Synthetic customer research · Guide

Planning for the counter-move.

Competitor counter-move planning means working out how rivals could answer a move before you make it, and deciding your reply to each answer in advance. It applies to price changes, launches, market entries and repositioning: any decision a competitor has a reason to respond to. The output is a short list of the responses that came up most often, each with a reply and an owner.

By Colin Moroney, co-founder of Manic Edge · Published 15 October 2026

Why plan before you move

Most advice on competitor response starts after the competitor has moved: they cut their price, so what now? By then the options are narrower. Your announcement is out, your customers have seen both offers, and any reply looks like a reaction.

Planning before the move changes what you can do. You can adjust the move itself, pick the timing, prepare messages for the customers most likely to be targeted, and agree in advance where you will hold. A response the team agreed a month earlier is calmer than one decided the day a rival announces.

Which competitors respond

Every market has competitors that will ignore your move. Planning effort belongs on the ones that won’t. Three questions sort them.

Will they notice?

A move that lands in a rival’s core market or in front of their customers gets noticed quickly. A move in a segment they ignore may not register for months.

Does it cost them?

A rival responds when your move threatens their revenue, their customers or their position. The more it costs them, the faster and harder the answer tends to be.

Can they respond?

A rival needs the margin, the product and the organisation to answer. A competitor with thin margins struggles to match a price cut, and one with a long release cycle struggles to match a feature.

A competitor that passes all three is one to plan for. One that passes two is worth watching. One that passes none can usually be left out.

Start from what they did last time

Rivals repeat themselves. How they answered the last move against them is the best guide to how they will answer yours. Most of that history is public: old pricing pages, launch announcements, earnings calls, job postings, and what their customers said in public when it happened.

Look for the last time someone made a move like yours in this market. Note who answered, how quickly, and with what. Also note who stayed quiet, because silence is a pattern too. The reason behind your own move matters as well. A rival facing the same pressure you are may have reasons to stay quiet that have nothing to do with you.

The counter-moves to plan for

Most competitor responses fall into six types. Each one calls for something different from you.

Counter-move	What it looks like	What to have ready
Match the move	They copy your price, tier or feature, often within weeks.	Whether the move still pays if it stops being unique, and what you say when customers ask why you are the same price.
Undercut	They go below you, sometimes with a time-limited offer aimed at your customers.	Your floor: the point where you hold and compete on something other than price.
Bundle or add value	They hold their price and add a feature, a service or a longer contract term.	A clear account of what your offer includes that theirs does not.
Target your customers	Switching offers, migration help or messaging aimed at the people your move annoys.	A plan for the customers most likely to leave, ready before the announcement.
Reposition	They change their message to make your move look like a weakness.	Your own framing of the move, published first.
Stay quiet	They say nothing and wait to see how your customers react.	A way to tell silence from a slow response, and a date to check again.

Rank the scenarios

Writing down every possible response gives you a long list and no priorities. The useful version ranks each response by how often it comes up when the move is tested, and by how much it would hurt if it happened. A response that comes up repeatedly and would cost you customers goes to the top. One that appears once and costs little goes to the bottom.

The ranking describes scenarios. It makes no claim about what a named competitor will actually do, and it is worth saying so when it goes to leadership. Its job is to point the preparation at the responses that matter most.

What to decide before you announce

For each of the top three or four scenarios, agree three things in writing: the signal that tells you it is happening, the reply, and who owns it. Settle the floor on price before anyone is under pressure, and prepare the message for the customers most likely to receive a switching offer. Then set a date to review what actually happened against the plan.

Rehearsing it in simulation

A Manic Edge War Game runs this process as a simulation. Each named competitor is profiled from the public record, with a close look at how they responded the last time someone moved on them. Their strategy rooms then react to your decision over independent runs, alongside a simulated customer base, and the counter-moves are ranked by how often they recurred. The method is described in full in the synthetic customer research guide.

The free Decision Check says in about ninety seconds whether a decision can be simulated, and whether it calls for competitors in the run.

Take the Decision Check Read the full guide

Common questions.

How do you plan for a competitor's response?

List the competitors that will notice the move, would lose something because of it, and are able to respond. For each, start from how they answered the last similar move, list the counter-moves open to them, and decide your reply to the ones that came up most often before you announce.

Can you predict what a competitor will do?

No one can say for certain what a named competitor will do. What a team can do is work out the responses open to each rival, rank them by how often they come up when the move is tested, and prepare a reply to the top few. Manic Edge delivers that ranking as professional opinion and analysis.

What decides whether a competitor responds?

Three things: whether they notice the move, whether it costs them something, and whether they have the margin, product and organisation to answer. A rival needs all three before a response is likely.

What is competitive war gaming?

War gaming is a structured rehearsal of a market move in which each competitor’s likely reasoning is played out against your decision before it ships. Manic Edge runs it as a simulation: competitors are profiled from the public record and their strategy rooms react to your move over independent runs.

Should you match a competitor's price cut?

Only if it fits a plan you agreed beforehand. Matching protects share in the short term and can start a cycle of cuts. Decide in advance where your floor is and what you compete on above it.