Writing a "[competitor] alternative" page is a Skill-shaped job you can finish in an afternoon: give the AI both websites and your honest differences, get a draft page back, then check every claim against the source. Most of the afternoon goes to reading the competitor's pricing and feature pages yourself, because the page is only as good as those facts. This page covers how to write an honest alternative page with AI, using our own compare pages as live examples of the form. If you want to see finished pages first, start there. The AI drafts the page. You supply the facts it cannot know and decide what is fair.
- Shape
- Skill
- Sitting
- an afternoon
The shape: Skill
This job is a Skill because the value is in the judgment, not in any tool. Anyone can write "we are better than them." The hard part is writing a page that a person who uses the competitor reads to the end and believes.
That takes a few habits that do not come naturally when you are writing about a rival. You say what the competitor does well, near the top, in plain words. You name other real options, not only your own. You compare by the job the reader needs done, not by a feature list that happens to favor you. You date every price. And you say who should not switch to you.
A good brief carries those habits, so the AI applies them even on the day you would rather not, and your next competitor's page starts from the same brief. Nothing needs setting up: a chat with ChatGPT or Claude, two websites and an hour of reading is enough.
What that means for you: plan an hour to gather facts, fifteen minutes to paste the brief and get a draft, and an hour or more to check it and add what only you know.
What you give the AI
Give it these, by name, in this order.
- The competitor's name and the exact search you are writing for. For example, "Acme Scheduling alternative." One competitor per page.
- The competitor's homepage text and pricing page text, copied by you today. Open each page, select the text, and paste it into a document. Write the date you copied it at the top.
- The competitor's features or product page text, copied the same way. This is what lets the AI say what they do well without guessing.
- Your own homepage and pricing page text. The same treatment, so both sides come from the same kind of source.
- Two or three other real options a searcher might consider. Name them and paste a short line from each of their sites about what they do.
- Why your customers left the competitor, in their words. Notes from sales calls, reviews they left you, or what they said when they signed up. If you have none, say so in the brief instead of inventing reasons.
- Who should not switch to you. The kind of customer who is better served by the competitor or by one of the other options.
Do not upload screenshots of their logo or design. Text is enough, and you will not use their branding on your page anyway.
What comes back
Paste this brief into a new chat, then paste the material below it.
You are writing an honest "[competitor] alternative" page for a small business website.
The reader already uses or knows [competitor] and is deciding whether to switch.
The goal is a page that reader believes, not a page that wins an argument.
Our business: [one sentence: what you sell and to whom].
The search this page answers: "[competitor] alternative".
Material, below this brief:
1. [Competitor] homepage, features and pricing text, copied on [date].
2. Our homepage and pricing text.
3. Short descriptions of [two or three other options].
4. Why our customers left [competitor], in their words.
5. Who should NOT switch to us.
Write the page in this order:
1. Two sentences on what [competitor] does well, taken only from their own material.
2. A short answer: which option fits which need, as a short list.
3. A comparison table with one row per option and these columns:
what it does, who does the work, what it costs, who it is built for.
4. A short section for each option, three to five sentences each.
5. A section on who should stay with [competitor].
6. Five questions a searcher would ask, each with a short, plain answer.
Rules:
- Every fact about a competitor must come from the material below. If the material does not say it, write "not stated" instead of guessing.
- Every price carries the date it was read.
- No claim that a competitor is bad, slow, outdated or overpriced. Describe, do not judge.
- No invented numbers, customer stories, quotes or results.
- Mark every sentence about our business that the material does not support with [CHECK].What comes back is a full draft in six parts that follow the order you gave. The part to read first is the table, because it holds the comparison the rest of the page explains. If the columns turned into a feature checklist with ticks in your favor, reply: "Rebuild the table by who does the work, not by features."
The [CHECK] marks are the useful part. They show you every place the AI filled a gap about your own business, and those are the sentences most likely to be wrong.
