69 products · 3,179 keywords · 37,541 keyword-days · Sep 10 to 24, 2026 · five brands we manage
01How we compared them
When we switched to SoldScope, we left Helium 10 running on the same keyword lists. That gave us two weeks, September 10 to 24, where both tools tracked the same things. We lined them up by marketplace, product, keyword and day.
The sample is 69 products from five brands we manage: home textiles, skincare, supplements, insect repellent and home fragrance, sold in the US, Germany, Spain, France and Italy. That's 3,179 product and keyword pairs, and 37,541 keyword-days with data in both tools.
The two tools don't check the same way. Helium 10 checks each keyword once a day, at about the same time every day. SoldScope checks each keyword once, twice, three or four times a day and reports the median of that day's checks. If none of them finds the product, it reports it as not found. Both stop looking after position 306, so a product further down counts as not found in both.
Before comparing anything, we checked the matching. SoldScope imported our Helium 10 history when we moved, so for July and August the two data sets should be identical. They are: 99.95% of 155,558 keyword-days show the same value, which tells us every keyword is paired with the right product. From September 9 SoldScope runs its own checks, and the share of identical values drops to about half.
No column means no Helium 10 data in our records that day (Aug 30, Sep 5 to 7, Sep 20). A few days only have part of the keywords.
About half sounds low. But most of that half is keywords where neither tool finds the product, and the positions that do differ are mostly close together. The next sections go through it.
02Does the product show up at all?
The first question is simple: is the product in the results or not? On 95% of keyword-days the two tools agree. Both find it on 55%, and neither finds it on 41%.
When they disagree, the product is usually deep in the results: about three quarters of these cases are past position 95 in the tool that did find it. When only one tool finds the product, it's SoldScope about twice as often (1,227 keyword-days against 565). That's mostly down to how SoldScope counts. It checks up to four times a day and reports the product as found if any of those checks found it. On 658 of the 1,227 days, only some of its checks did. For three products it also tracks the whole variation family, which we come back to further down.
The top 10 matters most, because that's where the clicks are. When either tool puts the product in the top 10, the other one does too 83% of the time. In the other 17% the second tool usually has it just outside: 4 in 5 of those cases are at #11 to #19.
03How close are the positions?
When both tools find the product, they show the identical position on 19% of keyword-days and are within 3 positions of each other on 55%.
It depends a lot on where the product ranks. At the top of the page they almost always match: in positions 1 to 3 they show the identical rank 87% of the time. Below the top 10 they're usually a few positions apart. In relative terms the gap stays small. The typical difference is 7 to 13% of the rank, so #50 in one tool is about #54 in the other.
Rank is the average of the two tools' positions. The right-hand column is the share within 3 positions. Hover a segment for the count.
Show the numbers
| Rank | Keyword-days | Same position | 1 apart | 2-3 apart | 4-10 apart | 11+ apart | Typical gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1-3 | 1,466 | 87% (1,275) | 10% (142) | 3% (46) | 0% (3) | 0% (0) | 0% of rank |
| #4-10 | 2,589 | 41% (1,073) | 34% (877) | 19% (499) | 5% (132) | 0% (8) | 12% of rank |
| #11-20 | 2,481 | 18% (457) | 24% (587) | 24% (596) | 25% (629) | 9% (212) | 13% of rank |
| #21-48 | 5,121 | 12% (599) | 20% (1,023) | 26% (1,328) | 31% (1,568) | 12% (603) | 9% of rank |
| #49-100 | 4,801 | 7% (313) | 11% (539) | 20% (951) | 35% (1,693) | 27% (1,305) | 8% of rank |
| #101-200 | 2,936 | 4% (104) | 7% (210) | 14% (403) | 31% (910) | 45% (1,309) | 7% of rank |
| #201-306 | 1,111 | 2% (24) | 5% (57) | 9% (99) | 23% (254) | 61% (677) | 7% of rank |
Neither tool is more optimistic. SoldScope shows the better rank on 39% of keyword-days and Helium 10 on 42%. On average the difference is half a position, and it stays under two positions in every marketplace.
Bins get wider further from zero. The chart is close to symmetric: the differences go both ways.
04Why the positions differ
Our first guess was timing. Amazon's results change during the day, and the two tools don't check at the same time. Helium 10 checks each keyword once a day, and in the US half of those checks happen between 2 and 4 pm Pacific. SoldScope checks on its own schedule and reports the median of the day.
