Guide
How to read a competition table in a SeedBasis report
What each box means, what "Not found" and "Not stated" tell you, and how to check a price yourself.
The SeedBasis team · · 2 min read · Markdown version
The competition table is usually the first thing people screenshot, and the first thing they doubt. A rival's price looks lower than expected, or a box is empty where the founder knows there is an answer. This guide explains what is behind each box, so you can tell a gap in the market from a gap in the evidence.
Rows and columns
Each row is a company the research found doing the job the idea does, with its logo copied from its own website. Each column is one measure, such as its starting price, who it is for, or a feature the idea depends on. The rivals you named before the research started are always looked for, and the Competition section says what it found about each.
A filled box opens its evidence
Select a filled box and the evidence opens beside it: the finding the box comes from, the quote it rests on, the page it was read from and when, and how far it can be trusted. Most numbers people argue about are settled in that panel, because it shows whether a price came from the rival's own pricing page or from a review site two years old.
"Not found" and "Not stated" are different
- Not found means the research looked for it and found nothing. For a price, that often means the rival does not publish one.
- Not stated means the research did not give an answer for that box, so it says nothing either way.
Where two sources disagree about the same thing, such as a price on a rival's site and a different one in a review, the box says so and the report shows both, rather than choosing one quietly.
How far to trust a box
Each finding carries a confidence in plain words: Verified, Strong evidence, Moderate evidence, Weak evidence or Unknown. A company's own pricing page or an official register sits at the strong end; what a company says about itself on its blog, or a single forum post, sits lower. A weak box is still worth reading. It is just worth checking before it goes into a pitch.
Changing it
The report is yours to edit. Double-click the table to type into it, add a rival you know about, or correct a box with something you found yourself. Your changes are marked as yours, and the research as it was stays in Archives.
Our method says more about how a finding is checked against its quote before it reaches a table.