Are you an Amazon seller wondering if Helium 10 is the right tool for your business? In this Helium 10 review, we’ll dive into Helium 10’s key features, pros and cons, pricing plans, and so much more. Whether you’re a beginner just starting out or an intermediate seller looking to scale, this in-depth guide will help you understand whether Helium 10 is the right solution for your business.
What is Helium 10?
Helium 10 is an all-in-one software suite with 30+ tools designed for Amazon (and Walmart) sellers to start, grow, and manage their Amazon FBA businesses. This makes it especially useful to beginner and intermediate Amazon sellers who want a one-stop solution. With Helium 10, Amazon sellers can:
- Find profitable product opportunities: Use data-driven metrics on supply, demand, and competition to discover product niches with high potential. For example, Helium 10’s tools help you analyze monthly search volume and sales for product ideas, so you don’t waste time on unsuccessful products.
- Research keywords: Use Amazon keyword tools to uncover what shoppers are searching for and ensure your product listings contain those keywords.
- Optimize product listings: Craft better titles, bullet points, and descriptions. Helium 10’s listing optimization tools guide you in placing keywords and improving content for higher conversions.
- Analyze competitors: You can reverse-engineer your competitors’ strategies by analyzing which keywords drive their sales, compare listing quality, and even check if your product is indexed for those keywords.
- Monitor and protect your business: Track your keyword rankings and profits over time, receive alerts for critical changes (like a listing hijacker or a sudden review surge), and manage inventory and refunds from a central dashboard.
- Streamline marketing and PPC: Helium 10 provides tools for managing Amazon PPC campaigns and improving advertising efficiency, as well as a landing page builder (“Portals”) to capture customer emails for off-Amazon marketing.
In the Amazon FBA ecosystem—where there are over 2 million active sellers —Helium 10 has become highly relevant. By providing everything from product discovery to finance tracking, Helium 10 positions itself as a platform that can grow with your business. As we’ll see, this breadth is one of its biggest strengths.
Find Winning Products With Helium 10
Helium 10 Features
Helium 10’s feature set is vast, but here we’ll overview the major tools and what they do. The suite can be grouped into a few core categories:
- Product Research Tools:e.g. Black Box, Xray, Trendster
- Keyword Research & Listing Optimization:e.g. Cerebro, Magnet, Frankenstein, Scribbles, Index Checker
- Analytics & Maintenance:e.g. Profits, Keyword Tracker, Inventory Management, Refund Genie, Alerts
- Marketing & PPC: e.g. Ads (Adtomic), Follow-Up (email automation), Portals (landing pages)
Let’s break down some of the standout Helium 10 tools and features:
Helium 10 Black Box – Product Research
Black Box is Helium 10’s flagship product research tool. It allows you to search through millions of products using filters such as category, monthly revenue, price range, number of sales, review count, star rating, and more.
By setting specific criteria (for example, products in Home & Kitchen with over $5,000 monthly revenue but under 100 reviews), a new seller can quickly find potential “hidden gem” product ideas.
When you run a search, Black Box returns a list of products that meet your criteria, along with crucial metrics for each product (e.g. price, estimated monthly sales, revenue, number of reviews, Best Seller Rank, etc.).
Cerebro – Reverse ASIN Keyword Research
Helium 10 Cerebro is a reverse ASIN lookup tool – you input a competitor’s product ASIN, and Cerebro returns the keywords that the product is ranking for on Amazon. This reveals the search terms driving sales for that product.
For example, if you’re selling a yoga mat and run Cerebro on the top yoga mat ASIN, you might discover high-volume related terms like “eco-friendly yoga mat” or long-tails like “yoga mat for tall people” that your competitors rank for.
One signature metric is the Cerebro IQ Score, which Helium 10 calculates from search volume vs. competition – a higher IQ Score suggests a keyword with high demand and relatively low competition.
Magnet – Keyword Explorer
Where Cerebro works backwards from a product, Helium 10 Magnet works forwards from a seed keyword. Magnet is Helium 10’s keyword research tool for generating keyword ideas and related terms. You input a broad keyword (e.g. “yoga mat”), and Magnet pulls up a comprehensive list of related keywords, complete with search volume and relevancy.
