spread across several pages. Instead of combining everything into one long note under the service name, first record evidence at the URL where you found it, then link to that note from the comparison table.

Use this template:

Research goal:
Page reviewed:
Date reviewed:
Target users, plan, user count, and contract terms:
Facts:
Hypotheses:
Open questions:
Next source to read or point to verify:

Enter the date you actually read the page. If you know when the page itself was updated, record that separately. “It was on the official website” is not enough to tell whether a statement changed later or whether you misunderstood its conditions in the first place.

Fusenly lets you write a note for the current URL and tag it with the research topic. See How to Save Notes by URL in Chrome for the steps.

Compare information under the same conditions

Comparing monthly billing for one service with the monthly equivalent of annual billing for another produces a table with inconsistent assumptions. When you cannot align the conditions, explain why.

Do not turn “I could not find it” into “the feature does not exist.” Distinguish an explicit statement that something is unsupported from a question you have not verified.

Copy only the information needed for the comparison into the table. Leave detailed explanations in the original URL notes. Being able to move between the table and its evidence makes it easier to revisit your decision.

Decide when to stop researching

Reading more pages can keep generating more questions. Pause information gathering when the required comparison points are covered and the remaining questions have been separated into specific follow-up tasks.

Record what you would change in your own product and the evidence supporting that decision. For example, a proposal to make team-size conditions easier to find in a pricing table should connect a competitor's example with your own current presentation. Do not infer sales performance or user satisfaction solely from public product pages.

Record why you are leaving some things unchanged, too. If new information appears, you can return to the relevant assumptions rather than restarting the whole investigation.

For the overall organization, see How to Organize Web Research Notes by URL. Start with one competitor page and three headings: facts, hypotheses, and open questions.