SmartScout is one of the new-generation Amazon research tools that’s taking on juggernauts like Helium 10 and Jungle Scout.
Some of the significant things that SmartScout has going for it are the seamlessness of its platform, the inclusion of unique data insights, and how its data presentation templates eliminate some of the complexities associated with Amazon research.
With SmartScout, you can:
- Research profitable products and brands.
- Discover search terms for which competing products are ranking.
- Create listings optimized for ranking keywords.
Continue reading to discover extra insights about SmartScout.
| ⭐ Rating: | 4.7 ★★★★★ |
| 💵 Price: | $59 to $187 monthly |
| 🔍 Features: | Product research, keyword research, listing building, competitor research, FBA calculator |
| 🎯 Accuracy: | High |
| 👥 Support: | Email support, live chat |
| 🖥️ User Interface: | Beginner-friendly |
| 🔥 Discount: | Up to 20% off |
SmartScout Pros & Cons
- User-friendly interface
- Offers out-of-stock filter suitable for Amazon arbitrageurs
- Product tree map reveals products that are frequently bought together
- Easy-to-understand data presentation templates
- Captures in-depth competitor data, including their dominant marketplaces
- Dedicated Amazon brand research tools with top-shelf insights
- AI-powered listing creator for optimized listings
- No browser extension
- No mobile app
- Lacks inventory management
SmartScout Detailed Review
SmartScout’s services center around competitor, product, and keyword research.
It processes a lot of data to provide users with important metrics for running profitable Amazon businesses.
Unlike similar Amazon research tools, SmartScout uncovers market insights uniquely and offers specialized seller and brand research tools. This gives you a better niche overview and allows you to evaluate a market more effectively. More on that later!
That said, I’ve explored SmartScout’s core features below.
Key Features
SmartScout’s main feature is Subcategories, a research tool that gives a top-down view of all Amazon niches and their data points. I’ve checked my other top Amazon research tools, and nothing comes close to this!
Subcategories help you do niche, brand, competitor, and product research on one dashboard in a way that’s never been done before. I like the fact that you can start by searching for a product type/product keyword or simply browse through all the categories on Amazon to find one to niche down into.
No matter how you use Subcategories, you get actionable data on the sellers, top competitors, top products, niche performance over two years, Amazon’s share in the market, and much more.
Furthermore, SmartScout ships with a research suite built with brand-focused tools.
Hence, you can fetch brand data, such as their stock rate, primary selling category, estimated revenue, and their most dominant Amazon marketplace.
All the best Amazon seller tools I’ve used lack something similar, making SmartScout a pioneer in this space. Besides niche and brand research tools, SmartScout fetches competitor-focused data through its Seller tools. The most intriguing aspect of this tool category is the Seller Map, a searchable geographical map of Amazon sellers.
How does that help you?
The map makes it easier to find other Amazon sellers near you and see what’s making them money. You get filters to determine whether you want to see private labels or resellers, set seller revenue, and other metrics. Hence, you can find the kind of seller you want to be and see what’s working for them.
Moreover, you shouldn’t forget SmartScout’s AI Listing Architect. I’m sure this will be a game-changer for Amazon beginners who struggle with creating a well-optimized listing and don’t have the budget for highly-rated copywriters.
Now, you can relax and let AI do the work while you make minimal tweaks to the final product!
SmartScout offers a 7-day free trial to test the tools above. However, you’re required to submit your card details to get the free trial.
Other Features
Besides the main tools above, SmartScout provides additional tools to improve your Amazon business. Depending on the SmartScout plan you opt for, here are the additional features you can access:
| Feature | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Search terms | Analyzes ASINs for top paid and organic search terms, finds relevant competition, and uncovers ranking insights |
| Products | One-stop shop for competitor ASIN metrics like in-stock rate, estimated monthly revenue, ratings, and product page score |
| Traffic Graph | Shows a map of products frequently bought together or most likely to funnel traffic into other related products |
| Sales Estimator | Estimates how much sales you can make in every Amazon category with different BR ratings |
| UPC Scanner | Scans a list of products to generate data on fees (storage, Amazon, etc.), rank, competition, sales estimates, and other relevant data for sellers |
| FBA Calculator | Pre-populates your calculation with standard Amazon fees to give you a realistic revenue and profit estimation |
| Popping Topics | Uncovers trendy search terms to help you get ahead by selling in-demand products before they fizzle out |
Performance and Effectiveness
Unlike major competitors, SmartScout uses simple tool categorizations to make product research easier. By defining research tools based on classifications like Subcategories, Products, Brands, and Sellers, SmartScout’s users can navigate the web app and get the data they need quickly.