Most sellers will use Magnet in conjunction with Cerebro: first use Cerebro to grab competitor keywords, then use Magnet to broaden that list with additional relevant terms. Magnet’s filtering options (by search volume, word count, etc.) let you hone in on the golden keywords that are both relevant and have high traffic.
Scribbles & Frankenstein – Listing Optimization Tools
After finding your target keywords, Helium 10 provides tools to seamlessly integrate them into your product listing:
- Scribbles: Think of Scribbles as an interactive listing builder. It helps you write Amazon product titles, bullet points, and descriptions in an optimized way. You input your list of keywords, and as you draft your listing, Scribbles checks off each keyword that you’ve used. It prevents you from accidentally omitting important keywords and ensures you don’t waste space repeating words too often.
- Frankenstein: This tool humorously named after the monster helps you process and clean up keyword lists. If you have a long list of keywords (e.g. from Magnet and Cerebro), Frankenstein will de-duplicate them, remove unwanted characters or words, and spit out a cleaned master list. You can choose options like “remove duplicates”, “convert to lowercase”, “sort by frequency”, etc.
Using Magnet, Frankenstein, and Scribbles together covers the whole flow: find keywords → clean & prioritize keywords → seamlessly add them to your listing. By following this process, you can craft a highly optimized Amazon listing that targets many relevant search terms.
Index Checker and Listing Analyzer
Helium 10 also offers tools to audit your listings after they’re live:
- Index Checker: This tool lets you verify whether your product is indexed (i.e., recognized in search) for specific keywords. Even if you include a keyword in your content, sometimes Amazon doesn’t index it due to various issues. Index Checker quickly checks up to several hundred keywords to confirm if your listing is appearing in the search index for each.
- Listing Analyzer: A newer addition, Listing Analyzer will score your product listing’s quality and provide feedback. It examines elements like title length, image count, bullet point length, keywords used, etc., and compares them against what top-performing similar listings have. The tool then gives you recommendations on how to improve (for example, “Add more high-resolution images” or “Your title is shorter than average – consider adding more keywords”).
Keyword Tracker – Monitoring Your Rank
After you’ve optimized your listing and launched your product, the job isn’t over – you need to monitor how your product is performing on important keywords over time. Helium 10’s Keyword Tracker does exactly that. It tracks the ranking position of your product for the keywords you specify.
You can visualize trends over days, weeks, or months, seeing if your rank is improving after a launch or if you’re slipping for certain terms. Helium 10 even allows you to set up keyword ranking alerts, so you get notified if you fall off page 1 for your most critical terms (very useful to catch sudden drops).
Profits – Financial Analytics Dashboard
Keeping an eye on profitability is key for any seller, and Helium 10’s Profits provides a comprehensive financial dashboard. Profits aggregates data from your Amazon seller account to display your sales, revenue, expenses, and profit margins in real time. You can view metrics like total revenue for the month, units sold, ad spend, Amazon fees, and net profit all in one place. It breaks down performance by product as well, so you can identify your cash cows vs. your underperformers.
One of the biggest challenges for Amazon sellers (especially beginners) is calculating the true profit after all fees, PPC costs, and promotions. Profits automates this, saving you from manual bookkeeping. You can also look at trends over time – for instance, see how this month’s profit compares to last month’s, or how your Q4 holiday sales spiked versus Q3.
Alerts & Maintenance Tools (Inventory Protector, Hijacker Alerts, Refund Genie, etc.)
Beyond research and optimization, Helium 10 provides several tools to protect and maintain your Amazon business on autopilot:
- Inventory Protector: If you run promotional giveaways or big discount sales, one risk is a single buyer wiping out your stock (e.g., buying 50 units at 90% off). Inventory Protector prevents this by letting you set a max order quantity per customer during such promotions. For example, you can cap each buyer to 1 unit during a deal, so you don’t get cleaned out by resellers or opportunists.
- Hijacker Alert: This is a must-have for private label sellers. A “hijacker” is someone who jumps onto your product listing (usually with a counterfeit or grey-market version of your item) and steals the Buy Box, potentially hurting your sales and reputation. Helium 10’s Hijacker Alert monitors your listings 24/7 and immediately notifies you if an unknown seller suddenly starts offering your product. With prompt alerts, you can take action by contacting Amazon to report the hijacker and protect your brand.
