Strata Insights: Frequently Asked Questions
Pricing, Use Cases & More. Get everything you need to know about transforming market signals into strategic intelligence—instantly.
What is Strata Insights?
Strata is a context infrastructure platform that generates instant, reusable "context shells" from any company URL. Instead of spending weeks or months on market research, strategy teams get consultant-grade intelligence in minutes—structured, machine-ready, and deployable across CRMs, AI workflows, and decision-making systems.
Think of Strata as your strategic intelligence engine: you provide a URL, and we surface 50+ market signals so you can validate the 10 that matter. The result isn't just a static report—it's portable, continuously updated context you can integrate anywhere your team makes decisions.
How is Strata different from traditional market research tools?
Traditional market research tools give you data. Strata gives you strategic context ready for action.
Here's the difference: Most tools provide raw information—company descriptions, funding rounds, tech stacks—that still requires hours of analysis to become actionable. Strata generates comprehensive context shells that include competitive positioning, market whitespace, partnership fit analysis, and expansion opportunity maps. These aren't one-off reports you download and forget. They're structured intelligence assets that integrate with your CRM, feed your AI agents, and maintain strategic consistency across your entire organization.
While competitors are still gathering data, you're already moving. That's strategy at the speed of ambition.
What exactly is a "context shell"?
A context shell is Strata's core innovation: a structured, reusable intelligence foundation built from any company's public presence.
Unlike traditional market research reports that end up in someone's downloads folder, context shells are:
- Machine-readable: Formatted to integrate directly into CRMs, AI workflows, and decision systems
- Reusable: One intelligence foundation powers multiple use cases—from sales enablement to M&A screening to product roadmap decisions
- Living documents: Continuously updated as market signals change, not frozen snapshots
- Portable: Share across teams, deploy in different tools, maintain consistency everywhere
Think of it as the difference between a one-time consultant deck (static, expensive, quickly outdated) and an always-on intelligence layer (dynamic, accessible, always current). Context shells give both humans and AI systems the strategic clarity they need to make confident decisions, fast.
How fast can I actually get strategic insights with Strata?
Minutes, not months. Literally.
Here's the timeline comparison:
Traditional approach: 2-6 weeks for a consulting engagement, 3-10 days for internal research, or hours of manual digging per company.
Strata approach: Input a URL, get comprehensive strategic intelligence in minutes. Your first context shell—covering competitive positioning, market dynamics, partnership opportunities, and expansion vectors—is ready before you finish your coffee.
This speed doesn't come from shortcuts. Strata's intelligence engine processes hundreds of market signals instantly, identifying patterns and strategic opportunities that would take analysts days to surface manually. We surface 50+ signals so you can focus on validating the 10 that matter and making the actual decision.
Speed matters because markets move. The company considering a partnership today might announce one with your competitor tomorrow. Strata ensures you act while others are still analyzing.
What kind of strategic intelligence does Strata provide?
Strata delivers consultant-grade depth across multiple strategic dimensions:
Competitive Positioning: Where a company sits in their market landscape, who they compete with directly and indirectly, and how they differentiate
Market Whitespace: Underserved segments, category gaps, and expansion opportunities that aren't obvious from surface-level research
Partnership Fit Analysis: Complementary capabilities, integration opportunities, and strategic alignment indicators
Product & GTM Strategy: Feature prioritization signals, category expansion vectors, and go-to-market motion insights
Company Intelligence: Founding team backgrounds, funding trajectory, technology stack, and operational signals
Momentum Indicators: Growth signals, market traction, strategic pivots, and trajectory analysis
The key difference: Strata doesn't just collect this information—we synthesize it into strategic artifacts that directly inform your next move. Strata allows you to move from signal-hunting directly into context-informed action.
Who uses Strata and what do they use it for?
Strata serves four core audiences with distinct but overlapping needs:
Leadership & Strategy Teams use Strata to accelerate from endless analysis to decisive action. When your executive team needs to evaluate a new market, assess competitive threats, or align on strategic direction, Strata provides the intelligence foundation that drives conviction and clarity.
Corporate Development & Partnerships Teams use Strata to evaluate M&A targets, screen potential partners, and identify whitespace opportunities—all with the depth you'd expect from a consulting engagement but at a fraction of the time and cost.
Product & GTM Teams use Strata to see market shifts as they emerge, spot category gaps before competitors, and prioritize features and expansion moves based on real market intelligence rather than assumptions.
Investors & Board Members use Strata to screen companies, benchmark portfolios, and monitor strategic positioning through living context shells that reveal momentum and opportunity at a glance.
