The short answer
BigSpy's strength is breadth: up to ten ad networks in one search, from $69 a month for Facebook and Instagram. If you mostly buy on Meta, a smaller tool with a stronger signal often serves you better: GetHookd for a cheap live library, Foreplay for swipe files, Ad Radar for only proven ads with estimated spend. On our board, 79% of ads above $5M in estimated spend run with two or more variants, against 7% under $100K.
The verdict first
Pick by the networks you actually buy on, then by the signal you trust.
- You buy on four or more networks: stay on BigSpy. Few tools search TikTok, YouTube, Google Ads, Pangle and Unity in one place.
- You buy mostly on Meta: BigSpy's $69 Starter plan only covers Facebook and Instagram anyway. At that point you are comparing it with Meta-first tools, and several give you more signal per ad.
- You buy on Meta and TikTok: PiPiAds for TikTok research, plus a Meta tool.
What BigSpy costs, checked October 2026
From BigSpy's pricing page:
| Plan | Monthly | Seats | Networks | Notable limits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $69 | 1 | Facebook, Instagram | 50 creative downloads a day, 100 tracked creatives |
| Growth | $159 | 1 | Adds TikTok, Twitter, Pangle, Google Ads, YouTube | 300 downloads a day, 500 tracked creatives |
| Scale | $399 | 5 | Same as Growth | Growth limits per seat |
| Ultimate | $499 | 1 | Adds Pinterest, Yahoo, Unity Ads | 3,000 downloads a day |
Queries are unlimited on every plan, and all plans include landing pages, page and domain analysis and TikTok Shop charts. Yearly billing is 20 to 30% off. The site describes its library as 100 million+ ads.
The alternatives
| Tool | Networks | Entry price (checked October 2026) | Signal it gives you |
|---|---|---|---|
| GetHookd | Meta | $29/month, $19 billed yearly | 22M+ live ads, days running, store data; no spend estimate by design |
| Foreplay | Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts | $59/month, $49 billed annually | Time running, impressions sort, AI tags, your own saves |
| AdSpy | Facebook, Instagram | $149/month | Deep text, comment, URL and affiliate search |
| PiPiAds | TikTok, Facebook | Basic $49/month at sale price (list $69), credit-based | TikTok Shop and product rankings |
| Ad Radar | Facebook, Instagram | $49 every 4 weeks (launch price, list $99) | Estimated spend, days live, variants, ten tags per ad |
| Meta Ad Library | Facebook, Instagram | Free | Start date and active versions |
GetHookd is the cheapest paid way into a big Meta library. Foreplay is the team tool, with a Chrome extension and boards. AdSpy is for people who search by text and URL. PiPiAds replaces BigSpy's TikTok side. Ad Radar trades library size for a short list: only ads with $50k or more in estimated spend. For a broader comparison, see the best ad spy tools in 2026.
Why breadth is not the same as signal
A library of 100 million ads is mostly tests. The useful question is how fast a tool gets you from "everything" to "what is working". We can show what that filter looks like from our own board: 2,443 Meta ads with $50k or more in estimated spend, split by spend band.
| Estimated spend | Ads | Median days live | Run 2+ variants | Reach top tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $50K to $100K | 511 | 103 | 7% | 0.2% |
| $100K to $250K | 820 | 117 | 25% | 2% |
| $250K to $500K | 536 | 135 | 34% | 6% |
| $500K to $1M | 311 | 136 | 40% | 14% |
| $1M to $5M | 237 | 133 | 54% | 47% |
| $5M and up | 28 | 125 | 79% | 96% |
Two things stand out. Days live flattens above $250K: a $5M ad and a $300K ad have been running about as long. Variants keep climbing. When a brand puts real money behind a creative, it launches more versions of it, which is why variant count is one of the cheapest honest filters you can apply in any tool. We cover it in ad variants as a scaling signal. The $5M band holds only 28 ads, so treat its percentages as a small sample.
Page names hide where the money goes
Most spy tools, BigSpy included, let you search by advertiser page. That misses a lot. On our board, 131 store domains run ads from more than one Facebook page: 463 pages and 1,484 ads in total, 61% of the board (we left out marketplaces and click trackers).
Some examples from the snapshot:
- factor75.com: 50 ads from 11 pages. 28 of them run from pages that are not named Factor, including creator pages.
- thefarmersdog.com: 42 ads from 12 pages, 15 of them from pet creators.
- dogishuman.com: 83 ads from 6 pages.
If you search only the brand's own page, you see part of what it is scaling. Search by landing domain as well, which BigSpy (domain analysis) and most of the tools above support. Our guide to spying on competitor Facebook ads walks through the domain-first method.
High-protein meals that actually help you hit your goals.
- Est. spend
- $915K
- Days live
- 84
- Format
- Video, 30s
- Variants
- 5
A meal-kit ad running from a celebrity's own page, with five variants. A search for the brand's page name alone would not find it.
Daily Dog Multivitamin, Real Results
- Est. spend
- $4M
- Days live
- 148
- Format
- Image
- Variants
- 11
A pet creator's page, eleven variants, top tier. One of six pages sending traffic to the same store. The results claim is the advertiser's, not ours.
Breathe cleaner air, noise-free and filter-free
- Est. spend
- $9.6M
- Days live
- 127
- Format
- Image
- Variants
- 7
A static image near $10M in estimated spend after four months, with seven variants. A multi-network search would bury it under thousands of newer statics.
Where BigSpy is still the better pick
- Network coverage. Ultimate reaches ten networks. No Meta-first tool on this list comes close, and Ad Radar covers only Facebook and Instagram today.
- Playable and app ads. BigSpy indexes Pangle and Unity Ads placements and playable ads. App marketers need that and the DTC tools don't offer it.
- Unlimited queries. Credit-based tools like PiPiAds charge per result; BigSpy doesn't cap searches.
- TikTok Shop charts on every plan. Useful for product research even on Starter.
A switching checklist
- Count your networks. Look at last quarter's spend. If more than 80% went to Meta, a Meta-first tool is the fair comparison.
- Rebuild your saved searches by domain, not by page name. You will find creator and whitelisted pages you were missing.
- Add a variant filter. Whatever tool you pick, sort or filter for creatives running in several versions before you read anything else.
- Check how spend is shown. Real spend is not public for commercial ads. A tool should either show no spend at all or label its number as an estimate. Our post on estimating competitor ad spend explains what any estimate can and cannot tell you.
- Trial with one competitor you know. If the tool doesn't surface the ad you already know is their best, move on.
If Meta is where your budget goes, the Ad Radar board is built around exactly these filters: estimated spend, days live and variants.
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.