CatalogCSV
Koala Inspector is a Chrome extension for researching Shopify stores. It shows a store’s theme, installed apps, estimated best-sellers and traffic, and it can also export product data to CSV or Excel. CatalogCSV does only the last part: it turns a store’s public catalog into a CSV. If the export is what you are after, this page compares the two, including where Koala Inspector does more.
Facts about Koala Inspector are from its Chrome Web Store listing (version 4.20, updated 28 September 2026) and koala-apps.io/koala-inspector, both read on 2 October 2026. The two pages listed different prices that day, so both are given below. Prices change; check theirs.
At a glance
| Koala Inspector | CatalogCSV | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Store research: theme, apps, products, estimated best-sellers, traffic and sales estimates | A product exporter: the public catalog as a CSV, nothing else |
| Free tier | “15 tokens per month”, no credit card; “export limits apply on the free plan” (koala-apps.io) | First 100 products per export, every format and option |
| Paid | Chrome Web Store listing: Professional $17/month, Ultimate $55/month. koala-apps.io: Premium $22/month for 220 tokens; token packs from $3.99 | $9/month or $79/year, unlimited products per export |
| File formats | CSV or Excel | CSV only, in three layouts: Variant rows (26 columns), Shopify import CSV (29 columns), Image URLs (8 columns) |
| Sales and best-sellers | Estimated best-sellers and estimated monthly sales | None. No sales estimates of any kind |
| Apps and theme | Detects both | No app or theme detection |
| Store tracking | Premium tracks up to 50 stores (koala-apps.io) | No tracking; each export is a snapshot you make yourself |
| Account | Free to start, no credit card | None. A Pro license key is the whole login, on up to three browsers or computers |
Where Koala Inspector is the better pick
- You want to know what sells. Koala Inspector shows estimated best-sellers and sales. CatalogCSV can’t tell you anything about sales, because the public product data doesn’t contain any, and we don’t estimate them.
- You want the whole picture of a store. Theme, apps, traffic sources and ads are part of Koala Inspector. CatalogCSV doesn’t look at any of them.
- You want an Excel workbook. Koala Inspector exports to Excel as well as CSV. CatalogCSV writes CSV only, which opens directly in Excel, Google Sheets and Numbers, but it is still a CSV.
- You want stores watched for you. Its paid plan tracks stores over time. CatalogCSV never runs on its own; it reads a store only when you click.
Where CatalogCSV may suit you better
- You only need the catalog. If the job is a spreadsheet of products, variants, prices, SKUs and image links, you don’t have to budget tokens for it. Every export is free up to 100 products, and Pro has no product limit at all.
- A spreadsheet laid out for analysis. Variant rows has one row per variant with price, compare-at (sale) price, SKU, in-stock status, options, vendor, type, tags, weight, dates, product URL and image links. You can add the description as HTML or plain text.
- A draft-safe import file. In the Shopify import CSV, every product is set to draft and unpublished, so nothing goes live in the destination store by accident.
- Files that behave in Excel. The Variant rows and Image URLs files show accents and emoji correctly, no cell can run as a hidden formula, and you can switch to semicolons for European Excel.
- Minimal permissions. CatalogCSV asks for activeTab, scripting and storage, and no host permissions. It can only read the tab you click it on, and only when you click.
- Everything local. The CSV is built on your machine. There is no account, no analytics and no tracking. Requests go to the store you are exporting and, once you activate Pro, to our license service to check your key.
CatalogCSV has its own limits. It can’t read a store that is running a bot check, a password-protected store needs its password entered first, and it doesn’t download image files, only their links.
Using both
The two don’t exclude each other. A common split is to use a research tool to decide which stores are worth a closer look, and an exporter to get the full catalog of the ones that are. If you already pay for a research tool and its export covers what you need, you don’t need CatalogCSV. If you mostly need clean product files, a dedicated exporter is the simpler and cheaper tool.
Try it on the same store
Both have a free way in. Export the same store with each, open the files side by side, and check the columns you actually use: how variants are laid out, whether the sale price and SKU are there, and whether the file opens cleanly in your spreadsheet. Then pay for the one whose file you would rather work with.
Koala Inspector is a product of Koala Apps. CatalogCSV is not affiliated with it, or with or endorsed by Shopify.