◆ Visual benchmarks · sourced from competitors.json

The squeeze, by procurement bucket.

The 34-competitor sweep grouped by how a buyer actually procures: (a) Traditional research (Frost & Sullivan / Euromonitor), (b) Traditional CI SaaS (Crayon / AlphaSense), (c) AI-native research (ChatGPT Pro / Claude Max / Perplexity / Manus), (d) Boutique research (SG fractional analyst, Asia Insight, Kadence), (e) OSS frameworks (CrewAI / LangGraph / Claude Skills). Each bar is the headline price; multiples are vs Vantage Starter at USD 1,500.

Source · template/data/competitors.json · 34 firms · audit date Q2 2026

§ I — The headline at a glance

Every competitor, same anchor.

All bars normalised against the highest comparable price (USD 150k/yr — AlphaSense Tegus tier ceiling). Vantage Starter is the gold-tipped row at the bottom.

AlphaSense (Tegus tier)CI SaaS · USA

USD 25–150k / yr

Euromonitor PassportOff-the-shelf · UK

USD 25–60k / yr

CrayonCI SaaS · USA

USD 25–40k / yr

Frost & Sullivan customBranded report · USA/SG

USD 15–25k

Boutique SG projectAsia Insight / Kadence · SG

SGD 5–25k

SG fractional senior analyst (5d)Day rate × 5 · SG

SGD 7.5–15k

ChatGPT Pro · Claude Max · Perplexity Max · Manus ExtendedAI-native subs · USD 200/mo each

USD 2,400 / yr

Elitez Vantage Starter5-day · 30+ competitors · ≥60% SEA

USD 1,500

Elitez Vantage Starter (post-PSG)SG SME, 50% subsidy

USD 750

The 1.6%-vs-1% comparison between AI subs and Vantage is the squeeze in one image. AI subs at 1.6× annual; Vantage Starter at 1× one-shot. Without the methodology-install + SG-licensed-accountability + PSG re-frame, this is a one-engagement product. With them, it's a quarterly retainer.

§ II — By bucket

Five procurement buckets, five different fights.

The buyer is not running a horse-race across all 34 competitors. They are picking one bucket and procuring within it. The Vantage win-rate inside each bucket is what matters; the mistake is to lump them.

Threat 3/5 · brand-recognition fight

(a) Traditional research — Frost & Sullivan, Euromonitor

USD 15–60k/yr, branded reports a CFO will sign without questions. We don't beat F&S on logo. We win when the buyer's procurement team has rejected F&S as "generic" — i.e. the same report sells to their competitor. The pitch into this bucket is bespoke + auditable + JSON-handoff, not "cheaper."

Frost & Sullivan custom10–17× Vantage

USD 15–25k

Frost & Sullivan SG (APAC desk)10–33× Vantage

USD 15–50k

Vantage Starter1× anchor

USD 1,500

Threat 2–3/5 · annual subscription fight

(b) Traditional CI SaaS — Crayon, AlphaSense, Euromonitor

USD 25–150k/yr, recurring. These are operations tools, not strategy artefacts — Crayon ships battlecards, AlphaSense ships expert-call corpora, Euromonitor ships category seats. None size the buyer's TAM, recommend their tiers, or hand back a JSON the buyer can rerun. The pitch is "complement, don't replace" — but the buyer's annual budget for CI is finite, so we are still competing for the same line.

AlphaSense (incl. Tegus)17–100× / yr

USD 25–150k+ / yr

Euromonitor Passport17–40× / yr

USD 25–60k / yr

Crayon17–27× / yr

USD 25–40k / yr

Vantage Annual PartnerSGD 50k = ~USD 37k

SGD 50,000

Threat 5/5 · existential

(c) AI-native research subs — ChatGPT Pro / Claude Max / Perplexity / Manus

USD 200/mo each. USD 2,400/year. 1.6× one Vantage report buys a year of "unlimited" Deep Research. This is the squeeze. The defensible response is not "we produce better output" — a literate buyer extracts 70–80% of one Vantage artefact per annual seat. The defensible response is SG-licensed accountability + methodology install + PSG-effective USD 750. AI subs cannot match those three on a 12-month horizon.

