Competitive Positioning Tool from the #1 Market Research Agency in the US
See exactly where your brand can differentiate
SmokeLadder gives marketers and agencies positioning scores, category benchmarks, and proprietary AI insights for any brand and its competitors so you can uncover a unique space to own in the market.
3MM+
Proprietary data points including scores and insights
15K+
Competitor brand reports you can access instantly
360°
View of positioning, features, messaging, and categories
Get a complete view of any brand
Find new space to own
Run a differentiation analysis to surface competitive gaps, key strengths to double down on, and areas to avoid – so you know where and how the brand can stand apart.
Spot opportunities that competitors miss
“Feels like I have a whole team of researchers and microstrategists.”
“It’s uncovering ideas and insights I may not have otherwise had. When I onboard a client I feel like I’m reading their minds – they ask me how did I know that?”
Scott Martin
Founder, Brand Strategist
Purpose built to help strategists and marketers navigate a new era of competitive noise and uncover ways to stand out.
Why use SmokeLadder instead of Claude, ChatGPT, etc.?
SmokeLadder gives you brand context, data benchmarks, and consistency that you won’t get from an LLM’s endless rambles.
Proprietary positioning data, frameworks, and competitor insights
Discover new places to differentiate
Sharpen key messaging
Use the Message Clarity analysis to find issues, then generate new messaging ideas based on the brand’s positioning, category, and key persona.
Get a full strategic view
See in-depth breakdowns of any brand’s target persona, key strengths, competitors, SWOT analysis, and more – plus action items on how you can use the insights.
Automatic Email Reports
Fresh insights in your inbox
Stay up to date on all the brands you’re working on with automatic email reports that show changes to your scores – and to key competitors.
Evaluate visual impact
Peek inside the competition
Easy pricing plans
Free Account
- Run a strategy analysis on any brand
- Get 10 free analysis actions to try out all of SmokeLadder’s functionality
- Sign up for free (no credit card required)!
Pay As You Go
- Pay for credits as you go – No recurring costs
- Choose your usage: 25 ($19), 75 ($49), 150 ($79)
- Analysis of client brands and their competitors
- Differentiation reports
- Bi-Weekly email reports
- Full strategy briefs
- Persona and SWOT analysis
- Brand visuals analysis
- Messaging clarity analysis
- Copywriting generation and editing
- Brand value assessment
- Competitive differentiation
- Category analysis
- Value prop analysis
- Decision maker insights
- PDF downloads
- Access to our full database of thousands of brands
Premium Account
- Unlimited analysis actions (with fair use)
- Analysis of client brands and their competitors
- MCP server to access data in Claude, ChatGPT, and more
- Differentiation reports
- Bi-Weekly email reports
- Full strategy briefs
- Persona and SWOT analysis
- Brand visuals analysis
- Messaging clarity analysis
- Copywriting generation and editing
- Brand value assessment
- Competitive differentiation
- Category analysis
- Value prop analysis
- Decision maker insights
- PDF downloads
- Access to our full database of thousands of brands
- Sign up for annual – save 30% (over 3 months free)
FAQs
Some of the questions we’ve heard from SmokeLadder customers that could be helpful to know as you explore the platform!
Is SmokeLadder only for agencies and consultants?
Nope, all types of strategists and marketers can get value from SmokeLadder. Internal marketing teams can use SmokeLadder to analyze their own brand and stay up to date on the strategy, positioning, and messaging of key competitors.
We focus on agencies and consultants because they have to analyze new brands and competitors constantly, so the level and frequency of need is often a lot higher.
Is it mainly for strategists and marketers or can sales teams use it too?
Sales teams get a huge amount of value from SmokeLadder. Having clear insights on a brand’s positioning. target customers, key competitors, and biggest points of value are all critical when talking with new clients. It’s like getting access to their internal strategy before you’ve even spoken with them.
How can we share the analysis with our team or clients?
Once you’ve created a brand brief (or accessed one for a brand we’ve already analyzed) you can share it via link or if you have a premium account you can download a PDF of the brief to share as well.
Does SmokeLadder provide MCP server access?
Yes! We have an MCP server which allows you to pull data from SmokeLadder into any LLM (Claude, ChatGPT, etc.) so that you can use our data and insights within your work there.
What kind of commitment is it to use SmokeLadder?
We offer both monthly subscriptions and pay-as-you-go credits to help fit best with your working style and needs.
Monthly subscriptions are all month-to-month, so no long term commitment is required. If you choose to sign up for an annual subscription you receive a discount compared to the monthly cost.
And you can test out all of the functionality for free (no CC required) to start.
Does SmokeLadder only analyze a brand's website?
The primary focus is on the brand’s website because this is the purest, most up to date communication of their strategy, positioning, and messaging.
That being said, the AI does reference other supporting brand elements to help inform parts of the analysis though it varies based on the individual brand.
Ultimately our goal is to deliver the most accurate analysis and insights about the brand.
What other analysis does SmokeLadder do?
In addition to any data we gather via AI, the platform performs internal analysis using our own proprietary systems and scoring to create things like our Total Positioning Score.
These processes are based on 10+ years of strategy consulting work across hundreds of clients in a variety of industries.
When you perform a brand analysis is the data current?
Yes, via API we’re able to look at the most up to date info and content for brands. Our only limitation is whatever is currently accessible via normal web search access – i.e. if search engines have discovered the changes for a brand so can SmokeLadder.
Note that we do update analysis on brands regularly to ensure they stay current.
Why is this better than running a brand analysis on Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, etc.?
There are several critical advantages to using SmokeLadder over a generic AI chat product – read our full breakdown on the head-to-head comparison here:
- Context: We have 3MM+ quantitative and qualitative data points (and growing) across positioning, messaging, category alignment, and differentiation strategy.
- Clarity: With proven frameworks (based on 10+ years of hands-on strategic work) and programmatic guardrails our analysis avoids the assumptions and hallucinations that LLMs are known to weave into their responses.
- Consistency: SmokeLadder gives you a fast, consistent way to run analysis across brands and competitors so that you always have apples-to-apples data to reference in your strategy.
- Confidence: Our clear, structured data and outputs mean you have a go-to source to rely on when collaborating with your internal team or client.
Our latest brand data & articles
Welcome to the Category Flood: Why Differentiation Has Never Been Harder
Category Flood is a condition in which a category is filled with so many brands competing around the same points of value that buyers can’t meaningfully distinguish one from another.
Differentiation has always been a core challenge in marketing. But the era we’re in now has hit a new level of crisis.
Best brand positioning and messaging software and tools
Positioning and messaging software is a new niche category. This guide helps tease apart products in this space to help you find the best solution to support your positioning and messaging work.
