# Budget competitive intelligence in six lines before you compare vendor quotes

Budget software, source access, engineering, analyst time, governance and upkeep before asking for a quote. Includes directional third-party ranges.

URL: https://www.hiresteve.ai/blog/competitive-intelligence-cost
Updated: 2026-10-12

Our six-line budget puts the software quote beside five costs your team must calculate: source access, engineering, analyst time, governance and upkeep. Put a real number or the word "unknown" in each line before you ask for a price, so the quote lands in a budget that already exists.

## The six cost lines and where each number comes from

In this budgeting model, software is the quoted line. Fill the other five from your own finance, HR and engineering records; in the one published estimate we cite, staffing usually costs more than the license. Start a sheet with these rows. Each cell holds a figure you can trace or the word "unknown", never a category average.

| Cost line | What goes in it | Where the number comes from |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Software | Subscription, add-ons, onboarding fees | A vendor quote for your scope |
| Source and data access | Paid news or social feeds, review-site data, analyst reports | Invoices you already pay, plus quotes for anything new |
| Engineering | Building and repairing any monitor, alert or integration you run yourself | Hours from the engineer who would own it, at their loaded rate |
| Analyst time | Reading, curating, writing battlecards, answering seller questions | Hours per week from the person doing it now, at their loaded rate |
| Governance | Access control, credential handling, change records, security review | Security team hours, plus anything the review requires that the tool lacks |
| Upkeep | Seller retraining, adoption checks, renewal negotiation, source repairs | Last year's calendar, if you have run a program before |

Keep one-off setup separate from recurring cost. Implementation and weekly review are different kinds of money, and a sheet that blends them hides the second. Carry the same rows for every option you compare, including changing nothing, so a DIY estimate and a vendor quote are read against one list.

## What the category costs, where anyone has published a number

The three named enterprise vendors do not publish numeric plan prices on the pages checked September 16, 2026. Klue's former [pricing URL](https://klue.com/pricing) now redirects to its homepage. [Crayon's pricing inquiry page](https://www.crayon.co/pricing) describes tailored pricing and requests an estimate. [Kompyte's plans page](https://www.kompyte.com/plans) lists Essentials, Professional and Unlimited with a request for a breakdown but no numeric price. [Steve's pricing page](/pricing) requests qualification details before a demo and quote and lists no dollar price. The numbers below are directional third-party figures about other companies' US contracts, not Steve prices.

- Klue median contract (Vendr page): $30K/yr
- Crayon median contract (Vendr page): $30K/yr
- Internal labor (UserIntuition estimate reported by Companylayer): $26–83K/yr
- License plus people (Companylayer directional model): $56–230K/yr

[Vendr's Klue page](https://www.vendr.com/marketplace/klue), accessed September 16, 2026, reports a $30,000 annual median with a range of $16,000 to $60,000. [Its Crayon page](https://www.vendr.com/marketplace/crayon) reports the same median with a range of $12,700 to $46,000. Each page shows one count beside the median and a different "deals handled" count in its header, so the counts are omitted here. Treat the anonymized contract figures as directional, not as a category benchmark or a quote for your scope.

The labor figures are estimates. [Companylayer's July 2026 cost comparison](https://companylayer.ai/blog/lead-generation-sales/competitive-intelligence-tools-cost-comparison) reports a UserIntuition estimate of 10 to 20 hours a week at $50 to $80 an hour fully loaded. That comes to $26,000 to $83,000 a year, while a dedicated owner is modeled at $120,000 to $200,000. Companylayer combines these staffing alternatives with a $30,000 license reference for a directional all-in range of roughly $56,000 to $230,000 a year. This is not observed customer TCO.

[Playwise's July 2026 Klue-versus-Crayon comparison](https://playwisehq.com/blog/klue-vs-crayon/) estimates that Crayon add-ons such as custom integrations and dedicated support can add 15–30%, and estimates roughly one to two months for Klue or Crayon to reach a live deployment. These are estimates in a competitor-authored comparison, not observed implementation benchmarks.

## Three buyer-owned cost lines to examine here

**Engineering.** If you run your own page monitor, alert routine or CRM sync, an engineer owns it, and the cost is their hours across the year: the build, plus every repair when a competitor redesigns a page or an API changes. No published range we found covers this row. Ask the engineer for hours per month after the first build and multiply by their loaded rate. The [build-versus-buy lesson](/blog/build-vs-buy-competitive-intelligence) covers keeping that automation small enough to maintain.

**Source access.** Do not assume a page-monitoring quote includes a review-site data feed, an analyst-firm subscription or a paid news archive. Check the quote and each source's terms, then list any separate invoices.

