Sonar Keyword Tool Review (2026): It's Retired — What to Use Instead

The short answer: Sonar is retired, and you cannot use it. The Perpetua page that hosted the free Amazon keyword tool now opens with a notice reading, verbatim, “We’re sorry, but this feature is no longer available.” — checked 2026-08-06. The page still returns HTTP 200 and still carries the old marketing copy underneath the notice, which is why so many 2026 “best free Amazon keyword tool” roundups keep listing it. If you came here to decide whether Sonar is worth using, the decision is made for you. Skip to the replacements ; the free ones cover most of what Sonar did for casual users.

This is a status review, not a feature evaluation — there is no working product left to evaluate. What follows is the evidence for the retirement, why the internet has not caught up, and what a seller who used Sonar as a free second opinion should do instead.

Sonar is retired: the evidence, checked 2026-08-06

Perpetua acquired Sellics, and Sonar came with it. That much is still verifiable: requesting sellics.com on 2026-08-06 returns a redirect chain ending at perpetua.io.

The tool itself is a different story. Here is every host a seller is likely to land on when hunting for Sonar, and what each returned on 2026-08-06:

The single sentence that settles it is on Perpetua’s own page, quoted verbatim: “We’re sorry, but this feature is no longer available. Check out the top navigation bar and click on ‘Products’ and ‘Services’ in the dropdown to see all the ways we can help you optimize your retail media.”

Two things that notice does not contain are worth naming, because their absence is what keeps the confusion alive. There is no date on it, and there is no linked sunset announcement. We found no dated official statement from Perpetua explaining when Sonar was switched off. Secondary sources have described Sonar as a legacy Sellics feature scheduled for discontinuation since around August 2025, but that is third-party reporting, not a Perpetua announcement, and we could not verify it against an official page.

Why 2026 roundups still call Sonar a live free tool

This is the part worth internalising, because it will happen again with the next retired tool.

A 200 status code is not proof of life. Perpetua kept the Sonar landing page online and left the sales copy on it. Any process that checks whether a link is “broken” — an automated link checker, a writer pasting the URL and seeing a page load, an AI summariser reading the page body — sees a live page describing a free keyword tool with a large database. The retirement notice is one sentence sitting above copy that runs for several screens. It is genuinely easy to miss.

The result is a citation loop. Third-party review pages published or updated for 2026 still describe Sonar as free and available, aggregator directories still carry it as an active product with alternatives listed beside it, and “best free Amazon keyword tools” posts still put it on the list. Each one is a plausible-looking source for the next writer.

We are not exempt. On this site, our MerchantWords alternatives guide recommended Sonar as the free second opinion on the basis of a 2026-07-28 check of exactly this page — the check read the marketing copy and missed the notice. That page was corrected on 2026-08-06. If you read it before that date, the Sonar recommendation in it was wrong.

The practical rule for anyone auditing a tool stack: for a free tool, verify by reaching the working interface, not by loading the marketing page. Free tools get retired quietly because there is no billing relationship that forces a notification. Paid tools email you; free tools just stop.

What Sonar did, and what you actually lose

Sonar’s landing page still describes the product, so its scope is documented even though it is unreachable. As described on that page (checked 2026-08-06), Sonar offered a keyword database built from real Amazon shopper searches — the page cites more than 180 million keywords — with per-keyword search volume, a reverse-ASIN lookup that returned the keywords a competitor’s product ranked for, and a keyword translator. Coverage was limited to Amazon US and Amazon DE. It cost nothing.

That combination explains its long popularity. Free reverse ASIN is rare: in most paid suites, reverse ASIN sits at or above the entry tier, which is precisely the paywall sellers were routing around by using Sonar.

So the honest accounting of the loss depends entirely on how you used it:

• If Sonar was a free second opinion next to a paid suite, you have lost a cross-check, not a workflow. Replacing it is cheap or free.
• If Sonar was your only reverse-ASIN source, you have lost a real capability and the replacement costs money — or requires Brand Registry.
• If you sell outside the US and Germany, Sonar was never covering you anyway, and its retirement changes nothing about your stack.

Sonar on the 8-dimension scorecard

Our 8-dimension scorecard exists to compare working tools. Applying it here honestly means refusing to score most of it, because scoring accuracy or ease of use for software nobody can open would be fabrication.

The only defensible summary score is the one every retired tool gets: do not put it in your stack.

Free replacements that still work in 2026

Ranked by how closely each covers what Sonar actually did.

Amazon Brand Analytics — the closest thing to ground truth. If you are enrolled in Brand Registry, Seller Central gives you Amazon’s own search-term data at no additional cost, including search frequency rank and the ASINs winning clicks per term (verified on this site 2026-07-28). It beats Sonar on data provenance because it is Amazon’s own data rather than an inference from it. The catch is the gate: no Brand Registry, no access. Check your own Seller Central account, since eligibility follows your brand enrolment status.

Helium 10’s free plan — for occasional reverse-ASIN checks. Helium 10 does have a permanent free tier with limited functionality, including limited Chrome extension features (data checked 2026-07-20 on the official pricing page). It is capped, and the caps are the point of the free tier, but for a seller who ran a handful of competitor lookups a month it can absorb that load without a subscription. Verify the specific module you need is included before you plan around it — Helium 10’s tier-to-module mapping changes, and it is the single most misreported thing about this product. Details on Helium 10 .