But timing isn't it. Both tools record when they checked, so we could pair each Helium 10 check with a SoldScope check taken less than 30 minutes before or after it. Those pairs show the identical position 17% of the time and are within 3 positions 50% of the time. Against SoldScope's number for the whole day, the same Helium 10 checks give 16% and 52%. Checking at the same moment doesn't bring the tools any closer.
Within an hour instead of 30 minutes (2,426 checks), and in each marketplace on its own, the picture is the same.
So the two tools see somewhat different results even at the same moment. From the outside we can't tell exactly why. Amazon doesn't show one fixed list to everyone: results can differ with the delivery location and with the tests Amazon runs, and each tool runs its searches in its own way. Rank by location is real enough that SoldScope has a feature that tracks it by US state. We saw the same thing from another angle in our SQP study: one daily snapshot isn't what the average shopper sees.
What we can see is that the differences go both ways, and that they shrink where results are settled. When a product held the same position the day before, the day of and the day after in both tools, the two tools showed the same position 98% of the time. Most of those cases are in the top 3.
745 stable keyword-days: 609 in the top 3 and 117 at #4 to #10. Below #10 ranks almost never hold still for three days (19 keyword-days), too few to test.
In practice, a rank tracker gives you one version of the results. We track one product in two SoldScope groups with different check times, and even those two daily numbers are identical only a third of the time (86% are within 3 positions). Below the top 10, a move of 3 to 5 positions from one day to the next, or between two tools, is noise.
05Trends look the same in both
We don't make decisions on one day's rank. We look at whether a product gains or loses visibility over a week or two. For that we use a search-volume-weighted average rank per product: each keyword counts in proportion to its search volume, and a keyword where the product isn't found counts as #306. It's the same number the rank trend chart in our app shows.
On that measure both tools show the same direction for 59 of the 68 products. In the nine that disagree, at least one tool barely moved: less than 10 positions over the two weeks. There was no product where one tool showed a big gain and the other a big loss. Per keyword, the two-week average rank differs by a median of 1.6 positions between the tools, and for top 10 keywords 98% end up within 3 positions of each other.
Days where our Helium 10 records miss part of a product's keywords are left out. If you count moves under 5 positions as no move, 55 of 68 products match.
Here are six of them day by day. When a product really moves, both tools show it on the same day: the French kitchen towels dropped on September 21 in both. The eye cream is one of the nine that disagree. It has three keywords, so one keyword dropping in or out of the results moves its average a lot.
Six of the 68 products, picked to show the range. Days with missing data are skipped.
06Where the tools really differ
Search volume. SoldScope's search volumes are higher, a median of 1.8 times Helium 10's across 1,396 keywords. In Germany it's 2.8 times, in the other four marketplaces 1.4 to 1.6 times. The order is almost the same in both tools (a rank correlation of 0.96), so either one tells you which keyword is bigger. Amazon doesn't publish search volumes, so we can't say which number is closer to the truth. Either way, don't mix volumes from the two tools in one sheet.
SoldScope doesn't report volumes much below 300 a month, so small keywords bunch up in a flat line at the bottom left.
Ads. Both tools also note when one of our sponsored ads shows up for a keyword. SoldScope saw one on 35% of keyword-days, Helium 10 on 15%. That's not a like-for-like comparison. SoldScope counts the ad if any of its checks that day saw it, and ads come and go: in a sample of our keywords, on more than half of the days where SoldScope saw our ad across several checks, only some of the checks saw it. Sponsored results change with almost every search, so a rank tracker is a weak way to measure ad visibility in either tool. Amazon's impression share reports are better for that, and our free Impression Share Analyzer reads them.
How often they check. Helium 10 checks each keyword once a day, and on some days not at all. In its own history for these two weeks, 15% of the daily entries are a copy of the day before, down to the same second. In Germany that's 27%, in the US 3%. SoldScope checks every keyword at least once a day: 46% once, the rest two to four times. If you watch deep keywords day by day in Helium 10, some of the flat stretches are days without a new check.
Helium 10's history only lists checks that found the product.
Variations. For three products, SoldScope tracks the whole variation family and Helium 10 one child listing. There SoldScope finds the product more often, because any variation counts. If you sell variations, check which ASIN your tracker actually follows.