Our Buffer alternatives page shows the shape this brief aims for. It opens by saying Buffer is one of the best simple schedulers in the category, sorts the options by the job the reader wants done, and dates the prices it shows.
How to judge it
A good alternatives page reads like advice from someone who knows both products. Read it as a person who likes the competitor would, and stop at the first sentence that would make them close the tab.
A bad result looks like one of these:
- No praise for the competitor. If the page never says what they do well, the reader assumes you are hiding something. Ask for the strengths, taken from their own material.
- A price with no date. Every price must say when it was read. An undated price will be wrong one day, and the reader cannot tell which day.
- A feature claim you cannot find. Pick three things the page says about the competitor and find each one in the text you copied. If one is not there, the AI guessed, and that sentence goes.
- Only one answer. A page where every road leads to you is an ad, and searchers read it as one. It should name at least two other real options.
- Loaded words. "Clunky," "outdated," "overpriced," "frustrating." Those are judgments, and they read as spite. Replace them with what the competitor actually does.
- A feature table that favors you. A row of ticks where only your column is full usually means the rows were picked to win.
- No one told to stay. If the page cannot name a reader who is better off with the competitor, it is not honest yet.
If the page passes those checks and every [CHECK] mark is resolved, it is ready for your final read.
What stays with you
The AI writes the page. It does not know your competitor, your customers or your business beyond what you pasted.
The facts are yours to check. Prices, plan limits and features change, and a page that names a competitor makes claims about a real company. Read their pricing page again on the day you publish, and fix anything that moved.
The reasons customers switch are yours. Only you heard what people said when they left the other product. If you have no real reasons, the page should not make some up; write it around the job the reader needs done instead.
The verdict is yours. Deciding who should not choose you is the most useful sentence on the page, and it is a business decision, not a writing one.
The legal line is yours. A truthful, factual comparison is common practice, but your industry may have its own advertising rules. Use the competitor's name as plain text, never their logo, and ask a lawyer if you are unsure.
And the upkeep is yours. Put a reminder in your calendar to reread the competitor's pricing page every few months, and change the date on the page when you do.
An editorial example
This is an invented example to show the job, not a real business.
Say you run a small online booking tool for dog groomers, and your customers keep mentioning a larger booking platform they used before. You copy that platform's homepage, features and pricing text, and write the date at the top. You add your own pages, two other booking tools groomers use, and three things customers said when they signed up with you: the old platform had more settings than they needed, they wanted reminders sent by text, and they were paying for staff seats they did not use.
The draft comes back with an opening that says the larger platform handles multi-location businesses and detailed reporting well. That is true, and it is in their own material. The table sorts the options by who sets up the schedule and who handles reminders. The section on who should stay says a groomer with several locations and a front desk team is better served by the larger platform.
There are four [CHECK] marks. One says your tool sends reminders in Spanish, which it does not. You delete it. The other three are true, and you remove the marks. Every competitor fact is in the copied text except one plan limit the AI guessed, so you read their pricing page again, correct it and date it.
The page took an afternoon, and it says nothing you would mind the competitor reading.
Which page to write first
| Your situation | The page to write first |
|---|---|
| Customers often mention one product they used before | That product's alternative page |
| Customers mention several products about equally | The one with the most recognizable name, since more people search for it |
| You are new and nobody has switched to you yet | Wait, and write a page about the job you do instead |
| A competitor just raised prices or shut a plan | That competitor, while people are actively looking, with the change dated |
One honest page for a name people actually search is worth more than many thin pages for names nobody types. Before you write, the competitor analysis job helps you read their site and find the real gap. If the page should drive one action, such as a call or a booking, the landing pages job covers the structure that gets it.
Of every job on this list, social media is the one that comes back every week, and Boomp is software that does that one for you. See ten posts made from your website, free
![Alternatives pages with AI: write an honest "[competitor] alternative" page in an afternoon](/pins/alternatives-pages.png)