The short answer
AdSpy is $149 a month for deep text, comment, URL and affiliate search on Facebook and Instagram. Alternatives that also search what is said in the video usually fit DTC teams better. In our transcripts, 77 winning ads say "nobody" in the first lines of the script, and only 1 puts it in the ad text: search the copy alone and you miss most of the hook language.
Short version
AdSpy's edge has always been search. You can query ad text, advertiser, URL, page name, comments, affiliate network and ID, offer ID and landing page technology, then filter by country, age and gender. For $149 a month, per adspy.com in October 2026, that is still a strong tool for affiliate marketers.
The gap is video. Most winning Meta ads are video, and the words that sell sit in the voiceover, not the caption. If you search only the text field, you search the least interesting part of the ad.
| Need | Best AdSpy alternative | Entry price (checked October 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Search the spoken script as well as the copy | Ad Radar | $49 every 4 weeks (launch price, list $99) |
| A transcribed swipe file for a team | Foreplay | $59/month, $49 billed annually |
| A big live Meta library, cheaply | GetHookd | $29/month, $19 billed yearly |
| Many networks in one search | BigSpy | $69/month for Facebook and Instagram |
| Free keyword search | Meta Ad Library | Free |
What text search misses: data from 1,752 transcripts
Our board holds 2,443 Meta ads with $50k or more in estimated spend. 1,968 are video and 1,752 of those have a transcript. We stored the first ~600 characters of each script, roughly the first 30 to 40 seconds of speech, and compared it with each ad's headline and body copy.
| Phrase | In the script opening | In the headline or body | Only in the script |
|---|---|---|---|
| "nobody" | 77 | 1 | 77 |
| "doctor" | 67 | 18 | 63 |
| "secret" | 42 | 34 | 42 |
| "I tried" | 33 | 8 | 33 |
| "my wife" | 27 | 4 | 25 |
| "mistake" | 25 | 1 | 25 |
| "Amazon" | 24 | 2 | 22 |
| "founder" | 18 | 2 | 18 |
| "guarantee" | 22 | 114 | 20 |
| "free shipping" | 31 | 62 | 29 |
Counts are video ads with a transcript. Because we only store the opening of each script, the script column is a floor.
The pattern is clean. Story and hook language lives in the script: "nobody told you", "I tried", "the mistake", "my wife". Offer language lives in the copy: "guarantee" appears in the text of 114 ads and in only 22 scripts. A text-only tool is good at finding offers and bad at finding hooks. Since the hook is what you will brief and shoot, that is the half you most need. Our post on video ad hook formulas shows what those script openers look like.
Comparison language works the same way. "Amazon" appears in 24 script openings and only 2 captions: brands price against Amazon out loud, then keep the caption clean.
Three ads a text search would not find
This common mistake doubles your electricity bill, and Big Energy is trying to hide this from us.
- Est. spend
- $643K
- Days live
- 161
- Format
- Video, 77s
The headline asks a question about the electric bill. The word "mistake" and the villain only appear in the voiceover. The savings claim is the advertiser's.
He had no idea how much was in this 59% off bundle.
- Est. spend
- $574K
- Days live
- 40
- Format
- Video, 39s
- Variants
- 3
The copy is pure offer (free gifts, bundle contents). The script is a little story about a customer who thinks his order was a mistake. Search the caption and you get the offer, not the idea.
Dude, what is this guy doing?
- Est. spend
- $446K
- Days live
- 90
- Format
- Video, 86s
A skit where a founder from another brand shows up. "Founder" is never in the copy. Only a transcript search surfaces it.
The alternatives in detail
Ad Radar
One search box across headlines, body copy and video transcripts, on a board of Meta ads that already have $50k or more in estimated spend. Each ad carries ten tags (hook pattern, hook mechanism, angle, awareness, proof level, production format, video type, landing page type, niche, CTA type), so a query like "mistake" can be narrowed to problem-aware UGC ads in one step. Claude can run the same searches through the MCP server. It doesn't do affiliate network or comment search, and it covers Meta only.
Foreplay
Transcribes ads automatically and keeps them in boards your team can share. Basic is $59 a month ($49 billed annually); competitor tracking and MCP access start on Workflow at $175 a month, per its pricing page checked October 2026. Saves from Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn and YouTube Shorts. See Ad Radar vs Foreplay for a side-by-side.
GetHookd
A 22M+ live Meta library with brand tracking, transcription and Shopify store data. Actions such as transcription use monthly credits. Starter is $29 a month or $19 billed yearly, with a 7-day trial for $0. We compare it in Ad Radar vs GetHookd.
BigSpy
Ten networks on its top plan. Starter ($69 a month) includes 100 video copy recognitions a month, Growth ($159) 1,000. Good when you want text search across TikTok and YouTube too.
Meta Ad Library
Keyword search on ad text for free, with no transcripts and no ranking. Fine for spot checks; our Ad Library search tips cover the operators that help.
Where AdSpy is still the better choice
- Affiliate research. Search by affiliate network, affiliate ID and offer ID. None of the DTC-focused tools above index that.
- Comment search. Searching inside user comments finds objections and praise you can't see in the ad itself. AdSpy lists it as a core filter.
- Landing page technology. Filter by what a page is built on. Handy for finding funnels on a specific platform.
- Demographic filters. Location, age and gender filters on the ad, in one place.
- History. It claims 212 million+ ads from 30 million+ advertisers in 88 languages.
A transcript search routine for any tool
If your tool searches transcripts, run these five queries on your niche once a week:
- "nobody" and "no one told": openers that position the viewer as the last to know.
- "I tried" and "I spent": first-person story ads. Read the next three lines to see how fast they reach the product.
- "mistake" and "stop": warning hooks. We break these down in warning hooks.
- "Amazon" and a big competitor's name: comparison scripts. Note the price anchor they use.
- "founder", "I started", "my company": founder-led ads. See founder ads for what the winners do differently.
Copy each opening line into a sheet with the ad's days live and variant count. After four weeks you have a swipe file of hooks with evidence attached, which is more useful than a folder of screenshots. The Ad Radar board does the transcript part for Meta, but the routine works with any tool that indexes what is said.
Figures marked as estimated spend come from Ad Radar's model of engagement on public Meta Ad Library ads. They are estimates, labeled as such, and are best used to rank ads against each other.