Crayon vs. ARISE Battlecard Automation

THE FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE

Before comparing features, understand the philosophical difference:

Crayon Position: "We aggregate competitive intelligence from across the web and help you track competitor activity."

ARISE Position: "We automate your entire competitive intelligence operation from monitoring through battlecard updates to CRM delivery."

Crayon is a competitive news feed + battlecard template platform. You still need to:

• Manually review the news feed daily
• Decide which changes are material
• Write battlecard updates yourself based on what Crayon surfaces
• Manually distribute updates to the sales team
• Track battlecard usage through separate systems

ARISE is end-to-end automation. The system:

• Monitors 100+ sources per competitor continuously
• Applies semantic analysis to detect material changes
• Auto-drafts battlecard updates with AI synthesis
• Surfaces intelligence contextually in HubSpot CRM
• Tracks usage and win/loss outcomes automatically

This isn't Crayon vs ARISE as competing tools. It's news aggregation vs complete automation. Intelligence feed vs operating system.

WHEN CRAYON MAKES SENSE

Crayon is appropriate when:

Scenario 1: You Need Market Intelligence Beyond Battlecards

If your competitive intelligence needs extend beyond sales battlecards, market trends, industry analysis, and broad competitor landscape monitoring, Crayon's news aggregation provides value.

You're tracking 20+ companies, want to understand market movements, and need content for analyst relations or strategic planning. Crayon surfaces broader intelligence than just operational battlecards.

Scenario 2: Your Battlecard Process Is Already Efficient

If you have a dedicated competitive intelligence analyst who efficiently maintains battlecards in 10-15 hours/week, Crayon provides useful input without requiring a process overhaul.

Your analyst reviews Crayon's feed, identifies relevant changes, and updates battlecards quickly. The process works; Crayon just makes intelligence gathering easier.

Scenario 3: Multi-Platform CRM Environment

If your sales team uses Salesforce, HubSpot, and other CRMs across different regions or business units, Crayon's platform-agnostic approach may be simpler than CRM-specific integration.

You need competitive intelligence accessible regardless of which CRM a given rep uses.

Scenario 4: Budget Constraints Favour Annual Subscription

If upfront capital investment is difficult to secure but an annual subscription budget exists, Crayon's recurring payment model may be more feasible for the organisation than ARISE's one-time implementation investment.

You can get Crayon operational with a £30K-£50K annual commitment vs ARISE's £60K-£80K all-in.

WHEN ARISE MAKES SENSE

ARISE Competitive Intelligence Operating System is appropriate when:

Scenario 1: Product Marketing Is Overwhelmed by CI Maintenance

Your product marketing team spends 30-40 hours/month monitoring competitors, updating battlecards, and distributing intelligence. This manual burden prevents strategic work.

ARISE reduces CI maintenance by 85%. Product marketing reviews auto-drafted updates (5-8 hours/month) rather than researching and writing from scratch.

Scenario 2: Battlecard Adoption Is Below 30%

Your battlecards exist (in Crayon, Docs, Confluence), but sales reps rarely use them. Current usage: 20-25% of reps access monthly.

Why? Reps don't trust currency, forget to check, or accessing a separate platform feels like extra work during deal pressure.

ARISE delivers 85%+ adoption through contextual CRM delivery. When a rep opens a Deal record with Competitor X, the relevant battlecard appears automatically. No separate login, no searching, no remembering.

Scenario 3: You're HubSpot-Native

If your GTM operation runs on HubSpot (CRM, Marketing Hub, Sales Hub), ARISE's native HubSpot architecture provides tighter integration than any platform-agnostic tool.

Battlecards are HubSpot custom objects. Intelligence properties flow through standard HubSpot workflows. Reporting uses native HubSpot analytics. No middleware, no separate platform.

Scenario 4: Deployment Speed Matters

You have a competitive threat, a product launch, or market entry that requires operational CI in weeks, not months.

ARISE deploys in 2-4 weeks:

• Week 1: Configure for your competitors and HubSpot instance
• Week 2: Set up automation workflows
• Week 3: Test and validate
• Week 4: Launch to sales team

A pre-built system means proven architecture, not a custom configuration.

