SWOT Analysis Maker

SWOT analysis is a way of looking at a business, a project or a decision from four angles: what you do well, where you are weak, what chances the outside world offers and what risks it holds. The format is old and simple, and that is its strength. Done properly, it ends with a short list of actions. This maker lays out the four boxes, counts your points and exports the board as an image or a PDF.

Internal and external

The key to a useful SWOT is sorting points into the right box. Strengths and weaknesses are inside the organisation: skills, assets, reputation, processes. Opportunities and threats come from outside: customers, competitors, regulation, technology, the economy. The board labels each box, “Internal · helpful” for strengths, “Internal · harmful” for weaknesses, “External · helpful” for opportunities and “External · harmful” for threats, so that a point like “rent is rising” goes to threats and not to weaknesses.

What you enter

Name the business, product or decision, add a date, and optionally the goal or decision the analysis is for. Then type each box, one point per line. A final box takes priority actions that follow from the analysis, one per line, which are printed as a numbered list below the board. The preview updates as you type, and a note under it counts the points in each quadrant.

Saving the board

Three buttons produce files. “PNG image” draws the board on a canvas, 1,800 pixels wide, with coloured boxes and your points wrapped to fit, ready for a slide or a document. “PDF” creates a landscape page with the same board, with selectable text. “Markdown” and “Copy text” give the points as headings and bullet lists for a report. On a phone the preview stacks the four boxes in one column.

A worked example

The sample is a SWOT for Kettle & Co Coffee, dated 10 November 2026, to decide whether to open a second café in Baner. Strengths are loyal regular customers (60% visit twice a month), a strong reputation for filter coffee and a trained, low-turnover team. Weaknesses are one location, a limited food menu and no online ordering. Opportunities are a new office park 400 m away opening in 2027, growing demand for cold brew and delivery apps now reaching the area. Threats are two chains that opened nearby this year, rent in Baner being 25% higher than in Kothrud and volatile coffee bean prices. The three priority actions are to test a pop-up stall at the office park before signing a lease, to launch online pre-ordering by January and to negotiate a fixed-price bean contract. The note reads “3 strengths, 3 weaknesses, 3 opportunities, 3 threats”.

Turning it into a plan

Look for pairs: a strength that lets you seize an opportunity, a weakness that leaves you exposed to a threat. Write one action for each important pair. Give each action an owner and a date, and revisit the board in a few months, because both the inside and the outside change.

Common mistakes

Listing vague points such as “good team” without evidence, mixing internal and external factors, and stopping at the grid without deciding anything. Another is treating every point as equally important. Rank them, and put only the top few into the actions.

Limits

The board organises your thinking; it does not supply facts. Every point should be backed by evidence you can name. The image and PDF are drawn in your browser from your text, and very long points are wrapped over several lines. Nothing you type is uploaded.

Related tools

• PESTLE Analysis Maker looks at the outside forces in more detail than the opportunities and threats boxes.
• Business Model Canvas Maker describes how the business makes money, which a SWOT does not.
• Lean Canvas Maker tests a new idea on one page.
• Startup Idea Validator scores an idea numerically after the SWOT has framed it.