Unicorn Smasher or Jungle Scout: Which is Better?
When doing research to find a product to sell on Amazon, it’s essential you have software to analyse products and give you a clearer picture of the competition, sales and market potential for each product.
While software is essential, which one should you use? There is a wide range of options available that can make it difficult to know which is the best one to choose.
Jungle Scout is the market leader of Amazon research software for good reason. However, while it’s the leader, is it worth paying money for it when there are free alternatives such as Unicorn Smasher available?
In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into the differences between the Jungle Scout and Unicorn Smasher Chrome Extensions.
NOTE: This review has been updated since the announcement that Jungle Scout now use Accusales™ data for their Chrome Extension. More on that below.
Let’s get to it:
Table of Contents
Setting the Stage
First of all, we need to point out that it is the Jungle Scout Chrome Extension that is similar to Unicorn Smasher. As we cover in our extensive Jungle Scout review, the Jungle Scout Web App has a different purpose and provides different features and functionality to the Chrome Extension.
So, what do the Unicorn Smasher and Jungle Scout Chrome Extensions do?
We’ll start by taking a look at the basics of what these extensions are and how they work. They are software programs that install into your Google Chrome web browser. They run like a website or computer software, however, they only work in your Chrome web browser.
Each of these tools only work when you are on the Amazon website.
You go to Amazon.com and search for a product or keyword. You then press the Unicorn Smasher or Jungle Scout button in your Chrome menu bar and the extension will run.
Both tools work in much the same way. They will analyze the products on the page and provide sales estimates and other information about the products.
As such, you use these tools once you have a list of products or keywords you want to analyze in further detail.
Can you use the Unicorn Smasher or Jungle Scout Chrome Extensions to find niche products?
No.
Neither Unicorn Smasher or the Jungle Scout Chrome Extension can be used to discover products or niches. They are designed to be used to analyze and provide sales estimates about products and keywords you have already discovered.
The Jungle Scout Web App is arguably the best tool for discovering niche Amazon products to sell. Read our comparison showing the difference between the Jungle Scout Web App and the Chrome Extension.
Unicorn Smasher vs Jungle Scout Chrome Extension Comparison
Now that you have an understanding of what the Chrome Extensions are, when you’d use them and their limitations, we can make a fair comparison between the two.
So without further ado:
Price
Unicorn Smasher: Free
Jungle Scout: $97 or $197 per year (but use this link for a discount on either version) 😉
Whilst free is nice, it doesn’t always mean a product is better value of course.
There’s a famous saying: “If you’re not paying for a product, then you are the product being sold”. And as we’ll see, this saying could be applied here.
This saying is very true of free websites such as Facebook that make money by allowing companies to advertise to their users. The users and their data are the product being sold to advertisers.
Unicorn Smasher is owned by AMZ Tracker who we have thoroughly critiqued here. The extension button even has the words “AMZ Tracker” on it instead of “Unicorn Smasher”.
And while it’s free, the intention seems to be to market you paid tools such as AMZ Tracker or use your data. This isn’t inherently bad or wrong; just understand that you are the product.
When you install the Unicorn Smasher extension it asks for more permissions than Jungle Scout.
The standard permissions for the Google extension are fine:
However, they have this sneaky request for additional authorization required afterwards:
There’s no real explanation on how they will use the data they collect from Google analytics. The message states they collect this additional data so they “can find and compare the best possible options for you” and “to help your business grow” which sounds fake and very unconvincing.
This message and additional permissions make it obvious that Unicorn Smasher users are the product being sold.
You can click “No Thanks” on this to ensure they don’t collect Google analytics data. The extension will still work fine.
Price Winner: Unicorn Smasher
As Unicorn Smasher is free, it is the winner in terms of price here.
Just be aware nothing is truly free; there will be data collected on you and you will be marketed paid products.
Make sure to click “No Thanks” to them collecting Google analytics data, which should reduce the amount of data they can obtain from you while using the tool.
