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Both track events. One needs a data team.
The axis is who operates it, which is the real buying question.
All selling angles
Selling angleRendered with: NYT Data Story
The comparison angle
The comparison angle places your product next to the alternative the viewer is actually considering — which is often a spreadsheet, not a competitor — and argues on one axis that matters. Done fairly it is the highest-intent angle you can run. Done unfairly it is the fastest way to look small.
Comparison reaches people at the bottom of the funnel, where the question has already narrowed from "should I solve this" to "with what". That makes it valuable and dangerous in the same breath: this audience knows the category, has usually tried the alternative, and will notice a rigged table before they notice your product.
The discipline that separates a good comparison from a bad one is naming where you lose. A comparison that shows you winning on every row reads as marketing and gets discounted entirely. A comparison that says "if you need X, use them" gets believed on every other row — and it also filters out the users who would have churned in a month anyway.
Pick the axis before you pick the winner. Most buyers are not comparing feature counts; they are comparing setup time, or price at their size, or how much of the job they still have to do themselves. Comparing on the axis where you happen to win, rather than the axis the buyer cares about, produces a video that is technically accurate and completely unpersuasive.
When this angle works
- Your audience is actively evaluating options and using comparison language
- You have a real, defensible difference rather than a marginal one
- The alternative is a manual workflow you can characterise fairly
- You are willing to name a case where the other option is the right answer
When to use something else
- Nobody knows the category yet — comparison assumes a shortlist the viewer has not built
- Your only difference is price, which invites a race you will not enjoy winning
- You would need selective or out-of-date facts to come out ahead, in which case the honest move is to fix the product, not the table
Script structure
How to build the script
Each beat has a job. Keep the order, replace the examples with your own product and your own numbers.
- Beat 01
The shared job
State what both options are for, so the comparison is between peers rather than a caricature.
“Both get a launch video out the door.”
- Beat 02
The axis
Name the one dimension the viewer is deciding on, and commit to it for the rest of the video.
“The difference is how many different stories you end up with.”
- Beat 03
The difference, shown
Demonstrate rather than assert. A visible difference survives scepticism that a claim does not.
“One polished video, or eight that each argue something different.”
- Beat 04
Where the other one wins
Concede a real case. This is the beat that makes the previous three believable.
“Need one hero film with a crew and a voice actor? That is not this.”
What it looks like for a SaaS product
Product categories rather than real companies — we do not invent customers, and neither should your script.
A no-code internal tools builder
Two weeks of React, or an afternoon of dragging.
Compares against building it yourself — the honest default alternative.
A transactional email service
If you send ten thousand a month, the maths flips.
Concedes a threshold, which makes the rest of the comparison credible.
Questions about this angle
Should I name competitors directly in a comparison video?
Only if you can characterise them accurately and are prepared to keep the claims current. Naming raises the evidentiary bar and ages badly as the other product ships. Comparing against the manual workflow carries most of the persuasive value with none of that maintenance.
Is it really a good idea to say where a competitor wins?
Yes. Conceding one case is what makes the remaining claims land, and it pre-qualifies your signups. The users you lose to an honest concession are the ones who would have discovered the mismatch during onboarding and churned.
What is the most common mistake in comparison videos?
Comparing on the axis where you win instead of the axis the buyer is deciding on. The second most common is a feature table so dense that nobody reads a row of it.
Angles that pair with this one
The before / after angle
The before-after angle puts two states side by side and lets the gap between them make the argument. It is the most legible angle there is, which is exactly why it is easy to do badly: the contrast only persuades when both halves are honest.
Read the angleThe feature spotlight angle
A feature spotlight gives one capability the whole runtime. Its entire discipline is subtraction: the moment a second feature appears, it stops being a spotlight and becomes the feature list that nobody remembers.
Read the angleThe cost-of-inaction angle
Most deals are lost to nothing at all — not a competitor, but a decision that keeps getting postponed. This angle makes the price of postponing visible, using the viewer's own numbers rather than manufactured urgency.
Read the angleBrowse the full angle library for the rest of the directions available in the product.
Get this angle for your own product
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