Scenario 5: You Want Capital Investment, Not Recurring Expense

If you prefer a one-time implementation investment that continues operating without mandatory recurring fees, ARISE's business model aligns better than subscription-based platforms.

ARISE: £60K-£80K one-time setup. Optional ongoing support (£12K-£20K annually) if desired. Crayon: £30K-£50K annually, recurring indefinitely.

After year 1, ARISE operates with minimal cost (just labour for reviews). Crayon requires an ongoing subscription.

FEATURE COMPARISON

Competitive Monitoring

Crayon:

• Automated news aggregation from web sources
• Competitor website change tracking
• Social media monitoring
• Email digests with competitor activity
• Manual review required to assess materiality

ARISE:

• Automated monitoring of 100+ sources per competitor (websites, content, reviews, hiring, partnerships, funding)
• Semantic change detection (understands meaning, not just keywords)
• Material change assessment (AI evaluates significance)
• Auto-drafted battlecard updates (not just alerts)

Intelligence Output: Crayon: "Here's what changed" (you decide if material and write update) ARISE: "Here's the battlecard update based on material change" (you review and approve)

Battlecard Structure

Crayon:

• Flexible battlecard templates
• Manual content entry and updates
• Version control
• Content lives in the Crayon platform

ARISE:

• Pre-built 90-property Battlecard custom object (positioning, features, pricing, objections, win rates, deal metrics)
• HubSpot-native records (not external documents)
• Automated property updates from workflows
• Win/loss data automatically populates effectiveness metrics

Data Model: Crayon: Document-based (flexible but requires manual updates) ARISE: Object-based (structured, enables automation and reporting)

Intelligence Distribution

Crayon:

• Email digests to stakeholders
• Crayon platform access (login required)
• Slack integration for updates
• Reps navigate to Crayon to access battlecards

ARISE:

• Contextual delivery in HubSpot Deal records
• Automatic battlecard association when a competitor is detected
• No separate login (reps already in HubSpot)
• Intelligence surfaces based on deal context

Adoption Impact: Crayon: 20-30% monthly battlecard access (industry standard for platform-based) ARISE: 85%+ weekly battlecard usage (CRM-native contextual delivery)

Win/Loss Integration

Crayon:

• Manual win/loss data entry
• Tagging and categorisation
• Reporting on competitive outcomes
• Insights inform manual battlecard updates

ARISE:

• Automated win/loss outcome capture from HubSpot Deal stages
• Competitive win rate properties update automatically
• Loss reasons tagged to battlecard objection themes
• Closed-loop: deal outcomes automatically improve intelligence

Learning Velocity: Crayon: Quarterly synthesis of patterns ARISE: Continuous win rate updates, automated pattern detection

Implementation Timeline

Crayon:

• Implementation: 4-6 weeks (onboarding, content migration, training)
• Content setup: Manual entry of existing battlecards
• Training required: Sales team, product marketing, admins
• Ongoing maintenance: 25-35 hours/month (reviewing feeds, updating battlecards)

ARISE:

• Implementation: 2-4 weeks (configure, integrate, test, launch)
• Content setup: Optional migration of existing battlecards
• Training required: Product marketing review workflow (3-4 hours), sales requires none (automatic)
• Ongoing maintenance: 5-8 hours/month (review auto-drafted updates)

Time to Value: Crayon: 6-8 weeks to full adoption

ARISE: 3-4 weeks to operational

ARCHITECTURAL TRADE-OFFS

Understanding the trade-offs helps decision-making:

Flexibility vs Automation

Crayon Advantage: Platform flexibility allows custom workflow, unique battlecard structures, and tailored processes for specialised industries.

ARISE Trade-off: Pre-built 50+ property Battlecard structure is optimised for standard B2B SaaS. Customisation is possible but requires HubSpot configuration rather than platform settings.

Decision Factor: Do you have truly unique CI requirements, or standard B2B SaaS battlecard needs?