ChatGPT ProUSD 200/mo · 250 Deep Research/mo · USA

USD 2,400 / yr

Claude MaxUSD 200/mo · Research mode · USA

USD 2,400 / yr

Perplexity MaxUSD 200/mo · source-cited · USA

USD 2,400 / yr

Manus ExtendedUSD 200/mo · 40k credits · SG/CN

USD 2,400 / yr

Vantage Starter1.6× this row buys 1 yr

USD 1,500

Vantage Starter (post-PSG)3.2× cheaper than ChatGPT Pro / yr

USD 750

Threat 4/5 · same buyer, same week

(d) Boutique research — SG fractional analyst, Asia Insight, Kadence

SGD 5–25k typical project. SGD 1.5–3k senior-analyst day rate. MRSS-accredited, real local fieldwork, 30 years of SG market knowledge. The buyer hires Asia Insight without ever putting Vantage on the shortlist. Vantage is positioned correctly against this bucket on price (1× vs 4–7× for fractional, 2.5–12× for boutique project). The fight is on credibility — "SG-licensed Pte Ltd with named analyst on signature" closes the gap; nothing else does.

Boutique SG project (Asia Insight / Kadence)2.5–12×

SGD 5–25k

SG fractional senior analyst (5 days)4–7×

SGD 7.5–15k

Vantage Starter1× anchor

USD 1,500 ≈ SGD 2,025

Threat 4–5/5 · methodology replication

(e) OSS frameworks — CrewAI, LangGraph, Anthropic Agent SDK + Claude Skills

Free OSS frameworks plus paid LLM tokens. The Anthropic Claude Skills marketplace listed 4,200+ skills, 770+ MCP servers, and 2,500+ marketplaces as of Q2 2026. Anyone can fork an equivalent template in a weekend — and the DIY-Eng-Manager persona on the buyer-research page will. The methodology install isn't moated by the agents themselves; it's moated by the FIELD-DICTIONARY, the JSON handoff, the rerun protocol, and the SG-licensed analyst on signature.

CrewAI · LangGraph · Anthropic Agent SDKFree OSS + token cost

~USD 50 / refresh

DIY total cost (engineer time + tokens)Per pricing-strategy.json DIY persona

SGD 3,800 / mo

Vantage Annual Partner (methodology license)In-house rerun rights

SGD 50,000 / yr

§ III — The two anchor pairs that decide the deal

Buyers compare against one anchor at a time.

No buyer is comparing all 34. They pick a single anchor (sometimes two) and decide. The pair below decides Vantage's outcome 80% of the time.

Anchor 1

USD 2,400 — one ChatGPT Pro annual seat

If the buyer compares against this, the question is "why pay 1.6× for one engagement when I could have unlimited research for a year?" The only winning answer is signed accountability + PSG-effective USD 750 + SEA source quota. Without those, this comparison kills the deal.

Anchor 2

SGD 5–25k — Asia Insight / Kadence project

If the buyer compares against this, the question is "why hire a boutique I've never heard of when Asia Insight has 30 years of SG fieldwork?" The only winning answer is reproducible methodology + JSON handoff + 5-day delivery vs their 4–6 weeks. The methodology install is the differentiator.

§ IV — Confidence note & sources

What's verified, what we're flagging.

High confidence: Crayon, AlphaSense, Euromonitor, Frost & Sullivan, ChatGPT Pro, Claude Max, Perplexity Max, Manus list-prices — all primary-sourced from vendor pricing pages and competitor disclosures Q2 2026 in competitors.json. Asia Insight and Kadence project bands from public case studies and Consultancy.asia rate disclosures.

Medium confidence: SG fractional senior-analyst day rates (SGD 1.5–3k/day) — three direct conversations + Consultancy.asia listings, not a survey. The "70–80% extraction by AI subs" claim is operator-judgement, not a measured A/B. The DIY total monthly cost (SGD 3,800) is a cobbled-stack estimate per the DIY persona's tooling_lines; real-world DIY varies 2–4× by team experience.

Low confidence / flagged: Bar widths above are normalised against AlphaSense's published USD 150k/yr ceiling. "Annualising" a one-shot Vantage engagement against an annual sub is methodologically loose — we use it because it's how a buyer actually compares budget lines, not because it's strictly comparable on output. Re-validate after the first 10 closed deals.

See the per-competitor data.

Each row above traces back to one competitor record in competitors.json with strengths, weaknesses, threat rating and beatability score. Open the admin to see the full sweep.

Open the admin → Pricing thesis