Jungle Scout Review – The Only Tool You Need in 2022?

Can This Research Tool Discover Your Next Amazon Gold Mine?

Updated: March 6, 2022

Jungle Scout is one of, if not the original research software designed to help you find Amazon niche products to sell and evaluate their potential. But with many competitors now in the space, is Jungle Scout still your best option?

Like many ventures, finding the right niche and product to sell is arguably the most important factor for determining your success and this holds especially true for building an Amazon FBA empire.

So can Jungle Scout help you find these hidden gems or are there better tools now on the market? What’s the difference between the Jungle Scout web app and the Google Chrome extension? And are there any better or free alternatives?

All these questions will be answered in this deep dive overview and review of Jungle Scout.

Let’s get to it:

Table of Contents

Jungle Scout Review

First of all, do you even need a service like Jungle Scout to perform product research?

Unless you’re lucky, frankly, these days it’s almost impossible to find quality niche products without a tool like Jungle Scout, Helium 10 or similar software.

That doesn’t mean it can’t be done, of course, but it would be like trying to find gold without a metal detector; you’d be in the dirt digging for hours each day for weeks, without knowing if you will find anything.

Someone using a metal detector can cover more ground and find more gold much faster, and with a lot less work.

Metaphorically speaking, without software like Jungle Scout, it will take significantly more time to research and find the “gold” that is potential Amazon product ideas. And even after coming up with ideas, you would still be largely uncertain about the potential profitability and chances of success without some sort of analysis software.

Amazon FBA requires more money to get started than business models like drop shipping, kindle publishing or other ways to make money online, so it makes a lot of sense to invest a little bit of money in tools and software for research before risking a large amount of capital on an Amazon product. You need to get this part right.

I think you would struggle to find a successful Amazon product without software like Jungle Scout these days and it will certainly drastically improve your chances of finding a niche. The time and cost savings alone are definitely worth it.

The Jungle Scout Web App vs Chrome Extension

The first thing you’ll probably be aware of is that Jungle Scout has a website subscription and then also a Google Chrome web extension. Many people are confused about the differences between the two, and whether or not you need both to perform solid research.

So let’s clear up any confusion:

The Jungle Scout website is a monthly subscription for access to the web application with a range of features primarily to help you find Amazon products.

The Jungle Scout Chrome Extension is an extension that installs on your web browser and helps you evaluate products and keywords that you have found.

The Chrome Extension has an annual fee and is designed to be used when you’re running searches on Amazon but it can’t find you niche products you’re not already aware of. There is a Lite version and the Jungle Scout Pro version of the extension which includes some additional options (see Lite vs Pro for a breakdown).

The Web App allows you to search for and find niches; the Chrome Extension allows to evaluate products, niches and search terms. They have different purposes.

So which one should you get?

If you are looking to get niche ideas and find potential Amazon products then you will need the web app. Then once you have a list of product ideas or keywords to search for, a tool like the Chrome Extension will help you evaluate them in more detail.

It is honestly helpful to have both if you are serious about finding and properly evaluating Amazon products, however, if you have the Standard or Business subscription of the web app then you may be able to forego the Chrome Extension as those plans include additional features, which we’ll cover below.

There are also some Jungle Scout free alternatives to the Chrome Extension which may provide enough information for you but you do arguably “get what you pay for”. See Jungle Scout vs Unicorn Smasher.

The company behind JS also have other products such as Fetcher, Splitly and Forecastly, which have different purposes. There have been some major changes by the JS team recently and some of the previously separate products such as Jump Send are now included within the Jungle Scout subscription and web app dashboard.

In the next section we’ll cover the features and some of the major new changes to Jungle Scout recently.

Jungle Scout Features

Jungle Scout has been around for some time, but the development team has never stopped improving the tool and adding new functionality.

In its most recent iteration, the Jungle Scout team have pulled in a lot of new functions into the web app, which used to be done on different applications.

The result is one of the most powerful Amazon research tools available combined with the ability to take you all the way from research to the point of sale, including after sales support.

Jungle Scout now includes the following features:

Product Database
Product Tracker
Supplier Database
Niche Hunter
Keyword Scout
Listing Builder
Launch

We will now go in depth about each of these features below along with screenshots to give you an idea about how they work.

Product Database

The Jungle Scout Product Database is a core feature of the application and where your search for a new niche will inevitably begin.