- Refund Genie: Amazon sometimes owes you money (for lost inventory, customer refunds not reimbursed, etc.), but it’s on you to identify and file claims for those reimbursements. Refund Genie automates this auditing process. It scans your transactions and finds cases where Amazon likely owes you a refund, then it generates ready-to-submit claims/reports.
- Inventory Management: Helium 10 has introduced a full Inventory Management module that serves as your command center for stock control. It provides restock recommendations, tracks inventory age, and helps you create purchase orders to your suppliers. Essentially, it’s designed to prevent stockouts and overstock by using your sales velocity data to predict optimal reorder times.
- Market Tracker & Alerts: The Market Tracker tool lets you define a product market (e.g., a group of products competing with yours) and then monitors changes in that market over time – such as new entrants, changes in competitors’ sales, market share, etc. You can set alerts for when a new competitor product comes on the scene or when a top competitor’s price changes, for instance.
- Follow-Up (Email Automation): Helium 10’s Follow-Up tool helps automate sending emails to customers, such as thank-you notes or requests for product reviews (within Amazon’s Terms of Service). While Amazon has made it trickier to proactively solicit reviews, Follow-Up can still send the official “Request a Review” messages automatically to buyers.
- Adtomic (PPC Manager): For advertising, Helium 10 offers Adtomic, a PPC management platform (available in higher-tier plans or as add-on). It integrates with your Amazon Advertising to provide campaign analytics, bid automation rules, and keyword harvesting from search term reports.
As you can see, Helium 10’s feature set is very comprehensive. The company also continuously updates the suite with new tools based on user feedback.
Helium 10 Pros and Cons
Every software has its strengths and weaknesses. Here’s a summary of Helium 10’s main advantages and disadvantages for Amazon sellers:
Helium 10 Pros:
- All-in-One Platform: Helium 10 combines product research, keyword tools, listing optimization, and operational tools in one suite, so you save money vs. subscribing to multiple services, and you avoid constantly switching between different tool ecosystems.
- Best-in-Class Research Tools: The suite offers some of the most powerful product research and keyword research tools on the market. Black Box, Xray, Cerebro, and Magnet are often regarded as top-of-category for finding product opportunities and relevant keywords. These give you a data advantage in spotting trends and optimizing listings.
- Unique Proprietary Tools: Helium 10 includes proprietary tools not easily found elsewhere – e.g. Frankenstein (bulk keyword processor) and Scribbles (listing optimizer) – which can significantly streamline your workflow.
- Free and Starter Plans Available: Unlike some competitors (for example like Junlge Scout) Helium 10 does offer a Free Plan and an affordable Starter Plan, lowering the barrier for new Amazon entrepreneurs to get started. You can try out many tools for free (with limits) before committing.
- Built-in SEO & Marketing Aids: Tools like Keyword Tracker, Index Checker, and Portals (landing page builder) help you not just with Amazon SEO but also external marketing. The Marketing tools (emails, landing pages) give an edge in driving traffic and building customer lists.
- Training and Education Included: Helium 10 provides hands-on Amazon training through the Freedom Ticket course (included with paid plans) and a rich library of tutorials. This is great for beginners who need to learn the ropes while using the tool.
- Responsive Customer Support & Community: Many users report that Helium 10’s support is helpful and quick to respond, and Helium 10 has an active community (Facebook groups, forums) where sellers can learn from each other. They also continually update the software with new features, showing a commitment to improvement.
Helium 10 Cons:
- No Supplier Database: Unlike Jungle Scout, Helium 10 does not have a built-in supplier database or sourcing tool. This means you’ll need to use other methods to find manufacturers for your product (e.g. Alibaba or Jungle Scout’s supplier database).
- Relatively Expensive for Full Access: While a basic plan is affordable, to unlock Helium 10’s full power (unlimited use of all tools) you’ll likely need the Platinum or Diamond plan, which can be pricey for very small sellers. The Platinum plan is $99/month, and higher tiers go up from there – an investment that might be steep if you’re on a tight budget.
- Steep Learning Curve: With 30+ tools, Helium 10 can feel overwhelming at first. New users face a learning curve to understand what each tool does and how to interpret all the data. The interface groups many complex features together, and although it’s improving, it can be a lot to take in (especially if you’re not tech-savvy or are completely new to Amazon FBA).