Functionality and Features
Unicorn Smasher and Jungle Scout both offer similar functionality. You can run a search in Amazon, then press either button from your web browser and they will return results for you.
Unicorn Smasher Features
Filters
Unicorn Smasher has this great feature that is actually unknown by most people as it’s not obvious: There is a small button at the bottom that allows you to filter results by a range of different criteria.
This is a great feature that makes filtering the results much easier. An example of all the areas you can filter results by is below:
Add to Dashboard
Add to dashboard is another feature that allows you to save searches and the results of those searches. After performing a search, you can click the “Add to Dashboard” button and it will save the search within the widget that you can access at any time without having to run the search again.
Export to CSV
Export to CSV allows you to export the results to in a .CSV file which can be opened in a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. This can be useful for conducting a lot of research and comparing the results.
Jungle Scout Chrome Extension Features
We’ll cover the features of the Jungle Scout Lite Chrome Extension. This is the basic version of the Jungle Scout Chrome Extension; the Pro version has more advanced features.
To learn the differences between the two Chrome Extension options, check out our Lite vs Pro comparison.
Associated Word Cloud
The associated word cloud button shows the most common words for a search. It takes the most words used by the products and highlights which ones each product most have in common.
At the bottom of the word cloud it shows the most common words together, giving a good indication of the most popular words associated with that product. An example word cloud for yoga mats is below that showing that “yoga, mat, non slip, thick” are the most common words used when selling this particular item.
Google Trends Report
This opens Google trends with the keyword search, showing the demand and interest over time. This is a good way to determine if demand for a product is year-round or seasonal, and whether a product is increasing or decreasing in demand.
Amazon Sales Rank history
Price History for products
Speed
To best demonstrate this, here’s a video using Unicorn Smasher to analyze search results:
{INSERT UNICORN SMASHER ECO FRIENDLY YOGA MAT SEARCH}
And here’s Jungle Scout doing a similar thing:
{INSERT JUNGLE SCOUT ECO FRIENDLY YOGA MAT SEARCH}
As you can see from the videos, Jungle Scout is slightly faster, however the difference may not be significant enough to justify the cost. The speed will also be impacted by your computer and internet speed.
Tests on faster computer and internet connections, show a less noticeable difference in speed. A video analyzing search results of both Unicorn Smasher and Jungle Scout on a faster internet connection are below:
{INSERT UNICORN SMASHER JUNGLE SCOUT GARLIC PRESS SEARCH}
Most notable is that Unicorn Smasher has a 5 second advertisement screen before displaying data. What’s more, there is poor spelling used on the load screen with the words “seconds” written as “senconds”. This doesn’t provide a lot of confidence in the accuracy of data when simple words are spelled incorrectly.
The advertising load screen delays the speed of Unicorn Smasher from showing results and it appears that the software doesn’t start to actually load results until after the advertising screen disappears.
If the results were loading while the advertisements were being shown then it would be less of an issue. However, having to wait 5 seconds or click exit from that advertisement every time a search is run can be annoying.
The advertising on Unicorn Smasher is another example of a free product where the user is the product. It is a free tool, but there is advertising all over it to market paid tools and services to you.
Unicorn Smasher lags when returning results; it appears to be finished but then has blank data for many results. The results of Jungle Scout load in order from the first result on the page displayed to the last one. Unicorn Smasher appears to randomly load the data with no apparent order and doesn’t make it clear when it has finished loading.
Winner for Speed: Jungle Scout
Jungle Scout is the winner for speed of returning results. It also loads the results in order and makes it clear when the results are finished loading.
Unicorn Smasher has an advertising screen which slows the speed down and you have to wait or exit the advertising screen every time.
Amazon Countries Available
Jungle Scout works in almost all of the major Amazon markets around the world.