Using this tool, you can easily search across almost the entire Amazon catalog contains millions of products, to narrow down that perfect item to sell. The database has products from all of the major Amazon marketplaces around the world, which you can then search using the powerful filters available to you.

The filters are what makes this search tool extraordinarily powerful. You can search according to star ratings, sales price, number of sales, revenue and many other variables.

Rather than being overwhelmed with the sheer number of results, you can home in on the ones that best fit your strategy.

Within just a few minutes of tweaking the search results, you can have a long list of products that meet your criteria to evaluate.

When using the tool, you should first select your desired marketplace, and then further filter the results by choosing the categories you are interested in.

Next, you need to further filter the results to get a manageable number that best fit the type of product you are looking for. Here you can filter by price, sales, revenue, reviews, size and how it is sold already (Amazon themselves, FBA or FBM).

Another great feature is the ability to save and load filter presets, so that you can quickly and easily apply a customized set of filters.

Once you hit search, you will be provided with a list of products directly in the web app, or you will be able to export the list as a .csv file for further analysis.

Below, you can see an example of some basic filters which I have applied to find new products.

I have selected the categories I am most interested in, based on my experience with Amazon FBA and finding profitable items in the past.

With the more advanced filters, I have restricted the search to products between $20 and $50. This gives plenty of opportunity for profit, without the item being too expensive.

I also am looking for products with more than 200 unit sales per month and less than 40 reviews with a 4.2 rating or lower. I have also selected standard sized FBA items, so that I will not be competing in the niche with Amazon itself, or a manufacturer or have the hassle of oversized products.

If you already have an idea about your keywords rather than doing a broad search, you could also exclude or include them at this stage.

This is quite a broad search, but is a great starting point for finding a new niche. With these filters, I got more than 5000 results, which I can choose to view online (as shown in the example below) or export as a spreadsheet.

Product Tracker

Once you have found a product with the database search, you will still need some more information before committing to it, which is where the Jungle Scout Product Tracker comes in.

Previously, data in this section was shown as a graph, but in the newest version of the software, it is now presented in table form.

Within this section you can create customized groups, where you can track a number of products together, which is great for comparison purposes. You can see one way of structuring these groups below.

Once you click through into one of the groups, you will be given in depth data relating to the performance of the products tracked. You can also view this information individually for each product.

This is the perfect way to get a feel for the potential of a product and means far less wasted time on unprofitable niches in the long run.

Supplier Database

The supplier database is one of the most exciting new features to be introduced in this version of Jungle Scout.

Now, instead of just being a research tool, you can even find the perfect supplier for the products you have researched using the same platform.

Anyone who has been involved with Amazon FBA for a while knows just how important a good supplier is and how daunting it can be to find the right one.

Jungle Scout has simplified this process with a searchable supplier database. It all begins with a simple search bar, where you input the type of product you are looking for. In this case, I have decided I want a supplier of yoga mats:

As you can see, if you already know the name of a company or supplier you would like to deal with, you can also search using those as well!

When you get to the search results page, you will be given a list of suppliers and some basic information about them:

Here you can save them for later, get their contact details, or by clicking on the ‘View More’ drop down, you will get some more detailed information about previous shipments from the supplier and the quantities they have provided.

This is honestly a great step forward for Jungle Scout and really serves a need that many Amazon FBA sellers have. Along with some of the other new features still to be discussed, this new feature is transforming Jungle Scout from a research tool into a one stop shop for Amazon sellers.

Niche Hunter

The Jungle Scout Niche Hunter tool is a more advanced tool for finding Amazon niche products. It allows you to search by keywords and evaluates competitor listings, providing easy to read and understand ways to determine the opportunity for a product or keyword.

According to Jungle Scout, Niche Hunter “…maximizes speed, efficiency, and execution in a way that is so simple that one could theoretically launch dozens of products in a year once the process is streamlined.”

When I first signed up to Jungle Scout, I subscribed to the Standard plan and since I was already using the Chrome Extension, I didn’t initially find the Niche Hunter tool very useful. I didn’t find it particularly intuitive but in hindsight, this was mainly because I didn’t watch any of the tutorials on how to use the tool. I like to figure things out for myself!

After I actually learnt how to use Jungle Scout Niche Hunter I found it very helpful for quickly doing Amazon product research.

The Chrome Extension and other web app features are more intuitive, easy to use and understand whereas Niche Hunter has more of a learning curve and takes time to understand how to use it and the results.

