Why your competitor list is probably too short
Most companies can name their two or three obvious rivals. Those are the products that look like yours, sell to the same people, and show up next to you in a Google search. But buyers don't only choose between look-alike products. They choose between ways of getting a job done, and many of those ways never appear on a competitor slide.
Imagine a company that sells appointment-scheduling software to dental practices. Its obvious rivals are other dental scheduling tools. But a practice owner deciding whether to buy might also be weighing a virtual receptionist service, the scheduling feature inside the practice management software they already pay for, or simply keeping the paper book at the front desk. If the company only studies the other scheduling tools, it misses most of the reasons it loses deals.
A complete competitor list answers two questions: who and what buyers consider instead of you, and how seriously they consider each option. Getting there means searching from several angles, checking that every candidate is real and relevant, and ranking them by how often buyers actually put them side by side with you. That's patient, cross-checking research across many sources, which is work an AI agent does well.
Kite is an AI marketer. It researches your business, builds a growth strategy, and ships the work that brings you new customers. Here's how it finds out who your competitors really are.
How Kite finds out who your competitors really are
Kite starts from your business, not from a category label. Before it looks for a single competitor, it reads what it already knows about you from your team's knowledge base: what you sell, who buys it, what it costs, and the job your customers hire it to do, in their own words. If Kite can't tell what your positioning is, it asks you, because a competitor list built on a guess about your business isn't worth much.
Then Kite searches for competitors through five lenses, sourcing each one from at least two angles. It verifies every candidate, drops the ones that don't hold up, and sorts the rest into primary and secondary competitors. Each competitor on the finished list comes with a one-line reason it competes and the two sources that support it.
Kite saves what it learns about each competitor to that company's own pages in your knowledge base. Later work, such as a comparison page, a positioning review, or a weekly competitor check, starts from that record instead of starting over.
- Start from the job your customers hire you for
- How do I identify direct and indirect competitors?
- What do buyers use instead of my product?
- Look where buyers compare their options
- Verify every competitor before it makes the list
- How do I make a list of my primary and secondary competitors?
- Put the list to work and keep it current
Start from the job your customers hire you for
The job your product does for customers decides who your competitors are. Kite defines that job before it searches, because two companies with very different products can compete for the same job, and two similar products can serve different jobs entirely.
Kite also settles where you compete. If you've said where you sell, Kite only looks for competitors in that area. If your business is likely to be local, such as a clinic, a contractor, or a shop, and you haven't said which area you serve, Kite asks before it starts. A software company that sells everywhere doesn't need that step, so Kite goes straight to the search.
How do I identify direct and indirect competitors?
You identify direct and indirect competitors by testing each candidate against a clear definition, and Kite uses five of them. Each lens is a test a candidate has to pass to be listed under it:
- Direct competitors sell the same kind of product to the same buyers, and buyers compare them with you head to head.
- Indirect competitors sell something different that does the same job. For a website builder, a design agency is an indirect competitor.
- Substitutes solve the problem without buying anything in your category, such as a spreadsheet, an intern, or doing nothing.
- Adjacent products sell to the same buyers and sit next to your category. They could expand into it, or buyers sometimes mistake them for it.
- Budget rivals compete for the same line in the buyer's budget even though they're unrelated products.
Kite runs every lens and tells you plainly when one turns up nothing. An empty lens is a finding too, because it tells you where competition isn't coming from. Budget rivals matter mostly when a business sells to larger companies with fixed budget lines, so for most small-business products, Kite skips that lens and says why.
What do buyers use instead of my product?
Buyers most often use a workaround instead of a product, and Kite always names the main one. Substitutes are the competitors that vendors rarely write about, which is why a simple search misses them. They show up instead in the places where buyers talk to each other.
To find them, Kite searches review sites and community threads for phrases like "switched from," "instead of," and "cheaper than," and it reads Hacker News discussions about your company or category. Those conversations reveal what people actually did before they bought, or what they kept doing when they didn't buy.
Kite names the main substitute even when it isn't a company. "Most practices keep using the scheduling inside their practice management software" is a competitor statement. So is "Most small teams track this in a shared spreadsheet." Knowing that tells you who you need to convince and what you need to beat.
Look where buyers compare their options
Kite looks for competitors in the places buyers go to decide, and it uses each source for a different purpose. Some sources generate new candidates, while others confirm or extend the list:
- Public-web research. Kite searches the web for companies that pass each lens's test, with a citation for every company it finds.
- Comparison and "alternatives" pages. Kite searches for "alternatives" and "vs" pages about you and your category leader, plus "best" lists for your kind of customer. These pages show which products buyers actually line up against each other.
- Review sites and community threads. These confirm candidates and surface the substitutes vendors don't mention.
- Google search overlap. Kite finds the companies that rank for the same Google searches as you, which shows who competes for the same buyers' attention.
- Company data. For business-to-business markets, Kite checks each candidate's size and funding, so you can tell a funded rival from a side project.
- AI answers. When you care how you appear in AI answers, Kite checks which brands ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude recommend when buyers ask about your category.
When two sources disagree about a candidate, Kite doesn't simply pick a favorite. It carries the disagreement into the next step and resolves it with the evidence.
Verify every competitor before it makes the list
A competitor list is only useful if every name on it is real and relevant, so Kite checks each candidate four ways before including it:
- It needs two independent sources, and Kite records both links.
- It has to be alive. Kite opens the company's website when there's any doubt that the product still exists.
- It has to serve your customers. Kite checks the candidate's pricing and positioning, so a list for a small-business product drops enterprise-only players. Kite notes those in a single line rather than listing them.
- It has to earn its rank, which the next step decides.