Amazon’s own search suggestions — free, unlimited, and closest to buyer intent. Autocomplete expansion is the technique behind a fair share of what paid keyword tools resell. Our guide to Amazon search suggestion expander tools covers which of these are still live, and it is the page where we first documented Sonar’s retirement notice.

AMZBase — a free Chrome extension with search-suggestion expansion. AMZBase is a free extension that overlays ASIN, BSR, lowest FBA offer and FBA seller count on Amazon search and detail pages, with hover access to CamelCamelCamel price history and Keepa rank history, plus search suggestion expansion, across 20+ marketplaces (checked 2026-07-27). It does not replace reverse ASIN, but it covers the free-tool-in-the-browser slot Sonar occupied.

What none of these give you free is Sonar’s specific combination of keyword volume plus reverse ASIN with no account gate. That combination is now paid.

Paid replacements, priced

If reverse ASIN was the reason you used Sonar, here is the ladder. Prices are from each vendor’s official pricing page on the date shown; confirm the current figure before you buy.

Helium 10 is the default recommendation for a Sonar refugee whose blocker was reverse ASIN. Platinum is the entry paid tier and covers keyword and product research; the next tier, Diamond, runs $359 month-to-month or $279/month billed annually and adds full profit and loss reporting, inventory management and 1,000 tracked ASINs. Enterprise starts at $1,499/month. All figures data checked 2026-07-20.

Jungle Scout publishes its annual plans clearly — $348, $588 and $1,548 per year for Starter, Growth Accelerator and Brand Owner respectively (checked 2026-07-23) — but its month-to-month figures are less consistently published, and third-party sources disagree on the Starter monthly price. Price the annual plan, or confirm the monthly number on the official page before you commit.

SellerSprite is the volume-per-dollar option: Basic at $39/month allows 50 exports per day, the same daily export ceiling as its higher tiers, with tracker quotas rather than export limits separating the plans. There is no permanent free tier, only a 3-day trial (checked 2026-07-20).

MerchantWords is worth naming only if broad international volume was your reason for looking. Silver at $35/month is single-country and capped at 500 searches; global coverage sits at Platinum, $149/month (checked 2026-07-20). Our MerchantWords alternatives guide breaks down which limit tends to push sellers off it.

For how these fit into a full research routine rather than being bought in isolation, see the keyword research workflow and the true-cost pricing comparison .

Migrating off Sonar in an afternoon

1. Find every place Sonar is still in your process. Bookmarks, SOP documents, VA instructions, spreadsheet templates with a “Sonar volume” column. A retired free tool leaves more residue than a cancelled subscription because nothing forced you to notice.
2. Classify what you used it for. Volume look-ups, reverse ASIN, or German-market translation. Each maps to a different replacement, and most sellers only need one.
3. Try free before paid, in this order. Brand Analytics if you are brand-registered, then Helium 10’s free tier for occasional reverse ASIN, then autocomplete expansion for discovery breadth.
4. Re-baseline your numbers, do not port them. Search volume figures are not comparable across vendors — each estimates differently. Any historical Sonar volume in your spreadsheets is now both stale and methodologically orphaned. Re-pull the terms that matter in whichever tool you land on and treat the new numbers as the baseline.
5. Date-stamp the replacement. Write the check date next to the tool name in your SOP. That habit is the only thing that would have caught Sonar’s retirement in the first place.

If you are rebuilding the research process from scratch, our Amazon keyword research guide covers the method independent of any one tool, and our keyword tools roundup tracks what is currently live.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Sonar keyword tool still free? The question no longer applies. Sonar is not available at any price. Perpetua’s page for it opens with “We’re sorry, but this feature is no longer available.” (checked 2026-08-06). Pages describing it as a free working tool in 2026 are reading marketing copy that was left online below that notice.

What happened to Sonar by Sellics? Perpetua acquired Sellics — sellics.com redirects to perpetua.io as of 2026-08-06 — and Sonar came across as part of that. It has since been retired. We found no dated official announcement of the shutdown; the notice on the page carries no date.

Is there a free Sonar alternative with reverse ASIN? Partly. Helium 10’s free tier includes limited functionality that can absorb occasional lookups (data checked 2026-07-20), and brand-registered sellers get richer data free through Amazon Brand Analytics. There is no like-for-like free replacement offering Sonar’s ungated combination of volume plus reverse ASIN.

Does Perpetua still offer keyword tools? Perpetua’s retirement notice directs visitors to its current Products and Services menus, which are oriented around retail media and advertising management rather than standalone free keyword research. Check perpetua.io directly for its current line-up before assuming a specific replacement exists.

Was sonartool.com the official Sonar site? sonartool.com currently redirects to a HugeDomains listing offering the domain for sale (checked 2026-08-06). Treat any tool reached through a domain-sale page as unrelated to the original product, whatever the name suggests.

Disclosure: amzfinder may earn a commission if you subscribe through the Helium 10 link, at no extra cost to you. Helium 10 is the only affiliate link here; every other tool is named without affiliate tracking. We do not accept paid placement or sponsored reviews, and commission does not affect the ordering. Tool status was checked on 2026-08-06 and pricing on the dates shown against each vendor’s official pages; confirm current figures before you buy. Last updated: August 2026.