The common thread: teams who need to move quickly with confidence, where good intelligence is the difference between leading and following.
Can you give me specific use case examples?
Absolutely. Here are three real-world strategic scenarios where Strata creates immediate value:
API Platform Expansion: A growing API platform needs to identify which adjacent markets to enter next. Strata generates a context shell revealing developer workflow gaps, complementary tool ecosystems, and partnership opportunities that aren't obvious from competitor analysis alone. Result: A strategic roadmap for API expansion validated in days, not quarters.
Category Expansion Strategy: A payments company wants to understand emerging fintech categories and expansion vectors before competitors move. Strata surfaces partnership opportunities, whitespace in payment workflows, and strategic positioning options that inform product roadmap decisions months ahead of schedule.
Market Gap Visualization: A collaboration platform needs to understand persona-specific pain points and market gaps to guide product development. Strata creates opportunity maps showing exactly where market demand exceeds current solutions, enabling product bets based on real market intelligence rather than assumptions.
These aren't hypothetical—they represent the kind of strategic questions teams ask Strata every day. Each context shell becomes the foundation for decisions that would traditionally require weeks of research or expensive consulting engagements. If you're interested in learning more, please check out the sample reports available on getstrata.ai to see examples in action.
How does Strata compare to hiring consultants?
Strata and consultants serve different but complementary roles in strategic decision-making.
Speed: Consultants take 2-6 weeks minimum for an engagement. Strata delivers in minutes.
Cost: A typical consulting engagement runs $50K-$200K+. Strata starts at $999 for five full reports, so you can easily pull reports on your own company + four competitors to build a competitive set. If you need unlimited intelligence, we offer a subscription tier at $2,997/month.
Depth: Consultants provide custom analysis tailored to your specific question. Strata provides comprehensive coverage across 50+ strategic signals, giving you the intelligence foundation to ask better questions.
Reusability: Consultant decks are static deliverables. Strata context shells are living intelligence assets you can reuse, integrate, and update continuously.
Our recommended approach: Use Strata to rapidly generate strategic intelligence and identify the most promising opportunities based on your initial review, then engage external consultants for deep-dive execution planning on the opportunities that matter most. This approach saves weeks of preliminary research and ensures consultants focus on high-value strategy work rather than basic intelligence gathering. Since the Strata context shells are portable, you can share what you built with your consultants so they come up to speed without delay.
Many teams use Strata to replace the first phase of consulting engagements entirely, getting to strategic clarity faster and reserving consulting budgets for truly custom strategy work.
What if I need intelligence on multiple companies?
This is where Strata's context shell approach really shines.
With traditional research, each company requires starting from scratch—new research, new analysis, new report. With Strata, you build a library of reusable context shells that compound in value:
The Essentials Pack ($999) gives you 5 context shells—perfect for evaluating a competitive set, screening partnership candidates, or analyzing key market players.
Unlimited ($2,997/month) removes all constraints. Generate as many context shells as your team needs. Evaluate entire market categories. Screen every company in your pipeline. Build comprehensive intelligence on your competitive landscape.
Enterprise provides custom intelligence infrastructure with white-labeled reports, API integration, and bespoke strategic artifacts.
Context shells remain accessible in your Strata workspace, so intelligence from six months ago is still available and updated. You're building institutional knowledge, not just generating one-off reports. This is especially powerful for investors screening hundreds of companies, BD teams evaluating ongoing partnership opportunities, or product teams monitoring competitive landscapes continuously.
How does Strata integrate with my existing tools and workflows?
Context shells are designed for integration, not isolation.
CRM Integration: Push strategic context directly into Salesforce, HubSpot, or your CRM of choice. When your sales team pulls up an account, they see Strata's intelligence alongside contact information.
AI Workflow Integration: Strata’s reports and context shells are structured, machine-readable, and consistent. Users can copy, paste, or download them directly into agents, RAG pipelines, or custom LLM flows with zero reformatting.
Team Collaboration Tools: Share context shells via Slack, Notion, or whatever platform your team uses for strategic discussions.
API Access: For enterprise customers, Strata provides API endpoints to programmatically generate and access context shells within your own applications.
White-Label Reports: Our Enterprise subscribers can generate PDF or web-based reports with their branding for client-facing deliverables or internal presentations. This is also a great option for consultancies and service-based companies who want to quickly align on opportunities with their customers.
The goal is simple: intelligence should live where decisions happen, not locked away in research tools. Strata's context infrastructure ensures strategic clarity flows into every system and conversation where it matters.
Is Strata just for large enterprises?
Not at all. Strata serves everyone from scrappy startups to Fortune 500 strategy teams.