Unicorn Smasher only works on Amazon USA and UK. They claims it works for other Amazon countries, however, when you use it on other Amazon country specific stores it just displays “Coming soon” for all the results.
Countries Available Winner: Jungle Scout
Jungle Scout is the clear winner here, it offers a much wider range of Amazon markets from all over the world.
User Interface and Ease of Use
While both Chrome extensions are easy to use with just the click of the button, Jungle Scout has a much better designed user interface and makes it easier to see the overall results and data quickly.
You can see from the screenshots below that the summary data for Jungle Scout is at the top and is easy to read. Unicorn Smasher has the summary data at the bottom and it looks the same as the normal lines of data.
Customer Service and Support
Both extensions have a similar help center powered by Helpscout along with a contact form, here and here.
It doesn’t appear that the Unicorn Smasher help center is updated often. Most articles have not been updated for over a year with some not being updated since 2015. The Jungle Scout help center appears to be updated on a more regular basis, with many articles updated within the last few months.
My opinion of customer service between the two companies is that Jungle Scout far exceeds Unicorn Smasher in this area.
Unicorn Smasher is owned by AMZ Tracker so all customer service is handled by their customer service team. My interactions with Unicorn Smasher/AMZ Tracker customer service teams has been as follows:
- Replies have been completely incorrect or entirely unhelpful
- The customer service team doesn’t appear to use the software or understand how it works
- Replies have been canned responses that don’t apply to my question
- Responses have been in Chinese characters
On the other hand, Jungle Scout has a remote team of English speaking customer service staff that I have always found to provide exceptional customer service. My experience with Jungle Scout customer service has been:
- The customer service team are Amazon sellers or familiar with selling on Amazon
- They know how the software works and are able to answer questions clearly
- They take the time to look at my account and provide personalized responses
I may just have had some good interactions with Jungle Scout and bad interactions with Unicorn Smasher/AMZ tracker. I’m sure there are a lot of Chinese Amazon sellers that would find AMZ tracker’s customer service much better than Jungle Scout.
Customer Service and Support Winner: Jungle Scout
Jungle Scout is the clear winner in this area. Their customer service and support far exceeds Unicorn Smasher. Of course, the number of times you will need to contact customer service will likely be minimal if the software works.
Accuracy of Data
All the previous factors combined are not as important as the accuracy of the actual data. It doesn’t matter if one extension is faster and easier to use if the data returned isn’t accurate. It’s better to have a slow, difficult to use extension that returns accurate data.
Let’s look at some example searches to compare the two tools:
Keyword search: “Stainless Steel Garlic Press”
Unicorn Smasher estimates:
Jungle Scout estimates:
Comparison of Overall Results for “Stainless Steel Garlic Press”:
| Average Monthly Sales | Average Sales Rank | Average Price | Average number of reviews | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jungle Scout | 575 | 39,153 | $18.68 | 609 |
| Unicorn Smasher | 395 | 35,299 | $17.90 | 686 |
| Percentage Difference | 45% | 10% | 4% | 12% |
Keyword search: “Eco-Friendly Yoga Mat”
Unicorn Smasher estimates:
Jungle Scout estimates:
Comparison of Overall Results for “Eco-Friendly Yoga Mat”:
| Average Monthly Sales | Average Sales Rank | Average Price | Average number of reviews | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jungle Scout | 671 | 10,551 | $35.83 | 410 |
| Unicorn Smasher | 599 | 14,503 | $34.04 | 413 |
| Percentage Difference | 12% | 27% | 2% | 0.001% |
Unicorn Smasher generally estimates lower sales and revenue estimates. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it’s better to underestimate and make more sales. Overestimating sales, then finding the actual sales and revenue are lower can be much worse.
Jungle Scout has been around for longer than Unicorn Smasher and has an extensive product database that is growing daily which constantly improves the accuracy of the tool.
When checking the actual sales figures using the Jungle Scout web app, they are much closer to matching the Jungle Scout Chrome extension figures. The Jungle Scout web app checks inventory levels on items, which is used as a way to accurately determine the sales each day.
