Ethan King has done close to 8 figures in 
Dropshipping sales. He went through his transaction history and found he'd spent $53,600 across 63 different tools and apps — 500+ transactions over several years.
So he made a tier list. And if you're thinking about starting a Dropshipping store, this video could save you thousands of dollars in wasted subscriptions.
Here's the full breakdown — every tool, what it costs, what tier he ranked it, and whether you actually need it when you're starting from zero.
🏆 S Tier — Money Makers (Directly Makes You More Money)
Trend Track — Ad Spy & Product Research
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What it does: Tracks live Facebook, Instagram, and Meta ads to find winning products. Instead of a product research pool (where 20,000 people all see the same "winners"), Trend Track shows you what's actually converting from the customer's perspective.
Key feature: Brand Tracker — follow any store and estimate their revenue, ad spend, and performance over time. Find proof of concept before you invest.
Why S tier: Ethan says this directly made him significant money vs other platforms. It's the only product research tool he recommends.
Cost: Paid subscription (varies by plan)
Verdict: If you're going to spend money on ONE research tool, make it this.
Disputifier — Chargeback Prevention
What it does: Automatically detects chargebacks and refunds the customer before the chargeback reaches
Shopify. This means: no $15 dispute fee, no chargeback on your record, no risk of payment holds.Why it matters: If your chargeback rate goes above 1% on Shopify, your payments get held for weeks. You can't fulfill orders, can't scale ads, can't withdraw money. Ethan lost close to $80 per chargeback on high-ticket stores.
Why S tier: "Saved me thousands and thousands of dollars." If your store does more than one sale a day, this should be your next purchase.
Cost: Paid subscription
Verdict: Non-negotiable once you start getting sales. The math is simple — one prevented chargeback pays for months of subscription.
Zendrop — Fulfillment / Supplier
What it does: Ships your products to customers after you get a sale. The key difference from AliExpress: Zendrop owns their own shipping line, guarantees delivery, and holds liability if something goes wrong.
Ethan's horror story: He was doing $20K/day using AliExpress fulfillment. The supplier couldn't keep up. 5,000+ customers never got their orders. He had to refund $300K+ and lost close to $400K total. That's when he switched to Zendrop.
Key feature: Paste any AliExpress product link → Zendrop sources it from their vetted manufacturers within 24-48 hours. 99.8% fulfillment rate.
Cost: Up to $79/month at the best plan
Verdict: "I don't know a single dropshipper who's made over a million dollars that hasn't had an AliExpress issue." Use Zendrop.
klaviyo — Email & SMS Marketing
What it does: Email and SMS campaigns — abandoned cart sequences, product drops, promotional offers, automated flows.
Why S tier: "I've had stores that made over $10,000 from a single email campaign alone." If you've done 1,000+ orders, one email blast to 2,500 contacts can generate multiple four figures.
Cost: Starting ~$50/month
Verdict: The ROI is 20x+. Absolute no-brainer once you're getting consistent sales.
Shopify — Your Store Platform
Ethan's take: "I will say this to the day I die — there's no platform that can compete with Shopify as a merchant." He's been offered thousands to promote Wix and WooCommerce and refused.
Cost: Starting ~$39/month
Verdict: Non-negotiable. This is the foundation everything else sits on.
✅ A Tier — Makes Your Life Easier (Not Required, But Worth It)
Triple Whale — Analytics & Attribution
What it does: Shows you all your store analytics in more detail than Shopify — integrated COGS, ad spend, actual profit, AI-powered CRO suggestions, and multi-platform attribution.
Why A not S: "This isn't something you need as a beginner." Great at $5-10K/month+, but you can spreadsheet your way through the early days.
Cost: Paid subscription (multiple tiers)
Atlas AI Store Builder — AI Store Builder
What it does: Paste any product link → get a complete Shopify store with AI copy, images, reviews, and sections in 30 seconds. Perfect for rapid product testing.
Why A not S: Conversion rates aren't as good as a manually-built store on @Shrine Pro. But for $29/month, it's incredible for testing without emotional attachment.
Cost: $29/month
Shrine — Premium Shopify Theme
What it does: The highest-converting Shopify theme Ethan has ever used. Built-in bundles, trust pilot reviews, review imports, extensive customization.
Why A not S: $350 one-time cost is steep for beginners. "It's better to have the best store on a basic theme than the worst store on the best theme." Use Atlas AI first, upgrade to Shrine Pro when you're profitable.
Cost: ~$350 one-time
Loox — Review Imports
What it does: Import hundreds of customer reviews from Amazon and AliExpress to your Shopify store instantly. Photo reviews, star ratings, the works.
Cost: ~$20+/month
Note: Shrine Pro includes review functionality built-in, so this is only needed if you're on a basic theme.