For instance, if I’m researching for a profitable niche, the Subcategory tool gives me a holistic view of Amazon’s niche tree and corresponding performance metrics. This eliminates the need to apply a long list of filters and specifications to ensure the search result matches my research intent.
More importantly, the top-down template of the Subcategories tree page allows you to view all of the sub-niches of your preferred product category along with their performance data.
This makes it easier to compare metrics across multiple subcategories.
Traffic Graphs are another effective tool, especially for advertisers and cross-sellers.
They predict traffic movement by identifying products that are commonly bought together. You can use this information to enhance your ad placement strategy and improve your conversion rate.
Also, SmartScout’s Seller Map is a game changer for product researchers! View the sellers in your location, what they sell, and how much they make. This feature is handy for people running an Amazon agency, but individual sellers can also draw inspiration from the data it provides.
Overall, SmartScout’s tools are designed to save you time and resources.
Whether you’re looking for sellers in your area to emulate (Seller Map), need to find a high-volume and low-competition category (Subcategories), or want a well-optimized product listing to get sales rolling fast (AI Listing Architect), SmartScout offers a tool to help.
SmartScout's Accuracy
For a data-intensive solution like SmartScout, high accuracy is non-negotiable.
This is especially true since the tool estimates datasets (like keyword and product research data), which Amazon doesn’t readily provide to third-party services.
With this in mind, I compared SmartScout’s 30-day sales estimates and primary category BSR data against Amazon’s. You can find my findings below:
| ASIN | Amazon Sales Estimate | SmartScout's Sales Estimate | Amazon BSR | SmartScout's BSR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B07NM3RSRQ | 10,000+ | 24,493 | 34 | 33 |
| B0BWSF6H4Q | 3,000+ | 4,271 | 898 | 999 |
| B07W7LFCRV | 50+ | 26 | 216,964 | 184,342 |
Note that Amazon’s sales estimates are approximate values, not exact values.
In contrast, SmartScout calculates the average number of units sold monthly.
Therefore, as shown in the table above, there are bound to be discrepancies between the two datasets.
However, since it isn’t unusual for B07NM3RSRQ, averaging 24,000 monthly sales, to record 10,000+ sales in the last 30 days, we can conclude that SmartScout’s sales estimate data is accurate enough.
As for the remaining datasets, the variations in SmartScout’s figures and Amazon’s data may be linked to SmartScout’s API update frequency. I suspect that SmartScout updates its data a few hours after they’re available on Amazon.
Overall, SmartScout’s data is accurate and reliable, as there are no vast variations between its figures and those available on Amazon.
User Interface and Ease of Use
For a data-intensive platform like SmartScout, the interface design and data presentation templates are crucial to the overall user experience.
Fortunately, SmartScout opted for a simple, sophisticated design. Users can easily navigate its broad range of features via a sidebar menu accessible from anywhere within the web app.
You can also go to the “All Tools” homepage, where you can take a tutorial whenever you launch any tool. This helps to cut the learning curve steeply. However, the tutorial pop-up might become annoying since the tutorials never intuitively disappear, even after using the tool multiple times.
More importantly, its data are cleanly presented on all tools, whether in the table or graph format. Even so, I think SmartScout could have done a better job of streamlining result data to show on one page rather than needing long scrolls to get to the end of it all.
The saving grace is that you can exclude columns you’re not interested in.
That way, your research results are simplified to only the data you want to see.
In fact, you can export the results to Excel (only on the Business plan), where you can better manipulate the data.
If you encounter issues, you can consult any of SmartScout’s learning resources.
Alternatively, you can contact customer support via support@smartscout.com or live chat.
Pricing
There are four SmartScout plans: Basic, Essentials, Business, and Enterprise.
