Best Ad Spy Tools in 2026: An Honest Comparison

The short answer

We checked the pricing page of every tool below in October 2026. Here is who each one is for, before the detail.

Prices are the monthly entry plan unless noted. They change often, so click through before you buy.

One disclosure: Ad Radar is our product. We have tried to be fair below, including a section on where the others are better. Ad Radar covers Meta only today.

What a spy tool should tell you

Library size is the number every vendor leads with: 10 million ads, 100 million, 212 million. It is the least useful number for a media buyer. You don't need more ads to scroll. You need to know which ones have real money behind them.

Our own board shows why. We track Meta ads from DTC brands and keep only those with $50k or more in estimated spend. On October 9, 2026 that left 2,443 ads from 749 brands, and even inside that filtered set the money is very uneven:

If the spread is that steep among ads that already cleared $50k, it is far steeper in a raw library where most entries are tests that ran for a week. A spy tool earns its price by surfacing the top of that curve. There are four ways tools try to do it:

1. Days live. Every tool can show it, because the start date is public. It is the cheapest honest signal.
2. Variants. How many versions of the same creative a brand launched. Brands duplicate what works. We break this down in ad variants as a scaling signal.
3. Engagement or impressions proxies. Likes, comments, shares. Useful, noisy, easy to inflate.
4. A spend estimate. A model, never a fact. Only worth having if the tool labels it as an estimate and you use it to rank ads against each other. We explain the limits in how to estimate competitor ad spend.

The tools, one by one

Meta Ad Library (free)

The source almost every paid tool reads from. You can search any advertiser and see every active ad on Facebook and Instagram, with its start date and how many versions are live. It does not rank, tag or transcribe anything, and it shows spend only for political and social-issue ads. Our guide to the Meta Ad Library covers the workarounds. Start here if you research two or three competitors and have time to do it by hand.

Ad Radar

A filtered board, not a library. Only Meta ads at $50k or more in estimated spend, each tagged on ten dimensions (hook pattern, hook mechanism, narrative angle, awareness, proof level, production format, video type, landing page type, niche and CTA type). You can search headlines, body copy and video transcripts, follow any brand by pasting its Ad Library link and get winner alerts. An MCP server lets Claude query the board directly. Membership is $49 every 4 weeks at the launch price (list $99); Agency is $199 every 4 weeks with 25 client workspaces and 5 seats. No TikTok yet, no Chrome extension yet, and it does not connect to your own ad account.

Foreplay

The best-known swipe file. A Chrome extension and mobile app save ads from Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn and YouTube Shorts, and its Discovery library holds 200M+ ads saved by users. Basic is $59 a month ($49 billed annually) for one user. Spyder competitor tracking, Lens analytics on your own accounts and MCP access start on Workflow at $175 a month ($149 billed annually), per its pricing page checked October 2026. We compare the two in detail in Ad Radar vs Foreplay.

GetHookd

A Meta library with over 22 million active ads, brand tracking and Shopify store data. It says plainly that it does not estimate spend, which is a fair position. Starter is $29 a month ($19 billed yearly), Pro $49 with three seats, Team $79 with five, Agency $129 with ten, with a 7-day trial for $0 (gethookd.ai, checked October 2026).

Atria

Research, analytics on your own ad accounts, AI generation and an MCP server in one product. Core is $129 a month billed annually with 5 seats, 50 followed brands and 5 connected ad accounts; Plus is $479 and Business $959, both billed annually (pricing, checked October 2026). It makes sense if you want one tool for both competitor research and your own reporting.

AdSpy

One of the oldest names. It covers Facebook and Instagram and is priced at $149 a month with what it calls virtually unlimited usage. Its strength is search depth: ad text, advertiser, URL, comments, affiliate network and ID, landing page technology, and demographic filters, across a claimed 212 million ads (adspy.com, checked October 2026). Affiliate marketers still like it for that.

BigSpy

The widest network coverage on this list. Starter at $69 a month covers Facebook and Instagram only. Growth at $159 adds TikTok, Twitter, Pangle, Google Ads and YouTube; Ultimate at $499 adds Pinterest, Yahoo and Unity Ads. Yearly billing is 20 to 30% off (pricing, checked October 2026). Good if you buy on many networks and want one search box.

Minea

Built for dropshippers. Alongside a Meta ads listing it tracks products, Shopify stores and influencer product placements. Starter is $49 a month or $39 a month paid quarterly, Premium $99, Business $199. Its pricing page lists Snapchat, Pinterest and TikTok ads as coming soon (pricing, checked October 2026).

PiPiAds

The TikTok specialist, with TikTok Shop data and Facebook ads as well. It moved to credits in August 2025: list items cost 1 credit each and opening an ad's detail costs 20. Basic was shown at $49 a month with 30,000 credits (list price $69) when we checked, Advanced at $99 with 100,000 credits (pricing, checked October 2026). It does not issue refunds, so use the free trial credits first.

What a winner looks like when a tool surfaces it

Here are three ads from our board that show the signals above. None of them looks like a big-budget production, which is the point: you can't spot them by eye in a feed.

Where the other tools are better than Ad Radar

We'd rather you pick the right tool than the wrong one twice.

• TikTok. PiPiAds, BigSpy (from Growth) and Foreplay cover it. Ad Radar doesn't yet.
• Library size. If you want every ad, including tests and losers, Foreplay, GetHookd, AdSpy and BigSpy all hold millions. Ad Radar holds thousands on purpose.
• Capture tools. Foreplay's Chrome extension and mobile app are live today. Ours is in progress.
• Your own ad account. Atria (and Foreplay Lens) analyze your own creative performance. Ad Radar doesn't connect to ad accounts.
• Product research. Minea and PiPiAds track stores and products, which matters for dropshipping.
• Price at entry. GetHookd starts at $19 a month billed yearly.

How to choose in 15 minutes

1. Write down the job. "Find the five Meta ads my top competitor is scaling" is a different job from "save every ad I like across four platforms".
2. List your platforms. Meta only: Meta Ad Library, Ad Radar, GetHookd, AdSpy. Meta plus TikTok: Foreplay, BigSpy Growth, PiPiAds.
3. Pick the signal you trust. Days live and variants are visible everywhere. If you want a dollar figure to rank ads across brands, you need a tool that estimates spend, and you should read how it labels the estimate.
4. Run one real search on the trial. Take a competitor you know well. If the tool doesn't put their actual best ad near the top, it won't do it for brands you don't know.
5. Count seats and clients. Agencies pay per seat or per brand on most tools. Price the plan you will be on in six months.

For the research process that sits around any of these tools, see how to spy on competitor Facebook ads and how to find winning Facebook ads. If you work in Claude, the MCP setup lets it search the board for you.

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.