- Requires Amazon Basics Knowledge: If you are completely new to Amazon (no idea how FBA works, etc.), Helium 10 might be overkill. In fact, some experts suggest absolute beginners first learn basic selling practices before diving into an advanced suite like this. Without at least a foundation, you might not fully utilize the tools or could misinterpret the data.
Find Winning Products With Helium 10 Black Box
Helium 10 vs Jungle Scout
Helium 10 is often compared with Jungle Scout, one other popular Amazon seller tools. Each has its own strengths, so it’s important to understand how they differ in key areas like data accuracy, usability, feature scope, and customer support.
Data Accuracy
For product research tools, data accuracy (especially of sales estimates) is a big talking point. According to multiple industry tests, Jungle Scout tends to have the edge in accuracy of sales and revenue estimates, with around 84% accuracy, whereas Helium 10’s estimates are around 74–79% accurate.
In a Jungle Scout-sponsored study, Jungle Scout was rated the #1 most accurate, Viral Launch #2, and Helium 10 #3. In real terms, this means if a product actually sells 100 units/month, Jungle Scout might estimate ~84, Viral Launch ~79, and Helium 10 ~74. All these tools are providing estimates (not actual Amazon data), so take them with a grain of salt.
The differences aren’t huge, and Helium 10’s accuracy is generally deemed “good enough” for decision-making – plus, one need to consider that these number are from a Jungle Scout sponsored study. Because of this, we think that there is no big difference between Jungle Scout and Helium 10 in terms of data accuracy.
Usability (Ease of Use)
Helium 10 packs more tools, which can make it less immediately user-friendly than Jungle Scout. Jungle Scout’s interface is often praised for being clean, straightforward, and easy for beginners to navigate.
In contrast, Helium 10’s dashboard used to be quite cluttered with all tools in one menu, though they rolled out a new, more intuitive dashboard that improved navigation as of 2024. If you’re non-technical, Jungle Scout might feel simpler initially – fewer tools means fewer things to learn.
Helium 10’s learning curve is steeper (as noted, a con), but many sellers feel the extra effort is worth it for the capabilities you unlock. Bottom line: Jungle Scout wins on immediate ease-of-use, Helium 10 provides more tools to master but has improved UI recently.
Feature Scope
Here, Helium 10 is the clear winner. It is a much broader suite than Jungle Scout. Helium 10 offers tools for almost every aspect of selling: product and keyword research, listing optimization, financial analysis, inventory management, refund tracking, PPC management, and more (about 30 tools in total).
Jungle Scout, on the other hand, originally started (and excels) as a product research tool and database – it has a robust product tracker, supplier database, and some keyword tools, but it doesn’t have many operations tools. Jungle Scout has expanded some (they added their own keyword tracker, basic email automation, etc.), but it’s still largely focused on finding Amazon FBA products. It does have a Supplier Database (which Helium 10 lacks) where you can look up manufacturers.
Find Winning Products With Helium 10 Black Box
Support & Community
This is interesting because the user experiences vary. Helium 10 provides extensive training resources (the Freedom Ticket course for new sellers, Helium 10 Academy, webinars) and has a large user community. They also offer customer support via chat/email; in my experience and many others’, their support is responsive and helpful. However, looking at external reviews, Helium 10 has a mixed reputation: on Trustpilot, it has a relatively low rating (around 2 to 3 out of 5 stars) with common complaints about billing issues or slow customer service.
Jungle Scout, by contrast, enjoys a very high customer satisfaction rating – on Trustpilot it’s about 4.7 out of 5 with thousands of reviews. Jungle Scout has been commended for excellent customer service and a support team that actively helps users. They also have a large public community and lots of free content (blogs, YouTube videos) that effectively support their users.
