Helium 10 vs Jungle Scout – What is Better in 2024?
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Whether you’re a seven-figure seller or just starting out, without the top Amazon research tools, it’s impossible to succeed on Amazon FBA.
However, judging which one gives the best value for money, and which one is the best research tool for your business now, can lead to a SAAS-related migraine… which is why we're here to ease that migraine for you!
In this guide, we're going to compare two of the most popular product/keyword research tools: Helium 10 vs Jungle Scout. And yes, we’ve included affiliate links in this article (we need to pay for our Gulfstreams somehow), but all of the tools pay us roughly the same amounts so there’s no bias to one tool or the next.
Related reading: Best Amazon Software
Related Listening: E481: What’s the Best Amazon Seller Software in 2022?
Crush Amazon with JUNGLE SCOUT
We teamed up with Jungle Scout to give you simple and easy-to-follow info to help you confidently run and grow your Amazon business. We have created a video series that has tools for finding products and keywords, tips on making a killer product listing, tracking keywords, and making those all-important first sales on Amazon.
Analysis of the Tools: Helium 10 vs Jungle Scout?
Both of the software discussed in this article has evolved into offering a suite of different tools to help you sell on Amazon better. Some of these tools are legitimately useful and some are just frivolous add-ons to create perceived value.
At the core though, each software offers two primary tools:
- Product Research: Tools for discovering potential new products, mainly through sales volume estimates.
- Keyword Research Tools: Tools for finding new keywords, largely through estimating keyword volume.
As mentioned, each software also has numerous other tools, some valuable, and some not. I'll examine those as well.
Which is the Cheapest: Helium 10 vs Jungle Scout?
In the Summer of 2020 Jungle Scout got rid of their pricing scheme that charged a percentage of revenue (and we trashed Jungle Scout pretty hard for having that pricing scheme, to begin with). However, now all of these FBA tools are priced in the same way.
I’ll give a basic price comparison, and then dig a little deeper into each and precisely what you get for your money.
Both tools offer a month-by-month payment option, or a discounted option if you pay for the entire year in one lump sum (annualized):
Jungle Scout | Helium 10 | ||
---|---|---|---|
Monthly | Beginner | $49 | $39 |
Intermediate | $69 | $99 | |
Advanced | $129 | $199 | |
Annualized | Beginner | $349 | $399 |
Intermediate | $589 | $999 | |
Advanced | $999 | $1999 |
Helium 10’s lowest priced option is their “Beginner” Plan which is $33.25/month if you choose the annual plan or $39 paying month by month. They offer a plan that includes most of their tools and is the most popular plan with most users. Helium 10 also provides a Free Plan that is actually fairly robust. You get two Reverse ASIN lookups per day, two keyword searches, and more. Of both tools reviewed, Helium 10 was the only one with a substantial free version.
On the other hand, Jungle Scout offers a different plan, but the most popular among the users is Suite, which costs $69/month if you choose the monthly option or $49 per month if you go for the annual plan. One of the strengths of this software is that you will have access to a tool called Supplier Database (which you can access with any of their plans, including the $29 basic plan that includes 20 searches). This tool will neatly summarize all of the information of a particular company such as product type, quantity, and supplier name and address.
Cheapest Tool
Jungle Scout. Jungle Scout has the cheapest plan, but Helium 10 has a very robust free version.
Which Tool Has the Most Accurate Keyword Sales Estimates: Helium 10 vs Jungle Scout?
All of the tools have some version of a Sales Estimation tool. These tools are mostly looking at inventory levels and Best Selling Rank (BSR) to estimate sales and then apply some type of algorithm to give the best estimate. As we’ll see, this works to varying degrees of success.
All of the tools also allow you to see a snapshot of sales over a period of time.
To test this, I used each Chrome extension to give me the 30-day sales numbers on 10 ASINs that we currently sell and I know the actual numbers for (from Product A to Product J).
None of the tools were entirely accurate which is proof that you need to take ALL tools sales estimates with a grain of salt. Jungle Scout was more accurate 5 out of 10 times, Helium 10 was more accurate 4 out of 10 times and both software gave the same result for the sales volume of Product C.
However, Helium 10 had the most accurate results on average with +202.89% compared to an average of +256.47% for Jungle Scout.
Most Accurate Sales Estimates
Jungle Scout. Jungle Scout has the most accurate sales estimates.
Which Tool Has the Most Accurate Keyword Volume Estimates: Helium 10 vs Jungle Scout?
All of the tools also have some variation of a keyword volume estimator. These estimates vary fairly significantly from tool to tool so how do we determine which is the most accurate?
While Amazon does reveal actual keyword volume using the tool Product Opportunity Explorer, which now gives actual keyword data.
For example, using the Product Opportunity Explorer tool, we know that “electrical blanket king size” search actual volume in the past 30 days is 320,558. So now that we can see actual Amazon search data, how accurate are the Helium 10 and Jungle Scout tools?
Here are the results of our research:
According to the graphic above, Jungle Scout was more accurate 13 out of 20 times and Helium 10 was more accurate 7 out of 20 times. As you can see though, all of the tools' estimates were significantly off, but which tool was the most accurate?
We looked at the variance between all of the keywords we looked at (see the full analysis here)
Jungle Scout | Helium 10 | |
---|---|---|
No. of times that gets closer to Opportunity Explorer | 13 | 7 |
Total average deviation (%) | 84% | 87% |
Average deviation when it's more accurate (%) | 34% | 62% |
Average deviation when it's less accurate (%) | 117% | 126% |
In our research, we also looked to see what percentage of difference (either over-estimated or under-estimated) the tools' estimated search volume was compared to the actual search volume. On average, Jungle Scout was off by about 84% while Helium 10 was off by 87% on average.
