Amazon stands strong as the marketplace of choice for online shoppers by a wide margin. Forecasts project sales on the platform will reach $641 billion in 2023 alone. With these massive sums up for grabs, sellers on the platform are always searching for an edge over the competition, as even the smallest of advantages can result in plentiful profits. As with many industries, reliable data that informs strategy is like gold for Amazon sellers. And in the Amazon world, Viral Launch vs Jungle Scout represents a battle of the best Amazon product research tools available for sellers.
From comprehensive product research and market analysis to competitor tracking and advertising optimization, our objective is to provide you with the insights necessary to make an educated decision. In this article, we’ll cover these Amazon seller toolkits, their history, capabilities, and pricing, along with features that might help you decide which one’s right for you.
At Viral Launch, we strive to empower Amazon businesses with the knowledge, data, and power to succeed on the platform. This time, instead of diving into product research, we seek to help you unravel the intricacies of Viral Launch and Jungle Scout, aiding you in determining which tool aligns most effectively with your Amazon enterprise’s unique needs and aspirations.
What is Viral Launch?
Founded in 2014, Viral Launch became one of the earliest to provide solutions for the unique wants and needs of Amazon sellers in the burgeoning third-party marketplace. Starting as a service that helped sellers improve their organic rank and enhance visibility by reaching the first page of search results with an advanced product launch strategy, Viral Launch quickly recognized the robust power of data for Amazon sellers that wasn’t provided elsewhere at the time.
Over the years, they’ve rolled out tool after tool to provide Amazon sellers at each stage of selling, from product research to market analysis to scaling and expanding their business. Through data science based on years of monitoring the Amazon marketplace and innovative technology specialized in helping sellers gain an edge, we have adapted to the needs of the ever-changing needs of sellers.
What is Jungle Scout?
Jungle Scout is a popular software platform founded in 2015 designed to help individuals and businesses navigate the world of selling on Amazon, particularly through Amazon FBA. Over time, it evolved into a comprehensive suite of software and resources aiming to empower entrepreneurs and brands on the Amazon platform and beyond. Jungle Scout emphasizes a seller-centric approach, striving to equip businesses with the data and tools they need to succeed in e-commerce.
Like Viral Launch, Jungle Scout has added to its offering over the years in an attempt to be a one-stop-shop for Amazon sellers.
Feature Comparison
Navigating the Amazon jungle without the right tools can be daunting. That’s where product research platforms like Viral Launch and Jungle Scout come in, promising to guide you toward profitable picks. But with both boasting impressive features, how do you choose the right one?
This handy table dissects their offerings head-to-head, highlighting where each platform shines.
Of course, it’s vital to know what each platform offers when deciding which platform to choose for your Amazon business. But when comparing the tools that will power your online business, simply checking a box is not enough. Below, we’ll dive into the most critical aspects of each platform in this FBA seller tools comparison.
Product Finding
The trickiest part of selling on Amazon? Choosing your first product. Over the years, many hopeful entrepreneurs have had their dreams dashed by costly bad bets based on a lack of information or a lack of quality information. Viral Launch became an innovator in this regard with its Product Discovery tool.
Viral Launch’s Product Discovery tool allows sellers to identify lucrative niches by filtering through vast datasets, including sales estimates and trends, competition analysis, and keyword popularity. With these tools and filters, you can reverse-engineer winning product ideas that meet your personalized goals and resources, avoiding costly mistakes or staying clear of inaccurate expectations.
Jungle Scout’s Product Database seeks to accomplish the same feat with sales estimates and seller rankings for various product opportunities. With an extremely similar display, Product Database offers much of the same information as Product Discovery.
Jungle Scout provides historical product data for up to two years, but access beyond the last 30 days is restricted to higher-priced tiers. In contrast, Viral Launch offers complete historical sales data even in its beginner tier, providing valuable insights into long-term product performance. This access to extensive historical data is crucial for avoiding costly mistakes, especially considering the seasonal nature of many products and the transient trends in the marketplace.
