Positioning Map for a SaaS Product (Worked Example)
A positioning map for a SaaS product plots the competing tools your best-fit buyer actually shortlists onto two independent, purchase-driving axes — such as general-purpose versus vertical, or self-serve versus sales-led — so the corner no rival can profitably occupy becomes obvious. The axes carry the whole exercise: choose ones buyers genuinely trade off.
Quick Answer: Build a SaaS positioning map by choosing two independent axes your buyers actually decide on (horizontal vs. vertical, self-serve vs. enterprise, point tool vs. suite), plotting the alternatives they truly consider — including a spreadsheet or doing nothing — then testing whether the empty corner reflects unmet demand you can credibly own, not a combination nobody wants.
SaaS positioning maps fail in a specific way: founders draw axes that flatter the product, land themselves in open space, and mistake a drawing for a strategy. This how-to walks the honest version — set up the inputs, choose axes SaaS buyers actually weigh, plot a hypothetical map end to end, and turn the gap you find into a positioning statement you can test.
Prerequisites: your SaaS category, best-fit buyer, and real alternatives
A positioning map is only as honest as three inputs: your market category, your best-fit buyer, and the alternatives that buyer actually considers. Get those wrong and you will map a market that does not exist, then bet on the gap you invented in it.
Start with the best-fit buyer, because everything downstream depends on it. A SaaS category rarely has one buyer — a general-purpose tool is shopped very differently by a solo founder than by a platform team at a large company. Pick the segment you can win, and draw the map from their shortlist, not the union of everyone's.
Then list the competitive alternatives the way April Dunford frames them in Obviously Awesome: not the vendors you consider rivals, but the options your best-fit customer would actually use if your product vanished. For many SaaS buyers that list includes a spreadsheet, a manual process, or doing nothing — and those belong on the map, or at least in your alternatives set, even when they do not sit neatly on your two axes.
Finally, name the market category — the frame of reference that tells a buyer what kind of thing you are. The category sets the expectations you will be measured against, so it is a positioning decision, not a label you inherit.
If you are pre-launch and do not yet have best-fit customers to draw from, you are really doing two jobs at once: positioning and validating a B2B SaaS idea. Treat every placement as a hypothesis to confirm, not a fact. For the broader theory behind the tool, the perceptual map positioning guide covers axes, plotting, and reading whitespace in depth.
Candidate axes for a SaaS positioning map
The best axes for a SaaS map are two dimensions buyers genuinely trade off and that are independent of each other — so competitors spread across the grid instead of collapsing onto a diagonal. SaaS gives you a familiar shortlist of these tensions to choose from.
Avoid pairs that secretly measure the same thing. "Powerful" and "expensive" tend to move together, so using both as axes just redraws a price line and fakes two empty corners — the same correlation trap that makes price-versus-quality maps useless.
The table below lists axis pairs that work well for SaaS and what each one is good at surfacing. It is qualitative on purpose: the right pair depends on your category, not on any universal ranking.
| Axis pair | What it surfaces | Best when |
|---|---|---|
| Ease-of-use vs. depth/configurability | The approachable-vs-powerful tension | Buyers split between novices and power users |
| General-purpose vs. vertical (industry-specific) | Build-for-everyone vs. built-for-one-workflow | A niche's workflow is underserved by horizontal tools |
| Self-serve vs. sales-led/enterprise | The buying and adoption motion | The same category is sold two very different ways |
| Point tool vs. platform/suite | Single-job focus vs. consolidation | Buyers are tired of stitching tools — or of bloat |
| Opinionated workflow vs. flexible/build-your-own | Prescriptive vs. configurable | Teams disagree on the "right" process |
Takeaway: pick the two axes where your best-fit buyer feels the most tension and where you sit somewhere non-obvious. If every serious competitor would land in the same spot on an axis, that axis is wasted — swap it for one that actually separates the field.
A worked SaaS positioning map: plotting incumbents and finding the gap
Here is the whole exercise on one hypothetical product. Imagine a fictional SaaS CRM built for independent boutique fitness studios — we'll call it Studio CRM. Every competitor and placement below is illustrative, chosen to demonstrate the method, not to describe any real company.
For Studio CRM, two axes from the table above carry the most tension. They are genuinely independent — a tool can be general and self-serve, general and enterprise, vertical and enterprise, or vertical and self-serve — so competitors will actually spread out rather than bunch on a line:
- Horizontal axis: general-purpose on the left, industry-specific on the right.
- Vertical axis: self-serve at the bottom, sales-led/enterprise at the top.