News Breadth vs Operational Depth

Crayon Advantage: Broader competitive landscape monitoring. Track 20+ companies, see market trends, and surface adjacent competitors.

ARISE Trade-off: Optimised for 3-10 primary competitors with operational battlecard automation. Can track more, but the system is designed for depth on key competitors rather than breadth across the market.

Decision Factor: Do you need market intelligence (breadth) or operational battlecard automation (depth)?

Platform Agnostic vs CRM Native

Crayon Advantage: Works regardless of your CRM. Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics, or no CRM—Crayon functions independently.

ARISE Trade-off: HubSpot-native architecture. Tighter integration, but requires HubSpot as your CRM. (If you're not on HubSpot, ARISE isn't applicable.)

Decision Factor: Is HubSpot your CRM? If yes, native integration provides advantages. If no or multi-CRM, platform-agnostic matters.

Subscription vs Capital Investment

Crayon Advantage: Lower first-year cost (£30K-£50K vs £60K-£80K). An annual subscription may be easier to secure than a capital budget.

ARISE Trade-off: Higher upfront investment, but no mandatory recurring fees. After year 1, the cost drops to optional support only.

Decision Factor: Does your organisation prefer OpEx (annual subscription) or CapEx (one-time implementation) models?

PRICING REALITY

Published pricing rarely tells the full story. Here's a real-world cost comparison:

Crayon Total Cost of Ownership

Platform Subscription: £30K-£50K annually (depending on seats, features, competitors tracked) Implementation: £5K-£10K (onboarding, training, setup) Ongoing Labour: 30 hours/month × £95K PM salary = ~£45K annually

Total First Year: £80K-£105K Total Ongoing Years: £75K-£95K annually (recurring subscription + labour)

ARISE Total Cost of Ownership

One-Time Setup & Implementation: £60K-£80K (includes system build, HubSpot integration, 90-property Battlecard object, automation workflows, training) Ongoing Labour: 6 hours/month × £95K PM salary = ~£9K annually Optional Ongoing Support: £12K-£20K annually (continuous optimisation, feature updates, strategic consulting)

Total First Year: £69K-£89K Year 2 Without Optional Support: £9K (labour only) Year 2 With Optional Support: £21K-£29K (labour + support) Year 3+ Without Optional Support: £9K annually Year 3+ With Optional Support: £21K-£29K annually

Three-Year Comparison

Crayon: Year 1 (£80K-£105K) + Year 2 (£75K-£95K) + Year 3 (£75K-£95K) = £230K-£295K

ARISE Without Ongoing Support: Year 1 (£69K-£89K) + Year 2 (£9K) + Year 3 (£9K) = £87K-£107K

ARISE With Ongoing Support: Year 1 (£69K-£89K) + Year 2 (£21K-£29K) + Year 3 (£21K-£29K) = £111K-£147K

The Business Model Difference

Crayon: Recurring annual subscription model. You pay platform fees every year indefinitely, plus ongoing labour costs for manual battlecard maintenance.

ARISE: One-time implementation investment. The system is yours. Continues operating without mandatory recurring fees. Optional support is available if you want continuous optimisation.

Key Insight: Even including optional ongoing support, ARISE saves £83K-£148K over three years compared to Crayon whilst delivering higher battlecard adoption and dramatically lower maintenance burden.

The savings come from two sources:

1. No mandatory recurring subscription (after year 1, ARISE cost is minimal)
2. 85% reduction in manual labour (5-8 hrs/month vs 30 hrs/month)

THE HYBRID APPROACH

Some companies might run both:

Crayon for Market Intelligence:

• Broad competitor landscape monitoring
• Market trend identification
• Content for strategic planning
• Analyst relations input

ARISE for Operational Battlecards:

• Sales-facing competitive intelligence
• Automated battlecard updates
• CRM-native delivery
• Win/loss pattern detection

This works when:

• Budget supports both (~£50K-£70K annually for Crayon + £60K-£80K one-time for ARISE)
• Clear separation: strategic intelligence (Crayon) vs operational battlecards (ARISE)
• Different use cases: market analysis vs daily sales enablement

Most companies find hybrid unnecessary. ARISE handles operational CI completely. Strategic market intelligence can be managed through analyst subscriptions (Gartner, Forrester) or manually for quarterly planning.

