Keepa alternatives for Amazon price history versus MCP data

Keepa remains the Amazon price-history tool to beat. Keepa Pro is 29 EUR a month or 290 EUR a year, with a separate API token bucket and a hosted MCP at keepa.com/mcp that spends that API key. CamelCamelCamel is the free tracker for shoppers who only need drop alerts. Jungle Scout and Helium 10 are seller suites, not chart clones; Catalyst prices stay behind a button, Helium 10 Platinum starts at $129 a month. Trends MCP is not a Keepa replacement for ASIN tapes. It is the MCP plus REST option for live Amazon best-seller boards, default limit 25, max 200, plus an amazon keyword source.

Which Keepa alternative matches which Amazon job?

Keepa is an Amazon price tracker first. The homepage titles the product "Amazon Price Tracker" and the Chrome listing (accessed 8 Sep 2026) still sells charts, drop alerts, and Lightning Deal watches on over 7 billion products. A Keepa alternative only wins if it actually covers the job that made the buyer search: a cheaper chart, a seller research suite, or a feed an AI agent can call.

Price history is Keepa's lane. CamelCamelCamel, launched in 2008, is the closest free substitute for shoppers. Jungle Scout Catalyst and Helium 10 Platinum/Diamond are product-research and ops suites; they estimate demand and track ASINs, but they do not publish Keepa-style per-offer graphs as the product. Trends MCP answers a different query: live Amazon best-seller boards and an amazon search-volume keyword source, callable from Cursor, Claude, or REST.

If the brief is "show the Buy Box tape for B0F3GWXLTS," Keepa (or Keepa MCP) is still the tool. If the brief is "what climbed in Toys Games this week, and how does that compare with Google and TikTok," Trends MCP is the one that belongs in the set.

How the five tools compare on 8 Sep 2026

Keepa Pro euros come from the official FAQ strings in https://keepa.com/cdn/languages/en.json (_751 / _753) and from SettingsSubscription.PROMO_PRICE_PRO_MONTH:29 in https://keepa.com/cdn/20260907/keepa.js. Jungle Scout Catalyst list prices were not on junglescout.com/pricing on this fetch. Helium 10 dollars are from helium10.com/pricing. Trends MCP dollars are from pricing.md (last updated 8 Sep 2026). A full Keepa SKU walkthrough lives on Keepa pricing.

Is CamelCamelCamel still the free Keepa alternative?

Yes, for shoppers. Wikipedia's Camelcamelcamel article (last edited 21 Nov 2024) describes a site launched in 2008 that tracks Amazon prices, with coverage listed as Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. That is the historical free Keepa alternative most roundups still name.

The camelcamelcamel.com homepage returned HTTP 403 to this run, so this post does not quote a live watch limit, a Camelizer user count, or a current marketplace grid from the site itself. Keepa, by contrast, is fetchable: a free account is not required for charts and Deals (_1734 in en.json), and Pro adds Product Finder, Product Viewer, Top Seller lists, the full Deals table, sales-rank and offer-count graphs, and tracking up to 10,000 selected products (_1688).

Keepa is also heavier. Pro quota refills 5% per hour to 100% (_1694); the Product Viewer example in _1698 is 36,000 products per day. There is no public free trial (_757 / _759). Billing is euro-only (_774 / _777). Those constraints are why shoppers still look for CamelCamelCamel, and why sellers who outgrow a browser chart start looking at Jungle Scout or Helium 10 instead.

Can a seller suite replace Keepa Pro?

Only if the buyer never needed Keepa's graph. Jungle Scout's pricing page (accessed 8 Sep 2026) splits the catalog into Catalyst for sellers under $1M Amazon revenue and Cobalt for $1M+. Catalyst is 7-day money-back, not a free trial. Extra seats are $49 a month or $459 a year. Starter is 1 user, Growth Accelerator 1 user, Brand Owner 3 users. The comparison grid prints 140 vs 800+ metrics, 200 vs 20,000 ASINs, 1 vs 6 integrations, and 8 vs 19 Amazon marketplaces. Marketing on the same page: 1M+ customers, 18x GMV coverage, 11 years of sales-estimate work, 600M+ products across 24 categories.

Jungle Scout MCP is a separate surface. The product page (accessed 8 Sep 2026) cites 40,000 active seller engagements and 18% of Amazon GMV, and it is Cobalt-backed with a demo path. There was no paste-ready Cursor mcp.json on that page.

Helium 10 is the other suite people try after Keepa. Public cards on 8 Sep 2026: Platinum $129 a month or $99 on the yearly toggle ("Saves $360") for $0–$100K yearly sales; Diamond $359 or $279 yearly ("Saves $960") for $100K–$10M; Enterprise from $1499 a month, billed annually, for beyond $10M. Trust copy on the same page: 4.5 million brands, $7B+ monthly Amazon GMV, 860K+ Chrome extension users, 24+ marketplaces. The MCP add-on row on pricing is "Starting at $50/mo"; the Helium MCP landing page says Diamond plan customers get it at no additional cost. Cite both. That landing page named Claude, GPT, and Cursor and still had no paste-ready Cursor JSON.