When the evidence conflicts, Kite trusts each source for what it knows best. A company's own current website is the best evidence of what it sells. Buyer reviews and community threads are the best evidence of who actually buys it and why. If a company's site says it serves small teams but every review comes from a large enterprise, Kite lists it where the reviews put it and tells you about the conflict.
If your category is genuinely small, Kite gives you the short verified list and explains why it's short. It doesn't pad the list with weak matches to make it look thorough.
How do I make a list of my primary and secondary competitors?
You make the split by asking how often buyers actually compare each competitor with you, and Kite ranks every direct and indirect competitor that way. A primary competitor appears in buyer comparisons against your business, such as "alternatives" pages and review threads, or it sells the same product to the same customers you do. A secondary competitor passes the test for its lens but rarely shows up in buyer comparisons, or it overlaps with only part of your customers or your product.
Substitutes and adjacent products don't get a rank. Instead, each one carries a short explanation of why it belongs in that group, because "a spreadsheet" isn't more or less primary than a scheduling tool. It's a different kind of choice.
The split tells you where to spend your effort. Primary competitors deserve comparison pages, sales battle cards, and regular monitoring. Secondary competitors are worth knowing about and checking occasionally, especially the ones that are growing toward your customers.
Put the list to work and keep it current
A competitor list earns its keep when it changes what you do next, and Kite uses yours right away. For a website in your Kite account, the Competitors page shows suggested competitors in two groups: companies that rank for the same Google searches as you, and companies Kite suggested from what your business does. You confirm the ones that are right or mark a suggestion as not a competitor. Kite can then check the searches and pages that are working for up to three confirmed competitors and suggest openings, such as a page you should create or an existing page you should improve.
The list also feeds the rest of Kite's work. Kite uses it to choose which companies to compare when it writes comparison pages and to decide which brands to measure you against in AI answers.
Competitors change, so Kite can keep the list fresh. Ask for a recurring competitor check, and Kite compares each competitor with the last state it recorded and reports only the changes that matter, such as new pricing, a launch, a repositioned homepage, or a funding round. When nothing material has changed, Kite tells you exactly that.
What you get
A verified competitor list
Each row names the competitor, its website, which of the five kinds it is, whether it's primary or secondary, one line on why it competes, and two source links.
The main substitute
The workaround most buyers use instead of buying anything in your category, even when that's a spreadsheet or doing nothing, with a sentence on why it matters.
The empty lenses, stated as findings
A plain note on which kinds of competitor Kite looked for and didn't find.
A record in your knowledge base
Each competitor's findings are saved to its own pages, so later comparison pages, positioning work, and competitor checks build on them.
Leaders at your main competitors, when you ask
For each primary competitor, Kite can add the chief executive or founder and the head of the function your buyers deal with, with their titles, LinkedIn links, and sources.
How to get started
Ask Kite in plain language. You might write, "Who are our competitors really? Include the ones we're not thinking about," or "We keep losing deals and we don't know to whom. Build us a full competitor list."
Kite starts from what it already learned about your business when you signed up, so you don't need to explain your product first. If anything about your positioning or the area you serve is unclear, Kite asks before it searches. You can also name the competitors you already know about, and Kite checks them alongside the ones it finds.
You don't need to connect anything to get your first list, because the research sources come built into Kite. If your team uses Semrush, connect it when you want Kite to add your own search data. Most AIs wait for instructions. Kite finds what needs doing and does it, so once the list is ready, it suggests what to do with it next, whether that's a comparison page against your closest rival or a recurring check on the competitors that matter most.
Integrations used to identify your competitors
Most of this research runs on sources built into Kite, so you can start without any accounts of your own. You can connect Semrush when you want Kite to use your own search data.
Research competitors across the public web
Common questions
What's the difference between direct and indirect competitors?
A direct competitor sells the same kind of product to the same buyers, and buyers compare you head to head. An indirect competitor sells something different that solves the same problem. For a company selling email marketing software, another email tool is a direct competitor, and a freelancer who writes and sends newsletters for clients is an indirect one. Both can cost you the same deal, so a useful competitor list includes both.
How many competitors should I track?
Track your primary competitors closely and keep the rest on a list you revisit. For most small companies, that means three to five primary competitors that get comparison pages and regular checks, plus a longer secondary list you look at every few months. Kite's Competitors page checks openings for up to three confirmed competitors at a time, which keeps the attention on the ones that matter most.
How do I find out which keywords my competitors rank for?
Use a search data tool that shows the keywords a domain ranks for, then compare its list with yours. Kite does this with search data built into Kite. Once you confirm a competitor, Kite checks the searches where that competitor ranks in the top 20 and the pages that rank there, then suggests where you could create or improve a page to compete. If you connect Semrush, Kite can also use your own account's competitor data.
Can I add competitors that Kite didn't find?
Yes. Name them in your request, and Kite checks them with the same tests as everything else and places them in the right group. On the Competitors page for your website, you can also ask Kite to add a specific domain as a competitor and check which searches it wins. If Kite suggests a company that isn't really a competitor, mark it as not a competitor, and Kite stops suggesting it.
What are competitor analysis tools, and do I need one?
Competitor analysis tools collect data about other companies, such as their search rankings, website traffic, ads, or funding. Semrush and Similarweb are common examples. Each one covers only some of these kinds of data, so finding your full set of competitors by hand usually means combining several of them with review sites and plain web searches. Kite has these kinds of data built in, runs the search across them, and turns the results into one verified list, so you don't need a separate tool to get started.
How is this different from a competitor analysis?
Identifying your competitors decides who belongs on the list. A competitor analysis goes deep on one of them: what it sells and charges, how it's funded, who leads it, how it shows up in search and AI answers, and where it leaves an opening for you. Most teams do this first, then run a deeper analysis on their primary competitors. Kite does both, and the deep analysis starts from the record this list leaves in your knowledge base.