**Governance.** A security review asks who can see competitor intelligence, how integration credentials are stored, and whether there is a record of who changed what. A vendor either answers those questions inside its product or leaves you to answer them with process. Put the security team's review hours on the sheet, and add a row for anything the review requires that the tool lacks. A change log is the usual example: if the platform does not keep one and your policy demands one, that gap is a cost you carry.

## Total it in Claude

This job is arithmetic over numbers you supply, so an ordinary Claude chat is enough. If you already keep a [Claude Project for product marketing](/blog/claude-project-setup), start there so the sheet lives beside your company files. [Anthropic's file-creation support article](https://support.claude.com/en/articles/12111783-create-and-edit-files-with-claude), checked September 16, 2026, says working-formula spreadsheets are available on every plan when file creation is enabled, with a 30MB per-file limit. Team and Enterprise owners can disable file creation. Claude can total supplied figures; salary data and real vendor quotes must come from your authorized records or the vendor.

**Paste the six rows with your figures or 'unknown'**

Give Claude the table above with your numbers in it, one column per option you are comparing. Leave "unknown" in any cell you have not confirmed. Check: every row has either a source you can name or the word "unknown".

**Ask for a spreadsheet with formulas**

Request one sheet per option, a total row, and year-one and year-two totals kept separate, so setup cost is not spread invisibly across years. Check: open the file and click a total cell; it should hold a formula.

**Re-derive two rows by hand**

Take the analyst row and the engineering row and multiply hours by rate yourself. Check: your figures match the sheet. If they differ, the rate or the hours changed in transit, so fix the input and leave the formula alone.

**Compare against the published range**

If your all-in total sits far outside $56,000 to $230,000 a year and you cannot name the reason, look again at the labor rows. Check: every placeholder still reads "unknown".

One short prompt covers step two. Its wording stops Claude filling the gaps with plausible numbers.

```prompt
Build an .xlsx from the cost table I pasted: one sheet per option, the six
rows as given, a formula-driven total row, and separate year-one (with setup)
and year-two (recurring only) totals. Where a cell says "unknown", keep the
word "unknown" and exclude it from the total; do not substitute an estimate.
List every excluded cell under the table.
```

**A published range is somebody else's number**

Vendr's medians describe other companies' contracts, and the UserIntuition labor estimate reported by Companylayer is an assumption. A sheet that fills your unknowns with them produces a plausible budget for a different company. Get one real quote, even from a vendor you do not expect to choose, and use your own HR rates.

## What moves the total

Cadence and headcount can move the number more than the count of competitors. As an illustration with equal cost per check, eight competitors reviewed quarterly produce 32 checks a year, while two reviewed weekly produce 104. Actual labor also depends on how much changed and how deeply each update is reviewed. When you fill the analyst row, ask how often each competitor's material changes and how many people read the result, and price the hours from that.

Then price the review step under each option. A platform may change collection time, so measure that effect on your own competitors before you sign. The person who decides which claim a seller may repeat stays on the payroll. Once the numbers are in, the [build-versus-buy lesson](/blog/build-vs-buy-competitive-intelligence) is where to take the sheet.

## What Steve's pricing page adds to this budget

[Steve's pricing page](/pricing) asks for team size, competitor count, workflow area and role, then requests a demo and quote. It lists no dollar price, so this article makes no claim about where Steve's cost lands against the ranges above.

If your sheet shows the analyst and engineering rows growing faster than the software row, [request a quote for your scope](/pricing) and put it in the software cell.

## Frequently asked

### How much does competitive intelligence software cost per year?

Vendr's current pages report $30,000 annual medians for Klue and Crayon, with ranges of $16,000–$60,000 and $12,700–$46,000. Their count labels conflict, so use the figures directionally. The three named enterprise vendors publish no numeric plan prices on the pages checked.

### What costs more, the software or the people running it?

Usually the people. Companylayer reports a UserIntuition labor estimate of $26,000–$83,000 a year for 10–20 hours a week, or $120,000–$200,000 for a dedicated owner, against a $30,000 license reference. Your own loaded rates and hours decide it for your team.

### Does Steve publish pricing?

Steve's pricing page asks about team size, competitor count, workflow area and role, then requests a demo and quote. It lists no dollar price.

### Can I model this cost in Claude on a free plan?

Yes, when file creation is enabled. Anthropic's support article, checked September 16, 2026, supports working-formula spreadsheets on every plan and a 30MB per-file limit; Team and Enterprise owners can disable file creation. Salary data and real quotes must come from authorized records or the vendor.