Neither suite publishes Keepa's token costs. Keepa's REST best-sellers call is 50 tokens per list and, on the 8 Sep 2026 overview, contains up to 100,000 ASINs (https://keepa.com/api-docs/). Unused API tokens expire after 60 minutes. Dedicated API plans start at 20 tokens per minute and are billed separately from Pro (keepa.js). Keepa Pro already drips 1 token per minute. Euro SKUs for those dedicated rates sit behind the signed-in #!api page, so this post does not invent them.

What Cursor JSON looks like for Keepa MCP versus Trends MCP

Keepa MCP and Trends MCP are both hosted Streamable HTTP servers, and they are not interchangeable. Keepa's own MCP page (https://keepa.com/api-docs/mcp.html, accessed 8 Sep 2026) requires an active Keepa API subscription. Tool calls spend the same tokens as REST. Claude.ai custom connectors cannot connect yet because that UI is OAuth-only; OAuth is planned. Cursor's official sample omits transport.

Keepa, Cursor (~/.cursor/mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "keepa": {
      "url": "https://keepa.com/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

Trends MCP, Cursor (~/.cursor/mcp.json), from docs.md accessed 8 Sep 2026:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "trends-mcp": {
      "url": "https://api.trendsmcp.ai/mcp",
      "transport": "http",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

That transport: "http" key is the durable difference. Keepa's published Cursor block has url plus headers only. Trends MCP's published Cursor block requires url, transport: "http", and the Bearer header against api.trendsmcp.ai. Windsurf on both products uses serverUrl instead of Cursor's url. Pasting Keepa's shape into a Trends MCP slot, or dropping transport from Trends MCP, is a real misconfig.

Keepa MCP then answers ASIN questions: Buy Box history, Product Finder filters, Lightning Deals, category best-seller lists, seller storefronts, trackings. Trends MCP answers board questions. A paid Cursor MCP call for Amazon looks like this:

{
  "mode": "get_top_trends",
  "type": "Amazon Best Sellers by Category",
  "category": "Toys Games",
  "sort": "rank_change",
  "window": "7d",
  "limit": 10
}

type is required. category is required for Amazon Best Sellers by Category. Official names on docs.md (8 Sep 2026) are the 26 strings Appliances, Apps Games, Arts Crafts Sewing, Automotive, Baby, Beauty Personal Care, Books, Camera Photo, Clothing Shoes Jewelry, Computers Accessories, Electronics, Grocery Gourmet Food, Handmade Products, Health Household, Home Kitchen, Industrial Scientific, Kitchen Dining, Musical Instruments, Office Products, Patio Lawn Garden, Pet Supplies, Software, Sports Outdoors, Tools Home Improvement, Toys Games, Video Games. Default limit is 25, max 200. Free plan boards return the top 10 and pin offset at 0.

The Amazon Best Sellers by Category API page is the matching landing URL for that feed. Keepa's /bestsellers endpoint is the opposite shape: 50 tokens, up to 100,000 ASINs, keyed by Amazon category ID, not those 26 space-separated names.

FAQ

Is there a free Keepa alternative for price drop alerts?

CamelCamelCamel is the free Amazon price tracker most shoppers still use, and Keepa's own free layer already shows charts and Deals without an account. Keepa Pro (29 EUR/month or 290 EUR/year) is the paid browser SKU for Finder, Viewer, Top Seller lists, and 10,000-product tracking. Trends MCP's Free plan is $0 for 100 requests a month with no card, but it is a trend API, not a Keepa chart.

Does Keepa MCP work on a Pro-only account?

No. Keepa's MCP docs say the hosted server at https://keepa.com/mcp needs an API subscription and the API access key from the account's API page. Pro already generates 1 token per minute; dedicated API plans start at 20 tokens per minute and are billed separately. Trends MCP issues a tmcp_live_… key by email with no card on Free.

Can Trends MCP replace Keepa's price history?

No. Trends MCP does not return Keepa's per-ASIN offer tape, Buy Box history, or Graph Image charts. It ranks live Amazon best-seller boards and scores an amazon keyword source on a 0-100 index with about 5 years of weekly points on docs.md. Keep that split honest: Keepa for the tape, Trends MCP for the board.

Why hide Jungle Scout Catalyst prices in a Keepa alternatives table?

Because they were not on the public pricing page on 8 Sep 2026. The Catalyst monthly SKUs sit behind "View Catalyst Pricing." Third-party $49 / $79 / $149 grids are not quoted here. What is public: 7-day money-back, extra seats $49/mo or $459/year, and the Catalyst vs Cobalt feature grid. Check current pricing on Jungle Scout's site before buying.

Does Keepa offer discounts or a trial?

The Keepa FAQ (_757 / _759) says no free trials, coupons, or promotional discounts. The same FAQ's price answer (_753) is yearly 290 EUR for 12 months at the price of 10. Keepa API docs (plans-tokens.html) also state that Keepa does not offer discounts. Those three sentences sit on official Keepa properties at once. Treat Pro's 12-for-10 yearly SKU as the published exception, and treat dedicated API euros as login-gated.

Sources (accessed 8 Sep 2026): Keepa language pack, keepa.js 20260907, Keepa API overview, Keepa MCP, Keepa Plans & Tokens, Keepa Chrome Web Store listing (4.7/5, 5.1K ratings, 4,000,000 users), Jungle Scout pricing, Jungle Scout MCP, Helium 10 pricing, Helium MCP, Wikipedia Camelcamelcamel.