Now plot the alternatives a studio owner would really weigh. The grid below reads each of the four quadrants:
| Quadrant | Who sits there (illustrative) | How it reads |
|---|---|---|
| General + sales-led | Incumbent A | Crowded and defended by scale; the wrong fight for a newcomer |
| General + self-serve | Tool B, Tool C | Packed with low-cost horizontal CRMs; hard to stand out |
| Industry-specific + sales-led | Vertical Suite D | Occupied, but heavy — sold and priced for larger buyers |
| Industry-specific + self-serve | open — where Studio CRM lands | Empty, and empty for a structural reason worth examining |
The open corner is the interesting one, and its emptiness is a clue, not a guarantee. Ask why no one stands there. Incumbent A and the horizontal tools will not verticalize deeply — an industry-specific workflow dilutes their "works for any team" promise and fragments their roadmap. Vertical Suite D will not drop to self-serve — it would cannibalize the sales-led motion its margins depend on. The corner is empty because the nearest players each have a strategic reason to stay out, which is the profile of a defensible gap.
But apply the demand test before you celebrate. An empty corner can also be a graveyard — vacant because too few buyers want that combination to sustain a business. Confirm that enough studio owners actually want industry-shaped software they can adopt without a sales call. The map shows you where the space is; only customer evidence tells you whether it is worth occupying. The mechanics of plotting rigorously, from perception rather than opinion, are covered in how to create a perceptual map.
Translating the whitespace into positioning and messaging
The gap on the map is a location, not a message — translating it means turning the empty corner into a positioning statement built from the plotted alternatives. This is where the map pays off, because it hands you two of Dunford's positioning components for free.
The plotted competitors become your competitive alternatives — the "unlike" list a buyer measures you against. The corner you occupy implies your market category, the frame of reference that sets expectations. From there, a positioning statement writes itself in the shape Dunford uses: for a best-fit buyer with a specific need, your product is the category that delivers a value they care about, unlike the alternatives clustered in the other corners.
Name the alternative your buyer actually considers, not the one you fear. For Studio CRM, the honest "unlike" is often not Incumbent A — it is the spreadsheet the studio owner uses today, or the horizontal tool they abandoned because it never spoke their language. Messaging that answers the real alternative lands; messaging aimed at a rival the buyer never shortlisted does not.
Then validate before you bet the roadmap on the corner. A map is a set of hypotheses about what buyers perceive and want, and the most expensive mistake is a confident one. Pressure-testing the whitespace against real best-fit customers — the kind of pre-commitment validation Edmired is built for — is what separates a position you can defend from a drawing you liked.
Key Takeaways
- A SaaS positioning map is only as honest as its inputs. Draw it from your best-fit buyer's real shortlist — including spreadsheets and doing nothing — not from the vendors you consider rivals.
- Axes decide everything. Choose two independent, purchase-driving dimensions like general-vs-vertical or self-serve-vs-enterprise, and avoid correlated pairs that just redraw a price line.
- Independence is what spreads the field. If every serious competitor lands in the same spot on an axis, that axis is wasted — replace it with one that actually separates them.
- An empty corner is a hypothesis, not a prize. Whitespace is promising only when nearby players have a structural reason to stay out and buyers genuinely want the combination.
- Position against the alternatives your buyer actually considers. Following April Dunford's Obviously Awesome, the map's plotted options become your competitive alternatives and your category — the raw material for a positioning statement.
- Validate the gap before you build toward it. The map locates open space; only customer evidence confirms it is demand you can credibly own rather than a graveyard nobody wants.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a SaaS positioning map the same as a Gartner Magic Quadrant?
No. Both use two axes, but a Magic Quadrant is an analyst's evaluation of vendors against fixed criteria, published to rank a market. Your positioning map is an internal strategy tool you build from your best-fit buyer's perceived alternatives. The goal is not to land top-right on someone else's grid — it is to find open space you can credibly own.
How many competitors should I plot on a SaaS positioning map?
Plot only the alternatives your best-fit buyer actually shortlists — usually a handful, not every vendor in the category. Include substitutes and the status quo, such as a spreadsheet or a manual process, because those are often the real competition. More dots do not make a better map; the right dots do. A crowded map of irrelevant rivals hides the gap you are hunting for.
Can I build a SaaS positioning map before I have customers?
Yes, but treat every placement as a hypothesis rather than a fact. Pre-launch, you can seed the map from competitor reviews, sales-call notes, and interviews with target buyers, then refine it as real evidence arrives. This is positioning and idea validation happening together, so mark your assumptions clearly and confirm the whitespace reflects demand before you commit a roadmap to it.