For example, if there were 100 units of inventory one day, then the next day there were only 90 units, it assumes there were 10 sales. This can be incorrect on a daily basis but is fairly accurate over a long period of time.
Using Jungle Scout’s web app sales figures as a measure of accuracy will of course be biased towards Jungle Scout as they will factor these sales into their estimates.
I have also checked with other Amazon sellers to compare their sales with Jungle Scout and Unicorn Smasher estimates. The majority of people I asked said that the Jungle Scout Chrome extension was more accurate, however, Unicorn Smasher was more accurate for some product categories.
Given that Unicorn Smasher has misspelled the word “seconds” on their main advertising screen, I’m doubtful that their data estimates or checking is as accurate as Jungle Scout.
Jungle Scout Accusales™
Further, Jungle Scout recently announced they now use Accusales™ for the data in their Chrome Extension, which they claim is the most accurate Amazon sales estimates data.
Accusales™ apparently processes over 500 million points of data each day and uses a “warehouse full of servers” costing $100K a month to run. They also employ 4 full time data scientists to ensure the estimates are as accurate as possible, updating the algorithms and testing the data daily.
Accuracy Winner:
The update to Accusales™ means the Jungle Scout Chrome Extension has the largest amount of data on Amazon sales of any software available. The data points they process and team of scientists they employ ensure Jungle Scout’s data is continuously updated and is the most accurate.
Jungle Scout is putting far more resources and research into the accuracy of its data, making their Chrome Extension the clear winner in this category.
Trust and Integrity of Data
In terms of the trust and integrity of the data, I’m inclined to trust that Jungle Scout has more rigorous processes and detailed checks of the data.
Jungle Scout states that their sales estimates are based on millions of products and many millions of data points:
“Our sales estimates aren’t just projections, they are based on real data from millions of products, from which we collect many more millions of data points.”
“That’s not the end of the road either. We have a team of skilled data scientists to analyze this huge data set.
Whether searching within Amazon using the Jungle Scout Chrome Extension, or in the Web App’s expansive Product Database, you are getting access to the widest and most accurate dataset in the industry.”
Unicorn Smasher uses a similar method; however, they do not appear to base this on as many products or data points. They state that they use tens of thousands of products and millions of data points:
“We think it’s pretty darn good because it’s based on data from tens of thousands of live products we are actually tracking, and it’s continually improving each day that we add new searches. The number of data points we have collected is in the millions.
However, please note these are just estimates since Amazon doesn’t give out this information. Remember that here, Estimated revenue = Price in Amazon at that time x Number of sales.”
Winner for trust and integrity of data: Jungle Scout
So, Which One is Best?
Unicorn Smasher is a decent free tool, but it’s not going to provide you the same level of accuracy of estimates as Jungle Scout does. If you’re just toying around with the idea of selling on Amazon then you can play around with Unicorn Smasher to get somewhat of an idea.
If you’re serious about selling on Amazon, however, and actually want to research profitable niches quickly with a high level of accuracy, then you really need the Jungle Scout Chrome Extension. Use this link for $10 off.
Both tools will only provide estimates, they won’t provide actual sales figures. For more accurate sales figures, you will need to use the Jungle Scout web app to further analyze each individual product for real sales figures.
Below is a screenshot of accurate daily sales figures in the Jungle Scout web app:
As mentioned at the beginning of this article, the Chrome extensions also won’t help you find a product to sell on Amazon. They are useful for basic estimates on products you have already found using the Jungle Scout web app or other research methods.
Whether you decide to use Unicorn Smasher or the Jungle Scout Chrome Extensions to analyze products and keywords, you will still need the Jungle Scout web app or other software to find Amazon products in the first place. Click here to read our full overview of Jungle Scout.
With that in mind, hopefully you found this comparison between these two tools helpful.