Startups and early-stage companies use Strata to punch above their weight class. When you can't afford a consulting firm or dedicated research team, Strata gives you enterprise-grade strategic intelligence at startup-friendly prices.
Growth-stage companies use Strata to maintain strategic velocity as they scale. When you're moving fast into new markets, evaluating partnerships, or planning product expansion, Strata ensures intelligence keeps pace with ambition.
Enterprises use Strata to democratize strategic intelligence across teams. Instead of bottlenecking insights through a central research function, Strata empowers every team leader to access consultant-grade intelligence on demand.
The common thread isn't company size—it's ambition. Strata serves teams who refuse to let research timelines slow down strategic opportunity. We call this AI-native speed.
What types of companies can I research with Strata?
If a company has a public web presence, Strata can generate strategic intelligence from it.
Technology companies: SaaS, infrastructure, developer tools, AI/ML platforms, fintech, healthtech, you name it.
B2B service providers: Consulting firms, agencies, professional services companies.
Marketplace and platform businesses: Multi-sided platforms, marketplaces, network effects businesses.
Traditional businesses with digital presence: Manufacturing companies with strong online presence, retail chains, distributors.
The key requirement is a URL that represents the company's strategic positioning—typically their main website, product pages, or thought leadership content. Strata's intelligence engine processes this public signal to extract strategic context.
You cannot use Strata for: Companies with no web presence or private companies with minimal public information.
How accurate is AI-generated strategic intelligence?
This is the right question to ask, and it reveals a critical misunderstanding about how Strata works.
Strata doesn't "generate" intelligence through AI hallucination. We extract and synthesize intelligence from real market signals. There's a massive difference.
Our process: Strata's intelligence engine analyzes a company's actual web presence—their positioning, messaging, product information, thought leadership—alongside competitive and market context. We then identify patterns and opportunities based on these real signals. We provide sources as well.
We surface 50+ signals so you can validate the 10 that matter. This is deliberate. Strata provides comprehensive coverage, but strategic judgment remains yours. You evaluate the intelligence, apply your domain expertise, and make the decision. We give you the context on tap; you bring the judgment.
For critical decisions, Strata accelerates your research but doesn't replace strategic thinking. Use our intelligence as a powerful starting point, then validate the opportunities that matter most with your expertise and additional research as needed.
How do I get started with Strata?
Getting started takes less than 2 minutes:
Option 1: Try it free Visit getstrata.ai and review three free reports for popular companies. No credit card required. No commitment.
Option 2: Start with the Essentials Pack $1,000 gets you 5 context shells—perfect for evaluating a competitive set or screening top partnership candidates. Use them whenever you need them.
Option 3: Go unlimited $2,997/month for unlimited context shells. Generate as many as your team needs, whenever strategic questions arise. Always-on intelligence infrastructure for ambitious teams.
Option 4: Enterprise custom engagement Need white-labeled reports, API integration, or custom workflows? Let's talk about building context infrastructure tailored to your specific needs.
The fastest path: Start with the Essentials Pack. See how Strata transforms a URL into strategic intelligence in minutes. As it delivers value, scale from there.
What makes Strata's approach to strategic intelligence unique?
Three things set Strata apart in a crowded market intelligence landscape:
First, we build reusable context, not disposable reports. Every context shell becomes a strategic asset you can deploy across multiple use cases, integrate into various systems, and update continuously. This is context infrastructure, not one-time analysis.
Second, we optimize for speed without sacrificing depth. Consultant-grade intelligence in minutes, not months. We surface 50+ strategic signals so you can focus on validation and decision-making rather than data gathering. Act while competitors are still sharpening their pencils.
Third, we bridge human judgment and AI capability. Context shells are simultaneously human-readable strategic artifacts and machine-readable intelligence feeds. They inform your thinking and power your AI systems. As AI becomes central to how teams operate, having structured, high-quality context becomes the key differentiator.
The underlying philosophy: Markets reward speed and judgment. Strata ensures intelligence never slows you down.
What happens after I generate a context shell?
Generating the context shell is just the beginning. Here's what intelligent teams do next:
Immediate validation: Review the 50+ signals Strata surfaces and identify which ones matter most for your specific strategic question. Apply your domain expertise to validate opportunities.
Strategic synthesis: Use the context shell as the foundation for deeper strategic conversations. Strata arms you with comprehensive intelligence so your team can focus on judgment calls and strategic trade-offs rather than debating facts.
Integration and deployment: Push relevant context into your CRM for sales enablement, share with your team via Slack or Notion, or feed into AI workflows that need strategic context.
