17 min read
How to track competitors with Claude: a setup guide
Connect Claude to Manifold MCP, create one monitor per competitor channel, and have Claude summarise website, ads, social, ranking and AI changes.
Competitor monitoring for pages, ads, posts and rankings
Watch competitors’ pricing pages, blogs and careers pages, the ads they start and stop on Meta, Google, LinkedIn and TikTok, their social posts and where they rank in Google. Your agent reads what changed and writes it up.
Create a monitor
250 free credits a month. Or ask your agent: how monitors work
What is competitor monitoring?
Competitor monitoring is tracking what rival companies change, such as prices, pages, product launches, ads, social posts and search rankings, on a schedule, so you hear about a move when it happens rather than when a customer mentions it. Each kind of change has its own source and its own pace.
What it watches
Each check repeats the same calls and keeps what it saw, so the next one reports only what is new. Change the cadence or alerts on any monitor.
Monitors in the docsWebsite tracking
New links under a page, such as a blog post or job opening, and price changes; or any new text on the page. Checking pages costs nothing.
Daily by defaultEmail alerts off until you turn them onAd tracking
Ads that start and stop for each competitor on Meta, Google, LinkedIn and TikTok, and the first ads from a brand that had none.
Daily by defaultEmail alerts off until you turn them onSocial account tracking
New posts from their accounts, and the ones that take off.
Hourly by defaultEmail alerts onGoogle rank tracking
Where a site ranks in Google for your keywords, theirs or yours.
Weekly by defaultEmail alerts off until you turn them on
Things to ask
Plain questions in any connected client. The agent picks the tools.
Monitor [competitor]’s pricing page and tell me when a price changes.
Watch [competitor].com/blog and /careers every day and summarise what is new each week.
Track the ads [competitor] runs on Meta and Google and tell me when new ones start.
Track our rankings and [competitor]’s for these 20 keywords every week.
What did my competitor monitors find this month? Update our battlecard.
Set up monitors for our three main competitors: pages, ads and social.
A CI platform, a page monitor, or your agent
Competitive intelligence platforms collect everything for a sales team, on a yearly contract. Page monitors watch pages for any change, with screenshots. Manifold watches pages, ads, social posts and rankings, and your agent turns the changes into a summary or a battlecard. For a step-by-step setup in Claude, see how to track competitors with Claude. For other servers, see the best MCP servers for competitor research.
| CI platforms | Page change monitors | Manifold | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Page and price changes | Yes | Yes | Yes, and the checks are free |
| Ads starting and stopping | Some | No | Meta, Google, LinkedIn, TikTok |
| Social posts and Google rankings | Some | No | Yes |
| Screenshots and visual diffs | Some | Yes | Text and links only |
| Battlecards and summaries | Built in | No | Your agent writes them |
| Price | Yearly contract | Monthly, by pages | Pay per check |
What it costs a month
Each check pays for the calls it makes, at the same prices as your agent’s calls, and the form shows the monthly cost before it starts. No seats and no plan per monitor. Every workspace gets 250 free credits a month.
- 3 pages (pricing, blog, careers), dailyWebsite tracking
- FreeFree plan
- Ads of 3 competitors on Meta and Google, dailyAd tracking
- 183 credits a monthFree plan
- 5 accounts, dailySocial account tracking
- 153 credits a monthFree plan
- 20 keywords in Google, weeklyGoogle rank tracking
- 522 credits a monthPro, $20 a month
Look it up now
For a one-off look, your agent reads a competitor’s ad library, domain, keywords and backlinks on the same server.
Questions about competitor monitoring
What counts as a change on a page?
By default, new links listed under the page, such as a new blog post or job opening, and price changes. Or choose any new text on the page. You can keep only changes that mention certain words. There are no screenshots.
Does it cost much to watch pages?
Page checks cost no credits, so a pricing page checked every hour is free. Ads, social accounts and rankings charge for the calls each check makes.
Can it watch a competitor in AI answers too?
Yes: an AI visibility monitor counts how often ChatGPT, Gemini and Google’s AI Overviews name you and each competitor for the questions you choose. AI visibility tracker
Can my agent set it up for me?
Yes. Ask in Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any connected client, such as “monitor this every day”. The agent shows the monthly cost first and creates the monitor once you agree. Later, ask what changed and it reads the monitor’s finds. You can also make one in the dashboard. How monitors work
Why did the first check find nothing?
The first check records a starting point and reports nothing, so a week of old posts or a page's existing links never arrive as news. Changes are reported from the second check on.
Can a monitor run up a bill?
Each check charges for the calls it makes, shown as a monthly estimate before you start. Your workspace’s spend cap applies to monitors as to everything else: at the cap checks are skipped until it resets, and with no credits left a monitor pauses until you act. There is no overage. How credits work
Further reading
- 11 min read
The best MCP servers for competitor research
No single server covers every kind of competitor data. This guide compares the servers for competitor SEO (keywords, gaps, backlinks), traffic estimates, ad libraries and social data, and shows which one to use for which job.
- 12 min read
The best ad library MCP servers for competitor research
Eight MCP servers that let your agent search the public ad libraries of Meta, Google, TikTok, LinkedIn and Microsoft, compared on coverage, setup and price.
- 16 min read
The best SEO MCP servers, compared
Looking for the best SEO MCP server? Here are 11 compared: Ahrefs, Semrush, SE Ranking, Serpstat, DataForSEO, OpenSEO, a Search Console server, Screaming Frog, SEO Review Tools, ContextBolt and Manifold, with what each costs, how it connects, and which one fits your workflow.