In summary, Jungle Scout leads in customer satisfaction and support quality, Helium 10 provides the most training content but has had some support hiccups. It’s worth noting that Helium 10’s team is very active on social media and forums, and they do listen to feedback (their frequent feature updates attest to that). But if we strictly compare ratings and anecdotal feedback: Jungle Scout is ahead on support friendliness, whereas Helium 10 might require a bit more patience if you run into issues.
| Criteria | Helium 10 | Jungle Scout |
|---|---|---|
| Data Accuracy | ~74–79% accurate in sales estimates (good, but ranked 3rd) | ~84% accurate in estimates (industry-leading) |
| Ease of Use | Powerful but complex; improved UI, yet a learning curve due to many tools | Intuitive and beginner-friendly |
| Feature Scope | Extremely comprehensive – 30+ tools cover product research, keywords, SEO, PPC, analytics, refunds, inventory, etc. | Moderate – strong product research & supplier database; has keyword and basic analytics, but lacks many ops tools |
| Support & Community | Large user community and many training resources; support is responsive, but external ratings ~2–3/5 indicate mixed satisfaction | Highly rated support (Trustpilot ~4.7★) with quick help; active community, lots of content; users feel well-supported |
| Pricing | Free plan available; Platinum $99/mo; upper tiers up to $279–$399/mo | No free plan; Basic $49/mo; Suite $69/mo; Professional $129/mo |
In summary: Helium 10 is the most comprehensive solution – great for covering all bases and scaling with your business, but it comes with more complexity and cost. Jungle Scout is excellent for product research and ease-of-use, and tends to have top marks in data accuracy and customer satisfaction.
Helium 10 Pricing Plans
Helium 10 offers five main pricing tiers: Free, Starter, Platinum, Diamond, and Elite. You can sign up here for free. Each successive tier adds more usage limits and features. Let’s break down each plan, what’s included, and who it’s best suited for:
| Plan | Price | Description & Best Suited For |
|---|---|---|
| Free Plan | $0/month | Limited access to core tools for initial testing. Ideal for: Beginners validating a single product idea. |
| Starter Plan | $39/month or $339/year | Unlimited Xray with basic keyword tracking and includes the Freedom Ticket course. Ideal for: New sellers launching their first product on a budget. |
| Platinum Plan | $99/month or $999/year | Full unlimited access to all core tools and advanced features. Ideal for: Serious sellers and small-to-medium businesses. |
| Diamond Plan | $279/month or $2,499/year | Expanded usage limits, multi-user seats, Walmart tools, and expert training. Ideal for: Agencies or power-sellers with large portfolios. |
| Elite Plan | $399/month | Maximum limits plus VIP workshops, webinars, and community perks. Ideal for: High-volume sellers needing priority support. |
If you want to use a paid Helium 10 subscription, I highly recommend checking out our article about Helium 10 coupons. We update this article on a regular basis so it is always up to date. With our Helium 10 coupon codes, you can sometimes save up 40% over 6 months while the regular discount is 20% over 6 months.
Free Plan ($0/month)
Best for test-driving the tools or very light use. The Helium 10 Free Plan gives you limited access to most Helium 10 tools (so you can get a feel for them). For example, you can use Helium 10 Black Box up to 20 times, run Xray (Chrome extension) 50 times, get a few keyword searches, and track a limited number of products.
Some tools are only available for the first 30 days on the free plan (Helium 10 Magnet, Frankenstein, Scribbles, etc., then they lock). You can connect up to 2 Amazon seller accounts and use the mobile app. Importantly, Cerebro and Magnet are not accessible after the initial trials on the free plan (since those are high-value tools). Here is a video showing what you can do with Helium 10 Magnet and Cerebro:
The free plan is really there to let you try Helium 10 out and do basic initial research. If you’re a complete beginner just wanting to tinker or validate one product idea, the free tier might be enough for a start. But anyone serious will likely outgrow it quickly due to the usage caps.
Starter Plan ($39/month or $339/year)
Best for new Amazon sellers launching their first product on a budget. The Starter plan lifts many restrictions from the free tier but still has some limits. Notably, Xray (product research extension) becomes unlimited on Starter, which is great for continuous product research.
You also get up to 20 tracked keywords in Keyword Tracker, basic access to Inventory Management (for 30 days), and a few other tools with low limits. One huge bonus: the Starter plan includes the Freedom Ticket Amazon FBA full course for free (this course alone is a $997 value separately, targeted at beginners). So, for $39/mo, a new seller gets the entire training + partial tool access.
This plan is ideal if you’re just in the research and early launch phase of 1 product. It’s budget-friendly, but note that some tools like Cerebro and Magnet still have usage limits on Starter (unlimited only kicks in at Platinum).
Platinum Plan ($99/month or $999/year)
Best for serious sellers and the most popular choice. Platinum is Helium 10’s core plan where most limits are removed or expanded generously. You get unlimited use of the core tools: Black Box (no search limits), Cerebro and Magnet (unlimited keyword queries), Frankenstein, Scribbles (unlocked fully), and Helium 10 Xray.