DECISION FRAMEWORK

Choose Crayon if:

• You need broad market intelligence beyond just operational battlecards
• Your CI analyst efficiently maintains battlecards in 10-15 hours/week (Crayon input helps, but the process already works)
• A multi-platform CRM environment requires a platform-agnostic tool
• An annual subscription OpEx model is easier to secure than an upfront CapEx model
• You're not on HubSpot (ARISE requires HubSpot CRM)

Choose ARISE if:

• Product marketing is overwhelmed by CI maintenance (30-40 hrs/month)
• Current battlecard adoption below 30% (need CRM-native delivery)
• You're HubSpot-native (want tight CRM integration)
• Need deployment in 2-4 weeks, not 4-6 weeks+
• Prefer one-time capital investment over recurring subscription
• Want operational battlecard automation, not just intelligence feed

Choose Both if:

• Need strategic market intelligence (Crayon) AND operational battlecard automation (ARISE)
• Budget supports a hybrid approach
• Clear ownership: Strategy team uses Crayon, Sales/PM uses ARISE

Choose Neither if:

• You have <3 competitors with low competitive pressure
• Product marketing maintains battlecards manually in <10 hours/month effectively
• The sales team doesn't consistently need competitive intelligence

COMMON CHALLENGES WITH NEWS AGGREGATION PLATFORMS

Organisations using news aggregation approaches (like Crayon) commonly report challenges in three areas:

Challenge 1: Volume Without Prioritisation

News feeds surface every competitor mention, website change, social post, and press release. Product marketing still needs to assess which changes are material and require manual battlecard updates.

Implication: If your goal is to reduce time spent on CI, news aggregation reduces search time but not synthesis time. You still spend hours weekly reviewing feeds and deciding what matters.

Challenge 2: Intelligence Feed ≠ Battlecard Updates

Knowing "Competitor X launched Feature Y" doesn't automatically translate to an updated battlecard. Someone still needs to:

• Understand the feature's implications
• Update positioning and objection handling
• Revise feature comparison
• Distribute to the sales team

Implication: News aggregation is input to battlecard maintenance, not automation of it. The writing work remains manual.

Challenge 3: Adoption Depends on Platform Access

When battlecards live on a separate platform requiring login and navigation, adoption depends on reps remembering to check during deal pressure.

Implication: Even with great battlecard content in Crayon, if reps don't access consistently (20-30% monthly usage is standard), the intelligence doesn't impact outcomes.

These aren't criticisms of Crayon specifically—they're inherent trade-offs of the news aggregation approach. Feed platforms provide intelligence input. Automation systems (like ARISE) reduce the synthesis and distribution work.

CALCULATE YOUR CI WASTE

Before choosing between Crayon and ARISE, understand your current CI cost.

Use the CI Waste Calculator to quantify:

• Annual hours spent on competitive research and battlecard maintenance
• Product marketing time that could be redirected to strategy
• Opportunity cost from outdated competitive intelligence
• Total annual CI waste for your organisation

Calculate Your CI Waste →

Most mid-market B2B SaaS companies discover they're spending £150K-£350K annually on manual CI when measured fully (direct labour + opportunity cost). This makes both Crayon and ARISE easily justifiable—the question becomes which approach reduces that waste most effectively.

THE MIGRATION PATH: CRAYON → ARISE

If you're currently using Crayon and considering ARISE:

Month 1: Run in Parallel

• Keep Crayon operational for market intelligence
• Deploy ARISE for operational battlecard automation
• ARISE monitors competitors independently (doesn't require Crayon data)
• Compare Crayon news feed alerts vs ARISE auto-drafted updates

Week 6-8: Evaluate Effectiveness

• Which system requires less product marketing time?
• Which system produces more accurate battlecard updates?
• What's the sales rep adoption rate for each?
• Does Crayon provide strategic value beyond what ARISE automates?

