There's no shortage of tools on the market for Amazon sellers. Many have come and gone since I started selling almost a decade ago, but one that has stuck around is FBA Toolkit.
Not only has it stuck around, but it's shockingly similar to how it looked when I first saw it way back in 2013.
In this article, I'm going to dive into FBA Toolkit and show how Amazon sellers are using it. You can then decide if it's worth investing in it yourself.
What Is FBA Toolkit?
FBA Toolkit is a program that works on desktop and has mobile apps for iOS and Android devices.
It serves three main functions.
#1 Sales Rank Estimated Sales Per Day
This is the feature that attracts visitors. Toolkit provides graphs for major categories and allows the user to see an estimate of monthly sales for a sales rank in a specific category.
There is a huge emphasis here on ESTIMATE as there is no perfect way to predict exactly how fast an item is going to sell.
Currently, they provide insights for 20 different categories in the US marketplace. Although they do offer functionality for other marketplaces outside of the United States, they are only available in the $500/month and up plans.
The graphs are also interactive. You can hover your cursor over any point in the graph and see how many units are estimated to be selling at that point.
The best part of this is that this feature is available for free to users in the US.
This was the tool I used when I first started out when I wanted to get an estimate on how many products were selling for a specific sales rank in a category.
#2 Price List Analysis
If you have a list of items and prices, you can upload them into FBA Toolkit and see an analysis of their profitability, estimated sales per month, and more.
This is helpful if you have manifests from wholesale suppliers that have details on costs per unit.
A downside here is the limitations on daily price list scans. If you have a manifest over 1,000 items (which is common) you will need the $250/month plan to scan all of them in one day. If not, you'll need to break up the list and scan it over several days.
#3 Product Tracking
We can track items and their sales and pricing over time with FBA Toolkit. The problem here is that the limitations on items you can track are insane (250 total on the $50/month plan) and the amount of data being tracked is nowhere near as robust as better tools like Keepa or even CamelCamelCamel.
If you're buying FBA Toolkit just for tracking, dear God, please don't. Go buy a Keepa subscription for $17/month instead. It lets you track 5,000 items at a time and doesn't restrict you by marketplace.
FBA Toolkit Mobile App
The mobile app is...not good.
The free Amazon app is much better. Basic functionality like entering your buy costs is not possible with the FBA Toolkit mobile app.
Add on to that the fact that you are limited to 100 scans per day on the basic plan and this becomes a total non-consideration for Amazon retail arbitrage sellers.
FBA Toolkit Pricing
This is where I really struggle with recommending FBA Toolkit. The pricing is absurd to me and illogical.
The limits of each plan are extremely restrictive. 100 barcode scans per day isn't going to cut it for a serious retail arbitrage seller.
And why is the price jump so severe for each upgrade?
$5 to $50, $50 to $250, $250 to $500 and then $500 to $1,000!
I just do not get it. Let me know in the comments if I'm missing something.
And remember, unless you want to make the dramatic leap to the $500/month plan, you will only have access to data in the Amazon.com marketplace.
FBA Toolkit Alternatives
Although I love the fact that the estimated orders per month graphs and widgets are free, I simply cannot recommend FBA Toolkit's paid plans to my readers. There are too many better options with much better pricing and more functionality.
Here are the best alternatives to Amazon FBA Toolkit.
#1 Keepa for Tracking and Graphs
Keepa shows you much more information than FBA Toolkit and they charge just $17/month. You can track up to 5,000 items and they give you access to all the marketplaces, without charging you $500/month. Read more about how Amazon sellers use Keepa here.
#2 Seller Amp or RevSeller for Estimated Units
If you want estimated units selling per month, check out one of these tools.
#3 Scanpower or Scoutify for Barcode Scanning
If you're doing retail arbitrage and want a good app for scanning on the go, don't restrict yourself with FBA Toolkit's insanely low scan limits. Scanpower and Scoutify each offer unlimited scans.
#4 Tactical Arbitrage for List Uploads
If you want to analyze large lists of ASINs, check out Tactical Arbitrage. It offers several other powerful features for product sourcing, but the wholesale list scanning is very popular, robust and affordable compared to FBA Toolkit.
Final Word
God bless the team at FBA Toolkit for making their sales rank order estimates page free, but the paid options are simply not worth it.
Tools like Keepa, Scanpower and Tactical Arbitrage offer replacement functionality for much better prices.