Here’s what each plan costs.
| Basic | Essentials | Business | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly | $59 | $97 | $187 | Custom Pricing |
| Annual | $50 | $75 | $158 | Custom Pricing |
| Annual Plan Savings | 15% | 22% | 15% | Custom Savings |
| Discount | 25% off the first 3 months | 25% off the first 3 months | 25% off the first 3 months | Click here |
Each plan offers various features and tools suitable for specific Amazon business types.
For instance, Essentials is recommended for private labels and resellers because it allows you to source the most profitable products from competing sellers.
You can check out our SmartScout pricing guide to determine which plan best fits your Amazon business.
SmartScout offers a 14-day money-back guarantee.
What Marketplace Does SmartScout Support?
SmartScout supports and has data on 10 Amazon marketplaces. They are
- Amazon US (amazon.com)
- Amazon Canada (amazon.ca)
- Amazon Mexico (amazon.com.mx)
- Amazon UK (amazon.co.uk)
- Amazon France (amazon.fr)
- Amazon Germany (amazon.de)
- Amazon Italy (amazon.it)
- Amazon Spain (amazon.es)
- Amazon Japan (amazon.co.jp)
- Amazon India (amazon.in)
However, some of its main tools (like the Traffic Graph) may not work as well outside the top three Amazon marketplaces: Amazon UK, US, and Canada.
SmartScout Alternatives
SmartScout is excellent for its sophisticated yet simple interface and robust unique offerings, like the Traffic Graph. However, like any other platform, it has its limitations.
For one, SmartScout lacks a browser extension and a mobile app version.
Also, it is less versatile than some of its top competitors, leaving out features like inventory management and ad optimization.
That said, here are alternative seller tools if SmartScout’s limitations are deal breakers.
Helium 10
Considered one of the best Amazon seller software, Helium 10 promises an all-in-one ecosystem for efficiently managing various aspects of an Amazon business.
Like SmartScout, Helium 10 offers profitable product research, helps uncover high-performing keywords, and does robust competitor analysis. Moreover, you can initiate some of these research-focused features directly from Amazon’s search or product pages via Helium 10’s browser extension.
In fact, Helium 10 is available as an Android and iOS mobile app. Although the app has limited features, its portability to monitor sales and ad performance is enough to make it stand out.
And unlike SmartScout, Helium 10 allows you to do more than Amazon research.
For instance, there’s Adtomic, which supplies granular insights into ad campaign performance and optimizes them accordingly. Likewise, Inventory Management helps you manage your inventory and predict optimal product orders to prevent running out of stock.
Finally, Helium 10 supports 21 Amazon marketplaces, 11 more than available to SmartScout users. The best part is that its lowest plan costs $39 monthly, cheaper than the least SmartScout plan.
Want to know more? Visit our Helium 10 review page for a deeper dive into what you’ll get on this software.
Jungle Scout
Jungle Scout is also a multi-function Amazon tool ideal for sellers who want to manage the everyday operations of an Amazon business.
Notably, research and analytics-focused features remain among its most popular offerings.
For one, its Supplier Database helps you source reliable product manufacturers and suppliers across the US, Europe, and Asia. SmartScout lacks a similar feature, and most other Jungle Scout alternatives only provide Asia-based suppliers.
Jungle Scout even offers a browser extension to improve flexibility. Fire up the extension on an Amazon search or product page, and you’ll uncover deep-seated niche insight without logging into the web app.
It’s also worth mentioning that Jungle Scout allows you to access data for 17 Amazon marketplaces. And for all that, its pricing starts from $49 monthly, making its basic plan cheaper than SmartScout’s!
There’s more to Jungle Scout, and you can discover it all in our Jungle Scout review.
FAQs
Is SmartScout Good for Beginners?
SmartScout is good for beginners since it’s seamless and easy to use.
You can also access various learning resources like SmartScout University, which provides videos explaining how the features work.
Is SmartScout Worth it?
SmartScout’s main selling point is its approach to Amazon research, prioritizing accuracy without sacrificing seamlessness.
With SmartScout, finding profitable products and keywords doesn’t feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. Likewise, its unique competitor research tools put it ahead of comparable alternatives.
Sounds like what you are looking for? Then, use my exclusive SmartScout coupon code to save 25% on your first 3 months of subscription.