Kaching — Bundles & Subscriptions
What it does: Sell product bundles (buy a kit with X, Y, Z) and subscriptions (auto-reorder every month). Simple AOV booster.
Cost: ~$20-$30/month
Tracktor — Order Tracking
What it does: Lets customers track their order live on your website. Integrates with
Zendrop tracking data automatically.Cost: ~$5/month — basically free
🟡 B Tier — Good Enough (Budget Alternatives)
Kalodata — TikTok Shop Spy
What it does: Shows products crushing it on TikTok Shop — traffic, affiliates, revenue estimates.
Why only B: Limited to TikTok Shop products only. "Cal rips" (copying TikTok winners to Facebook) used to work great but is now oversaturated with thousands of dropshippers doing the exact same thing.
Verdict: Does the job, but Trend Track is significantly more useful.
Vitals — All-in-One App Bundle
What it does: Bundle of ~20 Shopify apps (upsells, popups, countdowns, etc.) for ~$40/month.
Note: If you use
Shrine Pro, you don't need this — the theme includes all these features.
❌ F Tier — Waste of Money (Does the Job, But Not Worth It)
Recart — SMS Marketing
Ethan's experience: One of his most expensive apps over the years. Charges extra for emojis in messages (5x the normal SMS rate). Before you know it you're spending $1K/week on SMS without realizing it. Basically a budget
klaviyo with worse support.Verdict: Just use Klaviyo.
Hyros — Premium Attribution
Ethan's take: "I love Hyros. Alex Becker built a great product. I currently spend multiple four figures a month on it." But for beginners? Absolutely not.
Why F tier: $500+/month for analytics.
Triple Whale does "pretty much the exact same thing for a tenth of the cost." Only makes sense at $50K+/month in revenue.Verdict: S tier for 7-figure stores. F tier for everyone else.
Pipiads — Product Research
What it does: Another product research tool — same concept as Sell the Trend but with slightly better filtering.
Verdict: "I would probably never recommend it." Not zero IQ, but not worth it when
Trend Track exists.
🤡 Zero IQ — Don't Even Think About It
Sell The Trend — Product Research
Ethan's rant: "This is a very big reason why dropshipping has a bad name." Shows the exact same "winning products" to 20,000+ users simultaneously. No real algorithm. No filtering. Everyone sees the same thing → everyone sells the same thing → everyone loses money.
How it works against you: Their business model requires you to keep searching and never find a winner. If you found a winner and cancelled, they'd lose a customer. So they're incentivized to keep you paying and searching forever.
Verdict: "If you watch this video and still use Sell the Trend, you're not going to make it."
DSers — AliExpress Auto-Fulfillment
What it does: Automatically fulfills orders from AliExpress. Sounds like
Zendrop but free!The problem: It's just an automation layer on top of AliExpress. All the problems with AliExpress (unreliable suppliers, no accountability, shipment failures) still apply. You're just automating a broken system.
Verdict: Free ≠ good. See Ethan's $400K loss story above.
Spocket — Fulfillment
Ethan's take: "I've had constant issues. Horrible customer support experience." Claims to compete with Zendrop but doesn't deliver. He didn't even want to elaborate for legal reasons.
Ali Reviews — Review App
Issues: Reviews not importing, can't edit text, Russian text stuck on English stores, reviews randomly disappearing overnight, Product A reviews showing on Product B. "It's a whole mess with basically no support."
Verdict: Use
Loox instead.
💰 Ethan's Exact Current Stack (What He Actually Uses Today)
If he were starting a store tomorrow, this is exactly what he'd use:
Research:
Trend Track (find products)Platform:
Shopify (your store)Theme:
Shrine ($350) or Atlas AI Store Builder ($29/mo for testing)Fulfillment:
Zendrop (ship products)Chargebacks:
Disputifier (protect your payments)Email/SMS:
klaviyo (make more money from existing customers)Analytics:
Triple Whale + Hyros (at scale)Reviews:
Loox (social proof)Bundles:
KachingTracking:
Tracktor
🎯 The Starter Budget (Minimum to Launch)
If you're starting Dropshipping from zero and want to keep costs as low as possible:
- Shopify — ~$39/month (required)
- Atlas AI Store Builder — $29/month (build stores fast, upgrade to Shrine Pro later)
- Zendrop — up to $79/month (don't use AliExpress)
- Trend Track — paid subscription (find products that actually work)
- Disputifier — after your first 10 sales
- klaviyo — after your first 1,000 orders
Estimated starter cost: ~$150-$250/month before ad spend. Compare that to the $53,600 Ethan spent learning what works by trial and error.
Already dropshipping? What tools are you using? Anything Ethan missed? Drop your stack below 👇