Continuous monitoring: Context shells update as market signals change. Return periodically to see how competitive positioning shifts, new opportunities emerge, or strategic landscape evolves.
Compound value: Each new context shell adds to your intelligence library. Over time, you build institutional knowledge that reveals patterns across markets, competitive moves, and opportunities.
The goal: From signal to strategy to action. Strata handles the signal-to-strategy part so you can focus on action.
Can Strata help with competitive intelligence?
Absolutely—competitive intelligence is one of Strata's core strengths.
Traditional competitive intelligence is slow, manual, and quickly outdated. You assign someone to research competitors, they compile information, create a slide deck, present it, and by the time everyone's aligned, the competitive landscape has shifted.
Strata flips this model: Generate context shells for every key competitor. Get instant visibility into their positioning, strategic focus, partnership opportunities, market whitespace, and momentum signals. Update continuously as they evolve.
For strategy teams: Understand how competitors are positioning themselves, which markets they're targeting, and where their strategic focus lies.
For product teams: See which features competitors prioritize, identify gaps in their offerings, and spot category expansion opportunities before they do.
For sales teams: Arm reps with deep competitive context so they can articulate differentiation and compete effectively in deals.
For investors: Monitor portfolio companies and their competitive sets with always-current intelligence that reveals shifts in positioning or momentum.
The competitive intelligence advantage isn't just about having information—it's about having comprehensive, structured intelligence that updates continuously and deploys wherever competitive decisions happen.
How does Strata handle market whitespace analysis?
Market whitespace analysis is where Strata's strategic intelligence really demonstrates value.
Whitespace isn't obvious. If it were, every company would see the same opportunities. Real whitespace analysis requires synthesizing signals across competitive positioning, market demand, unmet needs, and strategic trends to identify opportunities others miss.
Strata's approach:
Signal aggregation: We analyze not just the target company, but their competitive context, adjacent markets, and ecosystem dynamics to understand where markets are underserved.
Pattern recognition: Our intelligence engine identifies disconnects between market demand and current solutions—the gaps where opportunity lives.
Opportunity mapping: We don't just point out whitespace; we map specific expansion vectors, partnership fits, and strategic moves that could capture that opportunity.
Strategic framing: Context shells present whitespace in terms of actionable strategic opportunities, not just market gaps. "Here's the unmet need, here's who's positioned to fill it, here's what a solution might look like."
For corporate development teams, this means identifying M&A targets or partnership opportunities in spaces you didn't know existed. For product teams, it means prioritizing features or categories based on real market intelligence rather than assumptions. For investors, it means spotting companies positioned to capture emerging opportunities before the rest of the market sees them.
Is my data secure with Strata?
Yes. Strata takes security and privacy seriously because strategic intelligence is sensitive by definition.
Data processing: Strata analyzes only public web information—company websites, thought leadership, public positioning. We don't require access to your internal systems, proprietary data, or confidential information.
No data selling: Strata's business model is straightforward—you pay for strategic intelligence infrastructure. We don't monetize your data, sell insights about your research activity, or share information about which companies you're investigating.
For enterprise customers with specific security requirements, we offer custom security configurations, data residency options, and compliance frameworks tailored to your needs.
The bottom line: Your strategic intelligence is your competitive advantage. We protect it accordingly.
What's the pricing model and how do I choose the right plan?
Strata's pricing scales with your intelligence needs:
Essentials Pack - $999: Get 5 context shells to evaluate specific strategic questions—perfect for one-time projects, competitive assessments, or testing Strata with your team.
Unlimited - $2,997/month: Generate as many context shells as your team needs. Unlimited intelligence infrastructure for teams where strategic velocity matters. No constraints on how many companies you research or how often you access strategic insights.
Enterprise - Custom pricing: White-labeled reports, API integration, bespoke strategic artifacts, custom workflows, and dedicated support. Built for organizations that need Strata deeply integrated into their strategic operations.
How to choose: If you have a specific project or competitive assessment, start with the Essentials Pack. If your team constantly evaluates companies, partnerships, markets, or opportunities, Unlimited provides the always-on intelligence infrastructure ambitious teams need. If you need custom integration or strategic intelligence at scale across your organization, Enterprise ensures Strata fits your exact needs.
The math is simple: The value of a single high-leverage insight—spotting the right partnership, entering the right category, or making the right strategic move ahead of competitors—can be transformative. Strata accelerates those moments. It helps you see opportunities earlier, act with confidence, and compound advantages long before others know they exist.
Ready to move at the speed of ambition?
Visit getstrata.ai to generate your first report, or reach out if you want to discuss how Strata can become your team's context infrastructure.
Last updated: November 2025