Tactical Arbitrage vs Source Mogul [2023]

Our readers have been asking for a Tactical Arbitrage VS. Source Mogul comparison post for a long time now so I figured it was time to make that happen.

Both tools aim to accomplish the same thing: help Amazon sellers find and analyze products for reselling. They can both be used for wholesale and online arbitrage product sourcing methods. 

They do this in similar ways but there is a clear overall winner when we compare:

• Ease of Use
• Functionality
• Price
• Speed
• Customer Service
• Depth of Data Analyzed
• Quality of Customizations and Filters

First, disclosure, I've been a user and supporter of Tactical Arbitrage since day zero. Long before Source Mogul was released, I was working with Tactical Arbitrage as a brand ambassador and early marketing advisor. You're welcome to assume that I am biased but I've earned my living being objective and shooting straight over the past 7 years I've been online. I've done my best to include only objective and quantifiable metrics of comparison here and I assure you, as always, this post was written with your best interest in mind.

Learning Curve

If you read reviews of Source Mogul and Tactical Arbitrage, you might have heard people claiming that Source Mogul is easier to use. This might have been the case 2 years ago, but Tactical Arbitrage has created an extremely user friendly "Basic" mode for their core searches.

While the advanced views might seem a bit overwhelming at first, the basic views are click button easy right out of the box.

The product search (directly scanning specific sites),  reverse search (finding suppliers from leads or categories) and wholesale analysis all support both an advanced and basic view. 

If you tried Tactical Arbitrage in the past and found it difficult, you owe it to yourself to come back and try out the basic modes!

Thanks to the ability to add your own custom sites in Tactical Arbitrage (more on that soon) there is nearly no scan that Source Mogul can do that Tactical Arbitrage cannot but there are a near endless amount of scans that Tactical Arbitrage can do that Source Mogul cannot.

Source Mogul:

• Can be mastered in a day. 
• Includes free trainings
• Adopts a "less is more" approach

Tactical Arbitrage

• Multiple view options (advanced and basic) allow you to balance control, power and ease of use.
• The new "Always Be Scanning" feature dramatically reduces the learning curve since it scans unique sites and categories for each user nightly on auto-pilot.
• Free weekly Tactical Tuesday live trainings with creator Alex Moss
• Dozens of free trainings included in the user dashboard
• High end ($397+) trainings available to help you master every aspect of Tactical Arbitrage
• Adopts a "less is less" approach but allows you to set parameters as broad or small as you wish

Winner: Tactical Arbitrage

Anyone who believes Tactical Arbitrage is more difficult than Source Mogul likely didn't know about the basic search options or was a user before they were launched. Using Tactical Arbitrage in one of the 3 supported basic modes makes getting started even easier than Source Mogul. 

Yes, there is more to learn with Tactical Arbitrage overall because it has more features but that doesn't mean that it takes longer or is harder to start using than Source Mogul. 

User Interface

Both interfaces are very sleek and anyone you ask will likely just say that they prefer the one they use more since they've grown accustomed to it. I'm biased to Tactical Arbitrage as I've used it for over 5 years now but I have nothing bad to say about Source Moguls interface. They are both very well done, clear and easy to navigate. 

Winner: Tie

I still prefer Tactical Arbitrage but the general consensus is this part is pretty equal. Tactical Arbitrage still has a more customizable dashboard that allows you to create folders, make notes and use endless filters but each is easy enough to navigate. 

Supported Websites

This is where Tactical Arbitrage really pulls ahead. It has over 2x as many supported sites as Source Mogul and supports 7 different markets while Source Mogul supports only 2.

Winner: Tactical Arbitrage by 5 countries and over 500 sites.

The benefits of more sites cannot be understated. 

More sites means more leads and less competition.

Speed

Due to the limitations of Source Mogul, I can't answer this question effectively. Here's why. 

Source Mogul can only scan cached data and only at one duration setting. Source Mogul cannot scan live pages like Tactical Arbitrage can nor can the cache duration be adjusted.

Winner: N/A

If you run two scans head to head with the same number of products and similar filters, the speed will be nearly identical. Long cached data however means you might be too late to act. All things being equal, live searches will always be slower than cached ones. Tactical Arbitrage supports them and Source Mogul doesn't so we can't even compare them head to head for this.

Functionality

All of the positives about Source Mogul (speed, affordability and smooth interface) are a result of their slim functionality. 

Winner: Tactical Arbitrage (by a mile)

Pricing and Value

Due to their limited number of features, Source Mogul's pricing is very simple and affordable. 

The online seller community refers to it as the "cheaper," or "affordable" option but that is actually very misleading. 

Source Mogul is only marginally cheaper and may in fact cost you nearly 2x as much if you only need one feature such as wholesale scanning. 

However, it isn't cheap enough to make it a better value than Tactical Arbitrage when you realize what all it's lacking relatively (I'll get into that in a second). 

Unlike Source Mogul, Tactical Arbitrage gives you much more customizable pricing tiers to avoid paying for features you don't utilize. 

The true price of Tactical Arbitrage Online Arbitrage + Wholesale monthly plan ($109/month) is only $12/month more than the comparable Source Mogul monthly plan rate you'll be paying after month 3.

When comparing the two comparable plans on yearly options, Tactical Arbitrage will cost you $1020 for your second year re-bill while Source Mogul will cost you only $50 less at $970. 

That's a $50 savings for less than half the sites and features. 

Winner (Pricing): Tie

Winner (Value): Tactical Arbitrage

Overall Winner: Tactical Arbitrage 

You can find leads with both products but Tactical Arbitrage is far superior. 

• The savings you'll get with Source Mogul are dramatically overstated on forums and in communities. It is no longer always the cheaper option and the re-bill on their comparable plan will save you just $50/year or $12/month vs the Tactical Arbitrage Online Arbitrage + Wholesale plan (which is far superior). 
• Tactical Arbitrage has 10 powerful features that Source Mogul doesn't and dozens of other minor features that aren't even included in this article.
• Tactical Arbitrage supports nearly 3X as many sites and 7 global marketplaces vs. 2 from Source Mogul.