Viral Launch’s commitment to offering years of comprehensive data ensures sellers can make informed decisions based on thorough product performance analysis and customer behavior.
Advantage: Viral Launch
Market Research
Viral Launch provides innovative features like Market Intelligence and a Market Intelligence Chrome Extension for seamless product research directly while browsing Amazon like a customer. These tools offer valuable insights into market demand, competition levels, and revenue potential, enabling sellers to make informed decisions about product selection and entry.
With access to historical data and real-time market analysis, sellers can make informed decisions and strategic adjustments to their product offerings. Viral Launch’s commitment to empowering sellers with actionable insights sets it apart in the realm of market research tools, ensuring users stay ahead of the competition and maximize their potential for success on Amazon.
Jungle Scout’s Product Tracker provides a range of help market data sellers can utilize to navigate the complexities of the Amazon marketplace. While their tools offer valuable data on market demand, competition levels, and revenue potential, Jungle Scout’s market research offerings are once again more limited compared to Viral Launch.
As you can see in the side-by-side graphics above, Jungle Scout’s Product Tracker shows a variety of crucial metrics for top products in a product market. However, it lacks the depth of Market Intelligence, which contains a more panoptic approach to product and market research. Within Market Intelligence, you can click into any of the greenish colors to see the history of that respective data point over the past two years.
Market Intelligence also contains tabs for Keywords, Trends, Analysis, and an FBA Calculator with instant AI analysis. It’s like having a high-level virtual assistant!
Advantage: Viral Launch
Keyword Data
Viral Launch’s keyword research tools enable sellers to optimize their product listings and advertising campaigns for maximum visibility. With features like Keyword Research, Keyword Manager, Listing Builder, and Listing Analyzer, users can identify high-converting keywords, monitor search trends, and refine their SEO strategies to enhance product discoverability and drive sales. They even have their own proprietary metrics like Opportunity Score, Priority Score and Relevance Score.
Similarly, Jungle Scout’s Keyword Scout delivers insights on search volume with an eye on organic rank and sponsored rank. Much like Viral Launch’s Opportunity Score, Keyword Scout includes an Ease to Rank tab, informing customers of the competition in the market and how difficult it might be to ascend the ranks for a specific keyword.
Both can be quite informative for keyword wizards and newbies alike, which is why Amazon sellers consistently list the two when discussing the top keyword products for Amazon sellers.
This category’s close, but Viral Launch’s more extensive features like Keyword Manager and how the tools are seamlessly integrated allow a tad bit more for Amazon sellers.
Advantage: Viral Launch
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Viral Launch offers a comprehensive PPC management tool called Kinetic PPC, designed to empower sellers to optimize their Amazon advertising campaigns efficiently. Kinetic PPC provides advanced features such as keyword optimization, bid management, and campaign analysis to maximize ROI. With its intuitive interface and actionable insights, Viral Launch’s PPC software helps sellers drive targeted traffic to their listings and increase sales on the Amazon platform.
At the moment, Jungle Scout does not have a PPC tool on its platform. There is Jungle Scout analytics for PPC, but many are directly from Seller Central, where you would need to log in to take actions on PPC outside of monitoring overall performance. As a result, sellers looking to run advertising would be on their own with advertising or would need to find an alternative.
Advantage: Viral Launch
User Interface
Each platform’s user interface is intuitive and easy to navigate, with a clean design. The main dashboard provides quick access to all key features and tools, allowing users to easily perform tasks efficiently and effectively and move from one tool to the next.
Despite boasting an impressive amount of information, both platforms are simple and straightforward, making them accessible for starters and pleasant to work with. For many of the tools, you can even click into sections and numbers to dive deeper into the data, revealing historical data without overloading users with charts, graphs, and a never-ending array of numbers.
Advantage: Both
Additional Resources
As industry leaders, Viral Launch and Jungle Scout do a great job interacting with the seller community. Since both businesses are quite literally invested in seller success, there’s no shortage of helpful material they provide in various forms.
