What is indirect competitors?

Indirect competitors solve the same customer problem as you do, but with a different kind of solution: an agency instead of software, a spreadsheet instead of a platform, an adjacent tool stretching into your use case. Buyers experience them as alternatives even though analysts would put them in a different category.

Indirect competition is where many deals are actually lost — “no decision” and “we’ll just use a spreadsheet” beat named rivals in most pipelines. Mapping indirect competitors keeps positioning honest: your messaging has to beat the workaround, not just the lookalike, and an indirect player adding features is often tomorrow’s direct competitor.