Niche Hunter looks very similar to the Product Database tool. You can select the marketplace and category to search for a product as shown below:

The Niche Hunter tool has different attributes to filter by. There are similar ones such as units sold and price, however, there are attributes such as competition, listing quality score and opportunity score. These are based on Jungle Scouts algorithm that evaluates competitor listings and determines whether launching a given product provides a good opportunity or not.

After running a search with some basic attributes selected, the results show:

The keywords searched for
The average price of products for that keyword
The category
Average units sold
Competition
Listing quality score
Opportunity score

Here’s an example of the results generated:

The results for each keyword can be further expanded to display the top listing results for the keyword search along with details about each product.

On the side of the expanded product results are the search volume over time and an evaluation with some tips about the product niche. An example of this is below:

Niche Hunter provides a lot of useful information for keywords and products, however it can be a bit overwhelming at first. There are several training videos about how to use the niche hunter so it’s worth watching these first and taking the time to learn how to get the most out of this tool.

Keyword Scout

Keyword Scout was the main feature introduced in the previous update to Jungle Scout and it is still one of the most useful features of the software. See our dedicated overview of Keyword Scout here.

This keyword tool allows you to:

Discover niche keywords that real Amazon shoppers are searching for
Determine the demand for keywords
Get REAL Amazon search volume for keywords
Understand the relevancy of the keywords to your product
Obtain accurate suggestions for the amount to bid on Amazon PPC ads for each keyword
Save money on PPC campaigns
Get estimates for the amount of products to give away in product promotions to rank for keywords
Rank your Amazon products faster for target keywords

To use Keyword Scout, you can enter a keyword or an ASIN for an existing Amazon product.

In the example below, I typed in “yoga mat”:

Keyword Scout then returns a summary for the keyword with exact search volume, broad search volume, the recommended number of giveaways, the relevancy of the keyword to the product and PPC bid amounts.

Keyword Scout then also returns keyword suggestions and related keywords that Amazon shoppers are searching for. This helps you find niche keywords with less competition to help rank your products faster and get more sales.

You get all the information mentioned earlier for these keywords as well, everything from search volume to PPC bid amounts.

The image below shows some keyword examples that Keyword Scout listed based on the main “yoga mat” search term:

Keyword Scout is arguably the best Amazon keyword tool available, and is included in all Jungle Scout Web App plans.

Listing Builder

Listing Builder is a great addition to the keyword tool and is another feature that has been added to meet all of your needs as an Amazon FBA seller.

One aspect of selling that many newcomers tend to neglect is the text of their listing. Using the keyword lists feature in conjunction with the listing builder, you can create a listing for your product that includes all the right keywords and outranks the competition.

You start off with selected keywords you are going to target, which have been added to a custom list:

Then you use that list to generate a new listing inside the listing builder:

Once you hit next, you will have a new window appear. Your chosen keywords will be on the left and all the text fields you will need to complete to create your listing along the right.

As you type out your listing, you will be given a running percentage of keyword density.

Although this basic listing format is sound and will rank well, experienced sellers may already have a proven format to use when creating listings. I for one think this is a great starting point and a very valuable tool for Amazon FBA sellers.

Launch

The ‘Launch’ feature is the real jewel in the crown of this update and central to Jungle Scouts ambitions to be much more than just a research tool.

Before the recent update in features, Jungle Scout had another product called “Jump Send” which required another subscription and was essentially a separate software product.

The Jump Send marketplace still exists but it is mainly targeted at Amazon shoppers now. The Jump Send features for Amazon sellers have been rolled into the Jungle Scout subscription and can be accessed directly from the JS dashboard instead of requiring another monthly subscription cost or separate web app.

Finding a niche product with a lot of potential is the starting point to success on Amazon but if your product is on page 100 for the keywords you’re targeting and and nobody is buying your product then you won’t have any success with Amazon.

The catch-22 of selling on Amazon is:

Your products won’t rank higher if you don’t get any sales
You can’t get any sales if your products don’t rank higher

If you don’t get those initial sales when your product launches then your product will continue to decline in rankings which will lead to lower sales and then even lower rankings. Once this downward spiral starts it can be impossible to escape and can kill your Amazon product.

Another product killer on Amazon is negative reviews. There’s a common truth often said that if a person has a positive experience with your business, they might tell 1 person about it. But if they have a negative experience, they’ll tell 10 people. This saying is also true for when selling products on Amazon today.

