Before we start, one thing you should know about every other article comparing these two tools.
Zik Analytics runs an affiliate programme. Terapeak does not, because it is free and owned by eBay.
So one of these tools pays people to recommend it, and the other one cannot. Have a guess which one wins most comparison posts.
We are not an affiliate for either. This Zik Analytics vs Terapeak comparison earns us nothing whichever way you go, which is the only reason it is worth reading.
Short version: most sellers should start with the free one and only pay when they hit a specific wall.
Everything below is checked against both companies’ own published pages, because Zik Analytics vs Terapeak is a comparison where the numbers get repeated wrongly for years.
In this guide, you will learn:
- What each tool actually costs per year
- Why one has better data and the other has a better workflow
- The three-year history most sellers do not know they already have
- How much extra profit a paid tool needs to make to be worth it
- Which one suits your specific type of selling
Key Takeaways
- Terapeak Product research is free to every seller with Seller Hub access.
- It gives you 3 years of eBay’s own sales data across all eBay marketplaces.
- Sell-through rate is only shown for items sold in the last 90 days.
- Terapeak Sourcing insights needs a Basic Store subscription or above.
- Zik Analytics starts at $39.90 a month for PRO, rising to $89.90 for Enterprise.
- That is $478.80 a year at the entry tier, against $0 for Terapeak Product research.
- Terapeak uses eBay’s first-party transaction data. Zik builds its own view from public eBay data.
- Terapeak only covers eBay. Zik also helps with sourcing from outside eBay, which matters for dropshippers.
- Zik’s advantage is speed and workflow, not access to secret numbers.
- At a 30% margin, Zik PRO only needs to generate about $133 a month in extra sales to pay for itself.
- A Basic Store also cuts your final value fee, so Sourcing insights is close to free if you turn over $3,100 a month.
- Start with Terapeak. Pay for Zik when you can name the exact thing Terapeak will not do.
What Each Tool Is, in One Paragraph
Terapeak is eBay’s own research tool, built into Seller Hub under the Research tab. It shows you what has actually sold on eBay, using eBay’s own records.
One naming note, because it confuses people daily. eBay’s help page for this now carries the title “Product research” while still sitting at a terapeak-research web address.
So when a forum post says Terapeak and Seller Hub says eBay product research, they mean the same thing. Nothing has been taken away from you.
Zik Analytics is an independent subscription tool built specifically for eBay sellers, with extra features aimed at dropshippers who source from outside eBay.
They overlap more than either would like to admit. The Zik Analytics vs Terapeak differences that actually matter are below.
Zik Analytics vs Terapeak: 7 Honest Differences
1. One Is Free and One Is Not
In any Zik Analytics vs Terapeak comparison, this is the difference everything else has to justify.
| Tool | Monthly | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Terapeak Product research | $0 | $0 |
| Terapeak Sourcing insights | Included with a Basic Store ($27.95) | $335.40 |
| Zik Analytics PRO | $39.90 | $478.80 |
| Zik Analytics PRO+ | $59.90 | $718.80 |
| Zik Analytics Enterprise | $89.90 | $1,078.80 |
There is a wrinkle in that Sourcing insights row that nobody points out.
A Basic Store does not only buy you research. It also drops your final value fee from 13.6% to 12.7% on most categories.
That saving covers the $27.95 subscription once you turn over about $3,106 a month. Above that line, Sourcing insights is effectively free and the Store is paying you.
Zik has no such trick. It is a cost, all year, every year. Our breakdown of what eBay actually charges sellers works through that Store maths in full.
2. First-Party Data vs Assembled Data
Terapeak is reading eBay’s own books. It is eBay’s tool, showing eBay’s records of what sold.
This is where the Zik Analytics vs Terapeak argument usually gets overheated, so here is the plain version.
Zik builds its picture from what eBay makes publicly available and layers its own analysis on top.
In practice both will tell you roughly the same story about whether something sells. When they disagree, though, the tool holding the original records is the one to believe.
This matters less than tool marketing suggests. Nobody is hiding a secret list of profitable products. They are both looking at the same sold listings; one just owns the filing cabinet.
3. Three Years of History, Free
Here is the thing most sellers do not realise they already have, and it settles a lot of the Zik Analytics vs Terapeak question on its own.
eBay states that Product research gives you the last 3 years of eBay sales data across millions of items, on every eBay marketplace.
Three years is enough to see something most tools cannot show you at all: whether a product is genuinely seasonal, or just had one good month.
What that free history includes:
- Sales trends over time
- Average sold price and the full sold price range
- Average shipping cost, and how many listings offer free shipping
- How many sellers have sold that item
- Which selling format the sales happened in
There is one important limit, and it is easy to trip over.
Sell-through rate only appears for items sold within the last 90 days. So you get three years of prices and one quarter of the demand ratio most sellers care about most.
If sell-through over longer periods is central to how you buy stock, that limit is a genuine reason to look at a paid tool. It is also the single most concrete gap in the free option.
4. eBay Only vs Sourcing From Anywhere
Terapeak knows about eBay. That is the whole scope, and it is not going to change.