You can track up to 2,000 keywords in Keyword Tracker. You can use Index Checker up to 150 times per month. You also get 3 markets in Market Tracker (so you could monitor, say, the US, UK, and Canada markets). Basically, Platinum is sufficient for the majority of small-to-medium Amazon businesses. Most 6-figure sellers will find Platinum meets their needs in terms of capacity.
Diamond Plan ($279/month or $2,499/year)
Best for agencies, power-sellers, or those with large portfolios. Diamond significantly increases allowances: track up to 5,000 keywords, use Index Checker 300 times/month, run up to 50 Listing Analyzer reports per month, and monitor 10 markets in Market Tracker.
Diamond also unlocks multi-user login – you can add up to 3 users/sub-accounts, which is great for a small team. Crucially, Diamond gives you access to Helium 10’s tools for Walmart as well (since Helium 10 also supports Walmart’s marketplace; Platinum gives a 30-day trial of Walmart tools, Diamond makes them unlimited).
You also get features like unlimited use of the Refund Genie (claim reimbursements) and full Inventory Management system usage (not just 30-day trial). Diamond includes up to 6 “portals” (landing pages) for external marketing. Essentially, Diamond is geared toward businesses that are scaling up – maybe 10+ products selling, significant ad spend (it even comes with some “Expert Training” sessions or coaching calls from Helium 10’s team).
It’s a large jump in price, so unless you’re making solid revenue, Platinum suffices. But for those doing high 6 or 7 figures in sales, Diamond’s added data and user accounts can be a good investment.
Elite Plan ($399/month)
Best for high-volume sellers and Amazon power-users who want VIP treatment. Elite is the top tier with the maximum limits (e.g., 10,000 tracked keywords, 500 Index Checker uses, 15 markets in Market Tracker) and up to 5 users. However, the real differentiators are the exclusive perks: Elite members get access to monthly training workshops, webinars with Helium 10 pros, and an exclusive Facebook Elite members group.
They also get invited to Helium 10’s live events or special mastermind sessions. In short, Elite is as much about the community and insider info as it is about the software. It’s for sellers who are doing, say, $1M+ a year or who simply want every possible edge (and can comfortably invest $399/mo).
For a beginner or even most intermediate sellers, Elite would be overkill – those funds might be better spent on inventory or marketing. But for advanced sellers who value networking and priority support, it can be worthwhile.
Find Winning Products With Helium 10 Black Box
Helium 10 Review: Final Verdict
So, should you invest in Helium 10? Here’s the bottom line.
- Best for: Beginner and intermediate Amazon FBA sellers who want a single tool to do product research, keyword discovery, listing optimization, and ongoing management. If you plan to launch multiple products or want to automate your workflow as you grow, Helium 10 provides more value than buying tools à la carte. It’s also ideal for those who appreciate hands-on Amazon education—Freedom Ticket and Academy are top-notch training resources.
- May not be for: Those with a very tight budget (the Platinum plan is $99/mo and up for full access). If you’re only launching one product and don’t plan to scale, you might be able to use the Starter or the Helium 10 Free Plan, or consider alternatives like Jungle Scout (which is cheaper for research only).
- Strengths: Unmatched breadth of features, best-in-class keyword and listing tools, and continuous innovation. The all-in-one workflow is a huge time-saver, and the software is robust enough to support you from your first sale to seven figures.
- Weaknesses: Some data (sales/revenue) is estimated, not perfect; ; and the wide range of features means a learning curve. Some users have cited issues with customer service and billing, though others praise the community and training.
Our verdict: If you’re serious about growing an Amazon FBA business, Helium 10 is worth the investment. Its suite of tools, educational resources, and automation capabilities give you a real edge. Most users will recoup the cost through smarter product picks, keyword optimization, and reclaimed refunds alone. Even as competitors catch up, Helium 10’s all-in-one convenience and constant upgrades keep it ahead for most sellers.
Tip: Start with the Free or Starter plan, and upgrade when you’re ready to scale. Take the Freedom Ticket course to learn Amazon inside out. Use Helium 10’s tools in sequence for maximum benefit—and join their user community for ongoing support and ideas.
