Helium 10 vs. Jungle Scout
Updated on September 28, 2021
Are you relying on freebie tools to do your product research? Are you doing any product research at all?
As millions of sellers flock to Amazon, chasing the dream of freedom and seven-figure incomes, the competition has become fierce. The low-hanging fruit has long since been picked, and people are becoming smarter about finding opportunities, sourcing products, and competing to win.
If you’re relying solely on tools like Google Trends and trying to reverse engineer demand by tracking Amazon’s BSRs (best seller ratings), it’s going to be tougher for you to get an edge and maintain a lead. Not only are those manual processes time consuming, but they’re not going to give you the depth and breadth of information you need to make a sharp decision.
Today there are numerous product research tools that make your job easier and increase your chances of success. By using these tools, you’ll be able to find profitable niches, do keyword research, and get competitive insights.
At first glance, these tools all look pretty similar, so we’ll help you differentiate them by comparing two current market leaders: Helium 10 and Jungle Scout.
Feature Comparison
The product and keyword research tools in Helium 10 and Jungle Scout are nearly identical. Helium 10 calls them the Black Box, Cerebro, Frankenstein, etc., and Jungle Scout uses more straightforward terminology like Product Database and Niche Hunter.
In addition to getting estimates about sales volume, profitability, competitor inventory levels, and PPC bids, these tools also give you keyword data and track product and review performance over time. All of this is incredibly useful for new sellers trying to identify profitable niches as well as seasoned sellers who want to optimize their listings or add new products to their store.
Both platforms also have a Chrome extension that allows you to evaluate a listing and other opportunities directly from an Amazon category or product page.
There are some tools that Helium 10 has that Jungle Scout doesn’t and vice versa. When comparing feature sets, you can determine which features are must-haves for your business, and that should help sway your decision.
Features that Helium 10 Has that Jungle Scout Doesn’t
- Competitor Keyword Spy – See what your competitors are ranking for organically and via PPC campaigns.
- Refund Genie – Amazon doesn’t always reimburse sellers for damaged items and their mistakes. The Refund Genie tool can identify Amazon’s errors and assist you in requesting your money back.
- Alerts – Get notified when a seller hijacks your item, your product title changes, images get altered, or there’s been an adjustment to product dimensions.
- Sales Dashboard – View your product and business performance all in one dashboard. This feature is coming soon for Jungle Scout, though, so stay tuned.
Features that Jungle Scout Has that Helium 10 Doesn’t
- Supplier Database – Find and verify suppliers as well as spy on your competition.You can see who is supplying what, how frequently, and what the volume is. Search by product, company, or supplier, and you’ll get instant access to a dashboard that shows you everything you need to know, even how much they’re paying for their items.
- Giveaway Platform – The first days of a product launch are critical. Jungle Scout helps you facilitate giveaways and other launch strategies to ensure your success.
Accuracy
The interfaces, filters, and functionalities of both tools are mostly the same. However, given that each of these platforms is using its own proprietary algorithm to gather and report data, accuracy is critical, and we went on a mission to find out which tool is more accurate: Helium 10 or Jungle Scout.
In our opinion, accuracy is the most important decision criterion. Being able to trust the data given to you by these tools is an absolute must. Otherwise, your decision-making criteria will be flawed.
As they say in the computer science field, “Garbage in, garbage out.” If the data you’re looking at is “garbage,” then the decisions you make based on this flawed data will also be incorrect. As you can imagine, making a business or financial decision based on inaccurate data can be disastrous to your bottom line and put your entire business at risk.
The only way to put these two platforms to the test is to compare your existing sales data to the Helium 10 and Jungle Scout predictive algorithms. The accuracy of the results varies, and it’s highly dependent on the product niche and volume. Overall, however, our reports indicated that Jungle Scout was more accurate than Helium 10 in almost every head-to-head test.
Pricing
Jungle Scout Pricing
One of the things we appreciate most is Jungle Scout’s transparency and simplicity when it comes to pricing. For one low monthly (or annual) price, you get all of the features Jungle Scout has, and your fee is based on how many orders you get per month.
You can choose to pay for either the web-based software or the Chrome extension, though we recommend buying both because they’re stronger when used together. Jungle Scout also discounts them significantly if you bundle them.
If you’re brand new to selling on Amazon, you can get the entire Jungle Scout suite for just $69 per month. The company also offers a 14-day money-back guarantee, so you can get a full refund if you try Jungle Scout and decide later that it’s not for you.
Helium 10 Pricing
Helium 10’s pricing allows new entrepreneurs to get a sample of the features for free. The only problem is that your searches are limited, so you’ll max out pretty quickly. This is especially true if you’re in heavy research mode, so we don’t recommend the free plan unless you want to simply test drive Helium 10 and its features.
Helium 10 also has an a la carte plan where you pay only for the features you need. The issue here is that a lot of these features work together, so you could end up paying a couple of hundred dollars per month and still not have access to everything.
Typically, we would love the idea of only paying for what you need, but in a product research tool, each feature works together and buying tools one by one is costly and suboptimal. In order to get access to all of Helium 10’s tools, including multi-user log-in (which is essential if you have a VA), you would have to purchase the Diamond Plan at $197 per month.
Jungle Scout and Helium 10 Pricing for Emails
Both Jungle Scout and Helium 10 understand the importance of follow-up email sequences to nurture people in the customer journey.