07Same result in every category and marketplace
No category or marketplace stands out. Skincare looks tighter because those products rank higher on average, and at the top of the page the tools agree more.
| Category | Products | Keyword pairs | Found by both* | Same position | Within 3 | Median gap | Median rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home textilesDE, ES, FR, IT | 38 | 964 | 89% | 13% | 50% | 4 | #41 |
| Insect repellentUS | 3 | 766 | 94% | 13% | 48% | 4 | #36 |
| SkincareDE | 21 | 755 | 95% | 35% | 68% | 1 | #27 |
| SupplementsUS | 6 | 625 | 90% | 16% | 53% | 3 | #65 |
| Home fragranceUS | 1 | 69 | 97% | 22% | 73% | 2 | #15 |
| Marketplace | Products | Keyword pairs | Found by both* | Same position | Within 3 | Median gap | Median rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US | 10 | 1,460 | 93% | 15% | 51% | 3 | #41 |
| DE | 30 | 1,117 | 90% | 29% | 61% | 2 | #38 |
| ES | 13 | 355 | 95% | 15% | 55% | 3 | #35 |
| FR | 11 | 155 | 93% | 9% | 48% | 4 | #37 |
| IT | 5 | 92 | 91% | 18% | 54% | 3 | #44 |
* Both tools find the product, out of the keyword-days where at least one does. Same position, within 3 and the median gap are over keyword-days where both find it. Median rank is where the products typically sit.
08What we take from it
- 01
Either tool works for organic rank. They agree on whether you rank, on the top 10 and on trends. If you switch, your trend lines carry over.
- 02
Read trends, not single days. Below the top 10, the same keyword can sit a few positions apart from one check to the next, and from one tool to the other. A daily move of 3 to 5 positions there is noise. Look at 7 days before you react.
- 03
Don't mix search volumes from different tools. SoldScope's run about 1.8 times Helium 10's, and almost 3 times in Germany.
- 04
Don't judge ad visibility from a rank tracker. Sponsored results change with almost every search. Amazon's impression share reports are the better source.
- 05
Know how often your tracker checks. SoldScope checks up to four times a day and reports the median. Helium 10 checks once, and in Germany more than a quarter of its daily entries were a copy of the day before.
- 06
Store when the tool checked, not when you pulled the data. Our own daily import ran in the morning and filed the previous day's Helium 10 check under the new date. It took this comparison to notice.
09How we measured it
- Data. Helium 10: the daily snapshots our app stores, plus Helium 10's own check history for the timing test. SoldScope: the daily rank history and every single check from SoldScope's API.
- Matching. Same marketplace, same keyword, same product (ASIN). Three products are tracked as the parent listing in SoldScope and as one child in Helium 10. We paired those by their identical keyword lists.
- Window. September 10 to 24, 2026. September 9 was the switch-over day. Our records have no Helium 10 data for September 20, so 14 days have data in both tools.
- Lining up the days. SoldScope's number for a day is the median of that day's checks (UTC). Our daily Helium 10 import runs in the morning, European time, when the latest Helium 10 check for most keywords is from the day before, so our stored Helium 10 dates run one day late. We shifted them back by one day, which lines up the checks on 94 to 97% of rows. Using the stored dates instead changes most figures by 1 to 2 points, for example 17% identical instead of 19%.
- Same-time test. Helium 10's history gives the time of each check that found the product. We paired 1,090 of those checks with a SoldScope check less than 30 minutes away, and 2,426 within an hour.
- Not found. Both tools stop at position 306. Anything beyond that counts as not found in both.
- Stable ranks. The same position on the day before, the day itself and the day after, in each tool. The typical gap in section 03 is the median of the gap divided by the rank.
- Weighted rank. Search-volume-weighted average per product per day, with not found counted as #306 and weights from Helium 10's search volumes. A day counts for a product only if at least 90% of its keywords have data in both tools. Direction compares the average of the last three days with the first three. One product has no Helium 10 search volume for any of its keywords, so 68 of the 69 products have a trend. The per-keyword comparison uses keywords both tools found on at least 7 days.
- Limits. Two weeks, five brands, 69 products. The stable-rank test is mostly the top 3. The ad check-by-check numbers come from a sample of 40 keywords, and all ad numbers cover our own ads only.