Week 8-12: Decide on Path

• Option A: Keep both (Crayon for market intelligence, ARISE for operational battlecards)
• Option B: Replace Crayon with ARISE (if operational CI is the primary need)
• Option C: Keep Crayon, don't proceed with ARISE (if news aggregation is sufficient)

Most organisations choosing Option A or B report:

• 70-85% reduction in manual battlecard maintenance time
• 3-4x increase in battlecard usage (CRM-native vs platform-based)
• Product marketing capacity freed for strategic positioning work

STRONG CTA SECTION 2: SEE ARISE IN ACTION

Reading comparisons is useful. Seeing ARISE with your actual competitors is definitive.

Schedule a 30-minute demo:

• We'll configure ARISE with your 3-5 main competitors
• You'll see automated monitoring detecting real competitive changes
• We'll demonstrate HubSpot-native battlecard delivery
• You'll understand the 2-4 week deployment process
• We'll walk through the one-time investment model vs the recurring subscription

Schedule Demo with My Competitors →

Or assess your current CI maturity first:

Take the CI System Scorecard (5 minutes):

• Evaluates competitive intelligence across 5 dimensions
• Provides implementation recommendations based on maturity
• Shows where you rank vs industry benchmarks

Take CI System Scorecard →

THE HONEST RECOMMENDATION

If you're evaluating Crayon vs ARISE, here's honest guidance:

You Should Choose Crayon If:

• You need broad market intelligence beyond operational battlecards
• Your CI process is already efficient (10-15 hrs/week maintenance)
• A multi-platform CRM environment requires a platform-agnostic approach
• Annual subscription OpEx is easier to secure than upfront CapEx
• You're not on HubSpot (ARISE requires HubSpot CRM)

You Should Choose ARISE If:

• Product marketing overwhelmed by battlecard maintenance (30-40 hrs/month)
• Current battlecard adoption is below 30% (need CRM-native delivery)
• You're HubSpot-native and want tight integration
• Want to shift from CI maintenance to CI strategy
• Prefer one-time capital investment over recurring subscription
• Standard B2B SaaS competitive intelligence needs (3-10 competitors)

You Should Consider Both If:

• Need strategic market intelligence AND operational battlecard automation
• Budget supports £60K-£90K annually (Crayon subscription + ARISE optional support after year 1)
• Clear separation between strategic analysis and operational sales enablement

Most B2B SaaS companies we talk to fall into the "Choose ARISE" category. They need operational battlecard automation with CRM-native delivery more than broad market intelligence feeds. Their product marketing teams are overwhelmed by maintenance work that automation can handle.

But some companies genuinely need Crayon's market intelligence breadth and have efficient battlecard processes where news aggregation provides clear value.

READY TO DECIDE?

Three paths forward:

Path 1: Start with Assessment

Not ready to evaluate platforms? Start by understanding your current CI maturity and cost.

Calculate CI Waste (2 min) → Take CI System Scorecard (5 min) →

Path 2: See ARISE in Action

Ready to see how ARISE works with your specific competitors and HubSpot environment?

Schedule 30-Min Demo →

We'll show you:

• Automated monitoring with your actual competitors
• Auto-drafted battlecard updates based on real competitive changes
• CRM-native delivery in your HubSpot instance
• One-time implementation model vs recurring subscription economics

FINAL WORD: INTELLIGENCE FEED VS. COMPLETE AUTOMATION

Crayon provides an intelligence feed. ARISE provides complete automation.

If your primary need is knowing what competitors are doing (market intelligence), Crayon's news aggregation excels.

If your primary need is reducing the 30-40 hours/month product marketing spends on battlecard maintenance whilst improving sales adoption from 20% to 85%, ARISE's automation excels.

Both solve real problems. The question is which problem you have.

For most B2B SaaS companies on HubSpot with standard competitive intelligence needs, complete automation (ARISE) delivers greater ROI than news aggregation (Crayon) through labour savings and adoption improvement.

But if you need market intelligence breadth or operate across multiple CRMs, Crayon's platform-agnostic news aggregation may be the better fit.