99% of your customers might love your products but it can be almost impossible to get them to leave a positive review. However, the 1 out of 100 people that don’t like your product is quick to jump online, leave you a 1 star review while venting about how your garlic press ruined their life and is the cause of all of the problems in society today.

This is where the appropriately named “Launch” feature comes in, it allows you to successfully launch your Amazon product, get the initial sales to boost your rankings, help get positive reviews and manage negative reviews.

Launch allows you to offer discounts to one of the largest marketplaces of Amazon shoppers ready to buy your product. These sales will help boost your rankings, leading to more organic sales and then even higher rankings. This cycle launches your Amazon product on an upward spiral for success by gaining that initial traction (see our full Amazon SEO guide). This service can also forgo the need for a separate landing page generator subscription, since this achieves the same result (though there are benefits to do those in addition).

Like a landing page generator, Launch also allows you to set up auto-responders to set up a sequence of follow-up emails to buyers of your products. Jungle Scout states that sellers that communicate with sellers are 8 times more likely to see engagement from customers and increase the chance of a positive review. We’ve even compared the most popular autoresponder and feedback tools on the market, and Launch is one of your best options, especially for higher volumes.

Negative reviews can also be minimized by communicating with buyers, so Launch allows you to communicate with sellers at the right point along their shopping experience. As soon as a buyer requests a refund, an email can be sent to the buyer. Being able to communicate with a buyer at exactly the right moment helps increase positive reviews and decrease negative reviews for a product.

Launch is an absolutely essential tool and now that it comes included in a Jungle Scout subscription as standard, it makes the web app the most important software on the market for Amazon sellers.

Jungle Scout Pricing: Which Plan is Right For You?

With the release of their new features, Jungle Scout has also revamped their pricing model. Where before there were just three plans to choose from, there are now monthly fees based on your volume of sales.

Overall, this is a positive move, especially for those just starting out. Jungle Scout is linked to your Amazon sellers account and automatically moves you up, or down on the pricing scale based on your monthly sales, as shown below:

Another positive from the move to volume based pricing is that all features are enabled at each level, with the only restriction being on the number of searches in the product database and niche hunter and the number of tracked products.

Currently at all pricing levels, you will receive:

Unlimited product database searches.
Tracking for 150 products.
Unlimited niche hunter access.

What About The Extension?

If you would like to use the browser extension alongside your Jungle Scout web application, it can be added on at any pricing level for $19 or can be purchased as a standalone piece of software for $39 per month.

This will give you access to the core features of the browser extension and:

10 product database searches.
Tracking for 3 products.
10 Niche hunter searches.

The extension certainly isn’t a necessity now if you have already stumped up for the full web application, but if you are seriously into Amazon FBA, it is a very handy tool to have at your disposal for on-the-fly product research and analysis.

Verdict

Hopefully you found this Jungle Scout review helpful. Honestly, Jungle Scout is by far the best software product on the market for Amazon product research today.

With the recent introduction of the new features and major changes such as including Jump Send into the same subscription under the new “Launch” feature, Jungle Scout has continued to stay ahead of the competition and remain an essential tool for Amazon sellers.

Jungle Scout is no longer just a research tool but an entire suite of products that has made it easier and more affordable than ever before for Amazon sellers to research and launch a successful product.

With all the new features that have just been released, you should be able to manage your entire Amazon FBA business through Jungle Scout and even do away with other software or systems that you have been using.

Add to that, even more features are promised in the near future, which really will make this the most powerful tool on the market.

Not only is the tool incredibly useful but they also have great customer support, training and content around selling on Amazon.

Finally, the tool also comes with a 14 day refund policy, so you can effectively get a 2 week Jungle Scout free trial to see if it’s right for you. That’s plenty of time to put it to the test.

As mentioned at the beginning of this review, finding the right product to sell is arguably the most important factor that will determine your future success on Amazon. Picking the right niche is important no matter what business model you are involved in but it’s especially true for Amazon FBA where you will be ordering inventory upfront; if you pick a product that ultimately doesn’t sell, you could be left with a load of unsold inventory.

Launching a successful Amazon product can have huge upside but it requires finding the right product in a space you can compete it.

Don’t rush or skimp over the product research phase.

I think having software such as Jungle Scout is absolutely essential for finding profitable niche products to sell on Amazon and with it you’ll ultimately increase your chances of finding a winning product.