Keepa starts charging for sales rank graphs: Here’s how to see them for free.
Update: Not long after this article went live, Keepa put all their sales rank data behind a paywall, rendering this article mostly obsolete.
Some good news: I got together with some developers and put together a new, simpler historical sales rank tool for a much lower price called TruRank: www.TruRank.co
In this article:
- After CamelCamcelCamel meltdown, Keepa puts sales rank charts behind a paywall.
- Why seller panic is vastly overblown.
- How you can still see Keepa sales rank graphs: Free
So what’s the deal with new Keepa changes?
Over the past three weeks, a strange turn of events caused a meltdown with one historical
Here’s the story…
On January 26th, the lights went dark at CamelCamelCamel.com, the other well-known historical data extension and website (after Keepa). A server meltdown caused CCC to lose all their data for a period, leaving CCC users only one (free) option: Keepa.
While CamelCamelCamel was able to restore much of their data after a few weeks, there was one permanent casualty: Their sales rank charts. CCC appers to have lost all their sales rank data.
Keepa sees blood in the water
Quick to capitalize, Keepa – suddenly finding their own sales rank data scarce and in high demand – immediately put their own sales rank charts behind a paywall. As the only game in town now, Keepa gained the instant leverage to begin charging 15 Euros (about $17) a month to access their sales rank data (and a few other things).
Cutthroat capitalism.
Why you should care about new Keepa changes
What does this mean for us?
Keepa does a lot of things. I’m not going to begin to cover every Keepa feature that’s behind a paywall, but I’ll tell you what I used Keepa for, in descending order of importance:
- Repricing. This is the big one. If you’re doing manual repricing (which you should be) or having a VA do it, the ability to see the sales rank charts on every
Amazon product page when you click over is a massive time saver. You can’t know how to price if you don’t know either an item’s average sales rank, or its recent sales history (in graph form). I most heavily depend on Keepa for repricing. - Online sourcing (aka online book arbitrage). When sourcing online, the historical sales rank charts are valuable for the same reason. But Keepa offers another huge benefit when sourcing online: the historical pricing charts. Since I’m paying
Amazon prices when sourcing online, I need to know: Am I overpaying or underpaying now, relative to the historical average? Thankfully, the historical pricing charts are still free (until CamelCamelCamel loses that data as well).
Keepa has a million features (and most of them are still free), but those are the big ones.
Fake news: Keepa still shows you historical sales rank data
This is why I feel “the sky is falling” freak out over Keepa changes are overblown.
- All pricing history charts are still free.
- There are two simple ways you can still view historical sales rank data.
If there’s one thing as immutable as death and taxes, its that
Such is the case with Keepa changes. While the dominant take was “Keepa is now charging money to use,” the facts are much different. Very little has changed, pricing charts are unaffected, and you can still see historical sales rank data (more on that in a moment).
Everything that was free is still free, except these portions of the graph:
Nothing too serious going on here, except the sales rank data.
But that sales rank data is still available, which most people miss.
Let me explain…
Where to find Keepa sales rank charts and historical data
Place #1: The statistics tab
Hover over the stats tab, and you get this popup chart that displays the most relevant sales rank data, which I consider even more useful than the graph.
When I’m looking at sales rank data, squiggly lines on a chart aren’t terribly important to me. What I want is a hard number: What’s the average sales rank over a given period? With this option, you get the six month rank. This is more than sufficient.
The only downside is that it now adds an extra step of hovering over the statistics tab to view. But that’s it.
Place #2: The settings tab
So let’s say you’re not a numbers person, and you’re absolutely hooked on those squiggly lines. Like, you can’t live without them, and now they’re behind a paywall.
Actually, they’re not.
Go to Settings -> Add On Settings – Show Price History Graphs As Overlays
This restores the squiggly lines you can’t live without, when you hover over the cover of any book.
Here’s what that looks like:
(Yes I’m aware my book is not exactly an
This isn’t quite a 1-for-1 replacement of the “old way,” given that you can only view these in the search results or “Customers Who Purchases This Also Purchased…” lineup, but if you need the charts, there they are. Not as big, and not as adjustable, but they didn’t go anywhere.
Recap of what hasn’t changed at Keepa
- You can still view Keepa historical sales rank figures (Statistics tab)
- You can still view Keepa historical pricing charts (free as always)
- You can still view Keepa squiggly line sales rank charts (enable in settings)
New Keepa changes simply aren’t a big deal.
-Peter Valley
PS: If you missed it above, Keepa put most of their sales rank data behind a paywall after this article went live, so I released a new and simpler historical sales rank tool (for a cheaper price) called TruRank. See how it works here.
PPS: Here’s the video version of this article:
![](<iframe src="//rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?o=1&p=42&l=ur1&category=amazonhomepage&f=ifr&linkID=581ff15955029b80d81e053ef046aa1e&t=fbamastery-20&tracking_id=fbamastery-20" width="234" height="60" scrolling="no" border="0" marginwidth="0" style="border:none;" frameborder="0"></iframe>)
For repricing purposes do you think it makes a difference whether using Keepa’s six-month average rank or Scoutly’s one-year average rank? It seems that most of the time the six-month figure is several thousand lower (better) than the yearly number.
I’m I wrong but you cant see if Amazon is sharing the BB?
Didn’t work for me, not blocking popups, really wanted it to work.
Might be your browser, but it definitely works.
I am one of those squiggly line lovers. I tried following your tips but I still do not get sales rank line in the graphs. You mentioned that “You can still view Keepa squiggly line sales rank charts (enable in settings)” I don’t see in “settings” where I can enable the sales rank. Any suggestions?
Its right there at the top of the Keepa extension display.
I think for non-textbooks six months is better, and for textbooks 12 month is better (two textbook seasons).
I’m using Firefox and assuming you are using Chrome?
I’m using Firefox myself.
Peter: Hands down the best quote I’ve read in years about kindergarten playgroun…, er, I mean the typical Amazon ‘expert’ on social media: “If there’s one thing as immutable as death and taxes, its that Amazon seller forums will reduce a problem to it’s most sensational and catastrophic possible interpretation – even when that version of the facts is 100% false.” … This is why Amazon sellers need experts like you. Keep it coming.
Wow man! I merely stand the shoulders of giants like yourself. Why are all these fake experts such buzzkills?
Great info! Thanks Peter.
I followed your instructions exactly and it worked exactly as you said. I’m using Google Chrome.
I also noticed that on your settings you did not change the “Display product’s stock quantity for some merchants on offer pages” to yes. It seems this would be a nice piece of information to view. No?
Awesoeme! That Keepa feature is useful but I use an extension called How Many that for some reason displays stock Keepa often won’t.
Peter – when it says “‘Drops’ a month” under sales rank is that how many times a book has sold that month?
Drops don’t exactly means sales, just when they detected the rank dropped to a lower number. Should mean a sale, but its an inexact calculation.
What do the drops mean, if not sales?
What I said above: when they detected the rank dropped to a lower number. They can’t monitor every item every hour so its not a measure of sales.
Just checked this on May 3… Looks like Keepa has removed this option and has now locked the average sales rank data behind their paywall as well. I’m probably going to end up subscribing… sales rank data is too valuable to go without. Oh well, the free access was nice while it lasted.
Yes, it was fun while it lasted.
For this interested, I developed a (cheaper) tool specifically for those wanting streamlined sales rank data: http://www.trurank.co
Just a thought…..if the Keepa data is so important to our business then what if we just pay the 15 euros a month? Maybe they’ll stay in business or maybe be able to afford the servers and backup all this precious data? Just sayin….
Helium 10 has a BSR graph in their chrome extension that shows up on the detail page. It’s free