Both have customer support available 24/7/365 and Help Center resources to assist sellers in navigating the platforms, which is great since running an Amazon business isn’t your typical 9-to-5.
Jungle Scout maintains a strong online presence with regular YouTube uploads and videos on their site for paid subscribers. They perform annual reports based on seller surveys and trends to help sellers stay in touch with the state of Amazon selling.
Active on YouTube with seasonal eBooks and free seller courses for beginners and experts, Viral Launch knocks it out of the park for Amazon sellers regarding educational content and resources to take your business to the next level. You can even watch their comprehensive software tutorials for free to get a head start on the capabilities and purposes of each tool and see how they can power your Amazon success.
In this domain, we highly advocate for maintaining high awareness and knowledge. Each nugget of insight into the Amazon selling landscape enhances your prowess as a seller. Every piece of information about selling on Amazon makes you a better seller, so staying well-versed in the state of the industry, common problems, and shifts in the market can pay dividends.
Advantage: Both
Viral Launch vs Jungle Scout Pricing Comparison
At the end of the day, the end game of selecting an Amazon toolkit is to receive a positive return on investment. And your investment into the seller tools will be intrinsically attached to your eventual ROI. The ideal seller plan meets the seller at their stage of the selling journey and makes sense from a cost perspective to provide the tools they need at an agreeable price. So, when deciding which plan is the one for you, consider your goals and selling situation to avoid paying for tools that aren’t necessary for where you reside on your selling journey.
Fortunately, each Viral Launch and Jungle Scout plan intends to make this decision easy for potential customers. Both offer three unique membership tiers to supply sellers with everything they need to win on Amazon.
Tier 1: Amazon Seller Starter Kits
For beginners, product research is everything. When searching for your first product, you want to be able to do as much research as possible to ensure you can proceed in regard to selling it with confidence you can make money.
Both Amazon beginner toolkits possess the tools necessary to streamline your product research and reverse-engineer winning product ideas. With monthly sales and revenue estimates and customizable filters that let you personalize searches to align with your goals and budget, both platforms make uncovering, exploring, and evaluating product ideas easy.
Although Viral Launch charges $20 more than the Jungle Scout cost of their starter Amazon seller plan, it’s with good reason. Jungle Scout’s product tracking data on this plan only displays data over the previous month, while Viral Launch displays product data for as long as they’ve been tracking the product, often for multiple years. Likewise, Jungle Scout’s beginner plan allows for just 30 keyword searches a month, while Viral Launch offers full access to their expansive keyword data.
On a strict budget? Jungle Scout’s Basic plan possesses everything you need to keep tabs on sales performance. But even for that niche, Viral Launch’s Market Intelligence standalone plan offers more bang for your buck in tracking product market trends. At $25/month, the Market Intelligence-only plan gives you access to Market Intelligence’s vast product and market tracking without keyword data or competitor tracking at half the price of Jungle Scout’s most comparable option.
While the cheaper price may be tempting, the limitations are likely to leave you wanting more and make you wonder, “Is Jungle Scout worth it?” For this reason, the edge goes to Viral Launch for offering more access and letting prospective sellers be as diligent as they need to be while making such a crucial decision.
Second Tier: Established Seller
The Established Seller tiers are a step up from the Beginner plans, offering more advanced features and deeper insights for optimizing listings, tracking performance, and making data-driven decisions to launch and grow your business.
Each competitor’s plan contains all the tools in the first tier but with expanded access and built-in integrations between the tools. Once you get past the sticker price, Viral Launch’s plans again offer far-sweeping advantages regarding access and usage, two critical aspects for sellers in the long run.
Enhanced product tracking, exhaustive keyword lists, and unlimited access to sales estimates and listing analyses more than pay for the difference with the advantages to be gained in the marketplace.