Scope is the one place where Zik Analytics vs Terapeak is not a close contest.
If your question is “what sells on eBay and for how much”, eBay product research answers it completely.
If your question is “where do I buy this cheaper so I can list it on eBay”, Terapeak simply does not answer it. eBay has no commercial reason to help you find suppliers.
Zik does, and this is its clearest genuine advantage. Its tooling is built around finding a product, then finding a source for it elsewhere.
For anyone running an eBay dropshipping operation, that is not a nice extra. It is the actual job.
5. Speed of Workflow
This is what you are actually paying for in the Zik Analytics vs Terapeak trade, and it is worth being clear about it.
Zik sells convenience. Competitor research, category research, bulk scanning and a Chrome extension, all built to turn a research question into an answer in fewer clicks.
Terapeak sells accuracy. It will answer the same questions, just with more manual work from you.
So the honest framing is not “which tool knows more”. It is “how much is an hour of your time worth”.
If you research one product a week, the free tool is fine and the paid one is a subscription to a feeling.
If you screen forty products before every buying trip, the paid tool pays for itself before lunch.
6. Where It Lives
A small Zik Analytics vs Terapeak difference that turns out to matter more than it sounds.
Terapeak is inside Seller Hub, two clicks from your listings and your orders. There is nothing to log into and nothing to remember.
Zik is a separate application with its own login, its own tab and its own monthly reminder that you are paying for it.
Tools you have to remember to open get used less. That is not a criticism of Zik, it is just how software and human beings work.
Which is worth saying out loud: the most common way to waste $478.80 a year is to subscribe in a burst of enthusiasm and open it four times.
7. Who Is Paid to Recommend It
Back to where we started, because it explains almost every Zik Analytics vs Terapeak article you will read.
Zik Analytics operates an affiliate programme. Recommend it, someone signs up, you get paid.
Terapeak is a free feature of a marketplace. There is no commission, no link to share, no reason for anyone to make a video about it.
None of that makes Zik a bad tool. Plenty of good products pay affiliates, and plenty of honest reviewers disclose it properly.
But it does explain why the free option is strangely absent from a lot of “best eBay research tools” lists. It is hard to build a content business around recommending something that pays nothing.
When you read the next comparison, check the links before you check the conclusion.
What a Paid Tool Has to Earn to Be Worth It
Here is the calculation nobody does before subscribing, and it takes ten seconds.
It also reframes Zik Analytics vs Terapeak from a taste question into an arithmetic one.
Zik PRO costs $478.80 a year. If your net margin is 30%, you need $1,596 of extra sales across the year to cover it.
That is $133 a month.
What each option costs you every year
Twelve months at each published monthly rate. The free tier is not a trial or a teaser.
Arithmetic, not a study: published monthly rates multiplied by twelve. Zik costs less on annual billing. Rates from Zik and eBay.
$133 a month in extra sales is a low bar. One decent product find clears it.
And the bar moves with your margin, which is the part worth seeing.
Extra monthly sales needed to cover Zik PRO
$478.80 a year has to come back as profit. How much extra you must sell depends entirely on your margin.
Arithmetic, not a study: $478.80 divided by the margin, divided by twelve. Swap in your own numbers and the shape holds.
So the honest verdict on price is that Zik is not expensive. It is perfectly affordable for anyone with a real business.
The question is narrower than “can I afford it”. It is whether the paid tool finds you something the free one would have missed.
Run your own numbers with our profit margin calculator if you are not sure what your real margin is.
Which One Should You Use?
Find yourself in this table. For Zik Analytics vs Terapeak, who you are matters more than any feature list.
| If you are | Use | Because |
|---|---|---|
| New to eBay | Terapeak | Free, built in, and enough to make your first hundred decisions |
| Selling second-hand or thrift | Terapeak | You are pricing one-off items, not screening catalogues |
| Doing under $3,000 a month | Terapeak | A subscription is a real cost at that size |
| Dropshipping from outside eBay | Zik | Supplier-side sourcing is the one thing Terapeak cannot do |
| Screening dozens of products a week | Zik | The time saved is the product you are buying |
| Buying stock on long sell-through data | Zik | Terapeak’s sell-through only covers the last 90 days |
| Running an established eBay business | Both | Terapeak to verify, Zik to move quickly |
Notice that the bottom row is not a cop-out.
Serious sellers use the paid tool for speed and then check anything expensive against eBay’s own records before they commit money. That is not indecision, it is how you avoid buying 300 units on a number that turned out to be an estimate.
Whichever way you go, research is only one line in the monthly bill. A Store subscription, ad rates and fees all land on the same profit, which is why running the whole store as one set of numbers beats optimising any single tool.
How to Test This Properly in 30 Days
You can settle Zik Analytics vs Terapeak for your own business in a month, without taking anyone’s word for it, including ours.
- Use Terapeak properly for two weeks first. Not one search. Actually learn the filters.
- Write down the questions it could not answer. Be specific. “It was slow” is not a reason to spend $479.