Jungle Scout offers email automation starting at $49 per month, and the price increases based on the number of orders your store receives each month. Helium 10 offers a similar package. Prices start at $47 for 5,000 emails per month and max out at $197 for unlimited emails.
It’s challenging to compare apples to apples with Jungle Scout’s and Helium 10’s pricing because they structure the thresholds differently. Helium initially seems like the better deal with a fee starting at $47 per month for 5,000 emails. However, if you plan on sending multiple sequences to customers, then Jungle Scout’s pricing is better.
If you plan on sending order confirmations, shipping updates, requests for reviews, invitations to re-order, promotional coupons, and refund correspondence, the number of emails per order will add up.
Because of this, we like the idea of being charged based on the number of orders we process, not the number of emails we send. That might just be us being picky, but we don’t want to feel like we have to limit our correspondence with customers just to save a buck or two.
Ease of Use
Because both of these platforms come with a suite of tools, we think it’s worth discussing how easy everything is to use.In our opinion, Jungle Scout is the clear winner in this category. Their suite of tools is streamlined and intuitive. The dashboards also load much faster than Helium 10’s.
Our biggest complaint with Helium 10 is the overwhelmed feeling we get when we look at the list of tools. It’s also frustrating that they’re not intuitively named. While Jungle Scout’s naming convention is descriptive(i.e., Product Database and Niche Hunter), Helium 10 tried to get cute when they named their tools. Cerebro might sound highbrow, but nothing about the name intuitively suggests that it’s a keyword search tool.
Both Jungle Scout and Helium 10 do provide engaging video tutorials for each tool. Again, we prefer the way the team at Jungle Scout approaches teaching. Not only does their team teach you the technical ins and outs of the tool, but they also give you practical applications and walk you through real-world scenarios.
In contrast, Helium 10’s training videos, while engaging, are more high level and generic. While the founders of each company have a similar story (both Greg Mercer of Jungle Scout and Manny Coats of Helium 10 were Amazon sellers frustrated with the lack of product research tools), Mercer’s passion comes through in the training videos.
Unlike Coats, Mercer is the mentor in a lot of the training videos, and he’s also brought on a fun-loving and approachable team to assist him. Learning from Mercer and the team at Jungle Scout feels fun, and by the end of the training videos, you feel like you’re a part of the family. That may sound a little “woo-woo,” but when you’re trying to learn a new tool, it helps to connect with the person teaching the content.
Bottom line, Helium 10’s organization is confusing. This point might seem minor, but we were frustrated by how many tools there are and how inconvenient it is to switch from tool to tool and wait for each to load. In reality, many of these tools could be combined in a single interface. It almost feels like Helium 10 is trying to make it look like they have more features than they do by breaking up tools that could realistically be combined.
Customer Satisfaction
When it comes to independent customer reviews, Jungle Scout dominates. While both software platforms have extensive reviews, most of the Helium 10 reviews are written by individual bloggers as pieces of content.
There are a handful of reviews written about Helium 10 on G2.com, and while the majority are positive, they are fairly generic and not very helpful when it comes to making a decision. While they get top marks for their feature set, users do complain about the accuracy of the algorithms and subpar customer support.
Jungle Scout, on the other hand, has over 1,300 reviews on Trustpilot. They have earned an excellent 4.5-star rating, and 83% of their reviews boast five stars. Users are impressed with the functionality of the tool, and many reviewers report that Jungle Scout was instrumental in helping them grow their businesses. Hundreds of the reviewers personally thank Mercer and his team for the thorough training they provide and excellent customer support.
The biggest complaint that users have (other than forgetting to cancel if they decide not to proceed after the 14-day guarantee) is that they didn’t invest in the software sooner.
Conclusion
The overall winner in the Helium 10 vs. Jungle Scout competition is Jungle Scout.
While we do appreciate some of Helium 10’s bells and whistles, we prefer Jungle Scout’s interface and the support their team offers. Whether you’re a new Amazon seller or you’ve got a seven-figure business, the Jungle Scout customer service team can offer you excellent support, and you’re bound to continue learning when you choose to work with Jungle Scout.
If you’re a serious Amazon seller, you might want to buy a couple of Helium 10’s tools a la carte – the Refund Genie seems promising, though we have not used it. However, when it comes to having an integrated suite of product research and performance tools, nothing beats Jungle Scout.
To sum up, we evaluated Jungle Scout and Helium 10 in three key areas. In order of importance, they are:
1. Accuracy – Without accurate data, product research tools are useless. All the competitors on the market have developed their own algorithms for mining data and making estimates. In independent tests, Jungle Scout consistently outperformed Helium 10.
If you are making sourcing decisions or trying to figure out whether you should enter a niche, the closer your estimates are to reality, the higher your chance for success. If you’re making a decision based on flawed or incomplete data, you don’t need a fancy tool to help you do that!
2. Features– Helium 10 offers more features. We freely admit that the list is long and seems impressive. However, as we mentioned earlier, it feels like the features have been broken up into several independent tools to make it seem like there are more than there actually are.
If Helium 10 has a feature that you absolutely need, then we recommend buying it a la carte and using Jungle Scout as your primary tool.
3. Pricing – If you’re new to selling on Amazon, Jungle Scout’s pricing beats Helium 10’s easily. It’s more affordable and gives you access to all of the features. If you want access to all of Helium 10’s features, you have to start with a more expensive plan, which could be cost-prohibitive for new sellers and startups.
Want more Jungle Scout comparisons? Try our Jungle Scout vs. ASINspector post.
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