Tier 3: Scale with Advertising
The final level of these Amazon seller toolkits is for the elite sellers. We consider these to be specifically targeting established Amazon sellers who are serious about scaling their business through robust advertising optimization. It builds upon the features of Pro and adds significant firepower through advanced tracking and robust advertising.
The top-level tier is where Viral Launch really owns the advantage. While the first two tiers generally seek to provide the same information with varying levels of access and differences in data due to different algorithms, the most comprehensive plan for each sees a difference in tools.
Viral Launch’s Kinetic PPC tool truly separates the platform from Jungle Scout’s. In recent years, Amazon has continued to roll out and emphasize its Advertising console and the impact of PPC advertising on a business. While the topic can be quite complicated for the unfamiliar, Kinetic makes getting started easy while boasting advanced features for the most sophisticated advertisers. With simple on and off buttons, preset filters to accomplish goals, and optional custom rules so you can cut out wasteful spending based on real-time data and performance to achieve peak efficiency.
Summary
While Jungle Scout’s tier-for-tier plans are cheaper, Viral Launch offers considerably more at each level. With strict usage limits and restricted access to tools at the Basic and Suite levels, Jungle Scout users must be very mindful of each use of a tool, antithetical to how we recommend approaching these stages for new and existing sellers. Especially during the product research stage, performing comprehensive product and market research is critical to success or failure.
The Viral Launch plans offer extensive access and a larger pool of data for a more complete and satisfactory experience compared to each Jungle Scout alternative. And whether you’re just starting or a longtime seller, there’s always another level to reach. With expanded access for new and existing sellers plus a PPC tool that can optimize and automate your campaigns in real time, online entrepreneurs can feel confident with Viral Launch as they possess the data, tools, and technology to walk with you through each stage of your seller journey.
Free Trial
Before paying money and committing to an Amazon product research plan for the long run, testing the software and seeing if it’s right for you is critical. From the data to the tools to the levels of personalization and even the interface, it’s crucial to feel the tools out and see how each fits your preferences and matches your business goals.
Viral Launch possesses a considerable edge in this area with an industry-leading 14-day free trial with full access to the entire software suite, doubling the 7-day free Jungle Scout trial. The extended free trial period of Viral Launch offers users ample time to evaluate whether and decide if its suite of seller tools is the right fit for their business.
Making the right choice for your business
Choosing the right Amazon seller tool can feel like navigating a jungle itself. Both Jungle Scout and Viral Launch claim the throne, but which one deserves a place in your business kingdom? It depends. Remember, the best tool is the one that aligns with your specific needs, budget, and business scale.
Take advantage of the free trials from each to explore both platforms, experiment with their features, and see which one resonates best with your workflow. It can’t be overstated how much comfort and intuitiveness with the software are crucial for long-term success.
As your empire expands, your needs will evolve. Look for a tool that grows with you, offering scalability and adaptability. While both Jungle Scout and Viral Launch offer expansion options, Viral Launch’s interconnected suite provides a more seamless transition from product research to advanced marketing and growth, potentially saving you time and effort in the long run.
Ultimately, the choice is yours. But by considering your specific goals, exploring your options, and choosing a tool that can adapt to your journey, you’ll be well-equipped to navigate the ever-changing Amazon landscape and claim your piece of the pie.
Advantage Viral Launch
In the end, we all have preferences. Like Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi, the Jungle Scout vs. Viral Launch debate is similar in nature, with the difference ultimately being decided based on personal taste. Both platforms offer valuable features that help sellers make data-informed decisions and optimize their Amazon offerings.
But if you’re seeking a powerful, scalable, and future-proof solution to conquer the Amazon marketplace, Viral Launch might be the map you need to navigate your path to success. If you’re looking for Jungle Scout alternatives to switch to, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better choice than Viral Launch. Remember, in the fiercely intense competition on Amazon, the right tools can lead to small advantages that greatly impact your business. Be sure to test out these tools to find the one that fits your unique needs, be meticulous in your trial periods, and uncover the toolset that takes your Amazon business to the next level.