- Take the $1 trial and try to answer exactly those questions with the paid tool.
- Count the answers. If it solved three or more real problems, subscribe. If it solved none, cancel before the trial ends.
Step two is the one people skip, and it is the only step that matters.
A tool that impresses you is not the same as a tool that answers a question you actually had. Software demos are designed to produce the first feeling.
Whichever you land on, the research is only half the job. What you do with the finding, in your titles, item specifics and pricing, is what turns it into sales. That is where eBay search optimisation takes over from research.
What Neither Tool Will Do For You
Worth saying plainly, because the whole Zik Analytics vs Terapeak debate skips past four things neither tool can do.
- Neither knows your costs. A product with wonderful sell-through can still lose you money once fees and postage land.
- Neither knows your competition tomorrow. A gap that looks open today closes the moment three other people run the same search.
- Neither writes your listing. Good data plus a bad listing is still a bad listing, and it is the more common failure by far.
- Neither ships anything. Sourcing, storage and returns remain entirely your problem.
That third point catches more sellers than any data limitation. Plenty of people have researched a genuinely good product and then buried it under a title nobody searches for.
The second point has a cost attached too. Once a gap closes, sellers reach for ads to hold their position, and our honest margin scenarios for eBay Promoted Listings show when that is affordable and when it is not.
Research tells you what to sell. Listing quality decides whether anyone finds it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Terapeak still free?
Yes. eBay states that all sellers with Seller Hub access can use eBay product research, which is the tool most people still call Terapeak. Sourcing insights is the part that needs a Basic Store subscription or above, and it comes at no extra cost once you have that Store.
How much does Zik Analytics cost?
Zik’s own pricing page lists PRO from $39.90 a month, PRO+ from $59.90 and Enterprise from $89.90, with lower rates on annual billing and a $1 trial. At the entry tier that is $478.80 a year on monthly billing.
How far back does Terapeak data go?
Three years. eBay states that Product research gives access to the last 3 years of eBay sales data for millions of items. The important exception is sell-through rate, which is only shown for items sold within the last 90 days.
Which has more accurate data?
Terapeak reads eBay’s own transaction records, so where the two disagree it is the more reliable source. In practice both give a similar picture of what sells, because they are describing the same sold listings. Accuracy is rarely the deciding factor between them.
Do I need Zik Analytics if I already have Terapeak?
On Zik Analytics vs Terapeak, only if you can name the specific thing Terapeak will not do for you. The usual honest answers are supplier-side sourcing for dropshipping, sell-through data beyond 90 days, and screening large numbers of products quickly. If none of those describe your week, the free tool is enough.
Where do I find Terapeak in Seller Hub?
Open Seller Hub and go to the Research tab, where you will find eBay product research and, if you have a Basic Store or above, Sourcing insights. It is also available in the eBay mobile apps.
Is Zik Analytics worth it for beginners?
Usually not on day one. A new seller has few listings, little volume and plenty of free research capacity available in Seller Hub. Spend the first months learning what questions to ask, then decide whether a paid tool answers them faster.
What is Sourcing insights and do I need it?
It is eBay’s tool for spotting categories with high demand and low available stock, plus sold single-stock listings that show what is out of stock. It is included with a Basic Store or above, so if you already pay for a Store you already have it.
Does a Basic Store pay for itself?
Above roughly $3,106 a month in sales, yes. A Basic Store drops the final value fee on most categories from 13.6% to 12.7%, and that 0.9 point saving covers the $27.95 subscription at that turnover. Sourcing insights then comes free with it.
Can I use both tools together?
Yes, and established sellers often do. The sensible pattern is to screen quickly in the paid tool and then verify anything you are about to spend real money on against eBay’s own records before committing.
Why do so many reviews recommend Zik over Terapeak?
Because Zik runs an affiliate programme and Terapeak does not. Recommending Zik can earn a commission, while recommending a free eBay feature earns nothing, so the incentive shapes what gets written. That does not make Zik a poor tool, but it is worth knowing before you read a comparison.
What is the best free alternative to Zik Analytics?
Terapeak Product research, and in a Zik Analytics vs Terapeak comparison it is not close on price. It is free, built into Seller Hub, and backed by three years of eBay’s own sales data. Most sellers looking for a free alternative already have it switched on and have never opened it.
The Bottom Line
On Zik Analytics vs Terapeak, the honest answer is unglamorous: use the free one until it fails you, then pay to fix that specific failure.
Terapeak gives you three years of eBay’s own data for nothing. That is a genuinely strong starting position, and most sellers have never properly opened it.
That single fact decides Zik Analytics vs Terapeak for a large share of the sellers asking.
Zik gives you speed, and sourcing help that eBay has no reason to build. For dropshippers and high-volume researchers, that is worth real money.
What neither gives you is a shortcut. Both tools point at the same sold listings that everyone else can see.
The edge was never the software. It is what you do after the search.
Want a second opinion on your research process? Book a free 30 minute call. If you would rather see the outcome than the method, our eBay UK case study covers an account taken from zero, and eBay account management is where we do this work day to day.