It was close, but overall Jungle Scout is more accurate more often and is closer to actual keyword volume.
Most Accurate Keyword Volume Estimate: Helium 10 vs Jungle Scout?
Jungle scout. In the random keywords we studied, Jungle Scout gave more consistent and seemingly reliable keyword volume estimates than Helium 10.
Other keyword tools
Each of the tools looked at here has some other assortment of keyword tools.
- Reverse ASIN: Called different things by each tool (Cerebro & Keyword Scout). Allows you to see what keywords any ASIN is ranking for.
- Index Tracker: This allows you to track to see if a particular ASIN is being indexed by Amazon.
- Rank Tracker: Track the organic and PPC rank of a particular ASIN for a particular search term over time.
Jungle Scout | Helium 10 | |
---|---|---|
Keyword Research Tool | Keyword Scout | Magnet² |
Reverse ASIN | Keyword Scout | Cerebro |
Keyword List Builder | ❌ | Frankenstein |
Keyword Tracker | My Lists | Keyword Tracker |
Listing Editor | Listing Builder | Scribbles |
Index Checker | ❌ | Index Checker |
Misspelled Keyword Finder | ❌ | Misspellinator |
Each tool also has a lot of other keywords, for the lack of better words, and gimmicks. For instance, Helium 10 has Frankenstein which cleans up keywords by removing duplicates, special characters, etc. which is something you can do fairly easily in numerous free web apps and even Excel. Another example is Jungle Scout‘s Listing Builder which will construct your keyword-stuffed product descriptions written in unnatural English.
Who Has the Most Useful Assortment of Tools: Helium 10 vs Jungle Scout?
Outside of sales and keyword volume estimates, each software package also offers numerous other tools.
Jungle Scout | Helium 10 | |
---|---|---|
Product Search Tool | ✅ | ✅ |
Product Tracker | ✅ | ✅ |
Niche Finder | ✅ | ✅ |
Keyword Research Tool | ✅ | ✅ |
Keyword Tracker | ✅ | ✅ |
Reverse ASIN Tool | ✅ | ✅ |
Listing Builder | ✅ | ✅ |
Email Follow-up | ✅ | ✅ |
Find Suppliers | ✅ | ❌ |
Freelance Marketplace | ✅ | ❌ |
Supplier Database | ✅ | ❌ |
Products Launch Service | ✅ | ❌ |
Products Trend Checker | ❌ | ✅ |
Hijacker Alerts | ❌ | ✅ |
Inventory Protector | ✅ | ✅ |
Refund Tool | ❌ | ✅ |
Profits Calculator | ✅ | ✅ |
Inventory Level Tracker | ❌ | ✅ |
PPC Tool | ❌ | ✅ |
Split Testing Tool | ❌ | ❌ |
Listing Analyzer | ❌ | ✅ |
Helium 10 appears to offer a LOT of additional tools but the reality is that some of these tools are basically throw-away tools which are basically glorified Excel formulas. Specifically, their Keyword List Duplicate Remover and Profits Calculator.
However, Helium 10 does offer some truly valuable additional tools including:
- Refund Tool: Assists in getting compensation from Amazon for lost inventory
- Hijacker Alerts: Notifies you when someone changes one of your listings (critical!) or piggybacks on it
- Inventory Protector: Prevents you from accidentally selling through a high percentage of inventory through erroneous coupons
Jungle Scout does not offer a lot of additional tools. However, in 2019 Jungle Scout introduced its Supplier Database which is, by far, the best supplementary tool included in any of the software packages discussed here.
Jungle Scout’s Supplier Database tool allows you to access nearly all of the import records from nearly any American importer. That means that with Jungle Scout you can see exactly what products a competitor is importing and from whom. This type of tool isn’t new, Panjiva and ImportGenius have offered it for years, but it used to cost hundreds of dollars a month. Now it is included with your Jungle Scout subscription.
Jungle Scout’s Supplier Database tool is so good that, especially if you’re in a period of heavy product development, it’s nearly worth subscribing to Jungle Scout alone.
Most Useful Assortment of Tools
Jungle Scout. Simply by virtue of its Supplier Database tool, Jungle Scout has the best assortment of supplementary tools. For sheer variety, Helium 10 wins though.
Which is the Best Overall Amazon Seller Software: Helium 10 vs Jungle Scout?
In 2019, Helium 10 won this race because it had a robust set of tools and was much more reasonably priced than Jungle Scout. However, this year in 2021, for the second time in a row, the award goes to Jungle Scout thanks to their adequate set of keyword and product research tools, the supplier database, and their fairer pricing structure.
Helium 10 | Jungle Scout |
---|---|
Has a free plan which is fairly robust | The cheapest software of both if you need more tools |
Sales and keyword estimates are unreliable and inconsistent | Sales and keyword estimates were reliable |
Good assortment of supplementary tools | Supplier Database tool is INCREDIBLY valuable |
If you’re going to pay for a tool, Jungle Scout is the clear winner this year. Either their $29/month plan or their $49/month plan performs adequately well. However, if you’re just starting, Helium 10 has an excellent free plan if you can live with a very limited number of searches each month.
Jungle Scout Wins!
Thanks to Jungle Scout's flexible pricing, reliable sales/keyword estimates, and a good assortment of tools, it's our favorite Amazon Seller software.