Competitive intelligence shouldn’t sit in a dashboard. It should show up when a deal’s on the line.
If you're a technical founder or GTM lead knee-deep in sales calls, you already know: the last thing reps need is another static dashboard of competitive insights they’ll never open.
You’ve probably tried (or considered) Crayon, it’s been the go-to name for CI for a while. Solid tool. Lots of features. But if you’ve landed here looking for a Crayon alternative, you’ve likely hit the same wall that a growing number of revenue teams have run into:
Data is easy. Activation is hard.
And that’s the real gap.
Crayon is built for collecting intel. But the modern sales org needs something that makes intel useful in the moment, right when reps are on a call, facing objections, and need to counter a competitor in real time.
That’s why more GTM teams are switching to Playwise HQ, an AI-driven alternative that prioritizes action over research.
Why Crayon Stops Working (Eventually)
Let’s be clear: Crayon isn’t bad tech. It does what it says, aggregates news, updates, and competitive activity into neat dashboards.
But if you’ve spent time supporting a sales team, you’ll have seen some of these symptoms:
- Battlecards go stale (fast)
- Reps don’t log in to dashboards to read "news"
- Insights come after the deal is lost
- Product marketing becomes the bottleneck
- “CI” becomes a monthly slide deck no one reads
Crayon serves analysts. But the field doesn’t care about the latest news article on a competitor. They want to know what to what to say and how to beat them.
That’s where Playwise HQ flips the model.
Meet Playwise HQ: Competitive Intel That Lives in the Deal
Playwise HQ is a revenue-first enablement platform built for speed, not ceremony. It’s what happens when you rebuild CI with modern go-to-market teams in mind, not legacy analyst workflows.
Instead of manually building battlecards, Playwise uses real-time field data and AI to auto-generate living, breathing competitor insights.
Here’s what sets Playwise HQ apart:
⚡ Battlecards Built by AI, Not Interns
With Crayon, someone has to make the battlecards.
With Playwise HQ, reps get AI-generated battlecards in minutes, complete with:
- Competitor positioning
- Pricing responses
- Common objections
- Win/loss triggers
🔁 Field-Driven Intel, Not Just Web Scrapes
Crayon tracks public-facing competitor signals. Great. But what about the unspoken stuff?
- What a competitor said on a call last week
- A random pricing page shared by a prospect
- The internal deck your AE snagged from a buyer
Playwise HQ captures these signals from the field and turns them into live, updated insights. If a rep learns something, the whole team learns it.
🧠 Designed for Reps (Not Just Analysts)
The UI, workflows, and delivery model are all built for one thing: reps using it mid-deal.
- No folders to dig through
- No gatekeeping from enablement
- No “where’s that doc?” Slack threads
If it’s not visible in the moment it’s needed, it doesn’t count. Playwise makes CI part of the workflow, not homework.
🚀 Onboard in Hours, Not Weeks
Crayon can take weeks to implement and usually needs buy-in from analysts or marketing.
Playwise HQ? You sign up, invite your reps, and you’re rolling.
- No long onboarding
- No complex tagging or config
- Just insights, live, now
💵 Flat, Transparent Pricing
If you’ve ever been burned by “request pricing" that scales unpredictably, you’ll appreciate this: Playwise HQ has transparent pricing and a free tier.
- No opaque pricing
- Clear plans with everything you need to run your CI program
- Know what you’re paying, even as you grow
Who’s Making the Switch from Crayon?
We’re seeing a clear trend, and it's not just enablement leaders.
The switch is happening across:
- Founders who don’t want to hire a full CI team just to stay competitive
- Sales leaders tired of reps ignoring intel
- PMMs who want fewer tickets, more automation
- Enablement teams burned out from stale battlecards
These teams don’t want “more data.”
They want action. And revenue.
Crayon vs. Playwise HQ — TL;DR Comparison
| Capability | Playwise HQ | Crayon |
|---|---|---|
| Free version | ✅ Yes | ❌ No |
| Speed to value | ✅ Live in hours | ⚠️ Weeks to onboard |
| Battlecards | ✅ AI-generated | ⚠️ Manually created |
| Intel updates | ✅ Field-driven | ⚠️ Curated, delayed |
| Built for reps | ✅ Yes | ⚠️ Analyst-first |
| Pricing | ✅ Transparent | ⚠️ Gated & variable |
What’s Been Your CI Stack Experience?
If you're running sales or RevOps at a startup or growth-stage SaaS, how are you arming reps with competitive context?
- Are battlecards actually being used?
- Are you relying on one CI analyst to do it all?
- Do reps know what to say when a competitor’s name comes up on a call?
Would love to hear how others are handling this — drop your stack or war stories below. 👇
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