Spy on competitors · Ad Spy Tool Comparison

Ad spy tool comparison: compare ad spy tools side by side

Most ad spy tool comparisons are affiliate pages that rank whoever pays the highest commission first. This one is organized around the two questions that decide whether a tool works for you: which ad platforms does it actually read, and does it show you enough to judge whether a creative is working.

Coverage is the constraint you cannot buy your way around later. A tool built on the Meta Ad Library can only ever show you Facebook and Instagram. A native tool reads Taboola and Outbrain and knows nothing about your TikTok competitors. If you run one platform, single-platform depth is the better buy.

The second question separates an archive from something you can decide with. Public libraries publish no spend or conversion data for ordinary commercial ads, so any tool claiming to show a competitor's results is modelling an estimate. What is observable is how long an ad has run. The table below sets AdEye against the tools you are probably weighing it against, including where they beat us.

Ad Intelligence Feed

Live Google data

Enter a brand or a domain

Searching the Google Ads Transparency Center...

Try:

Public Google Ads Transparency data. Nothing behind a login.

Open your swipe file

Google Ads Transparency has no ads on record for that search. Google indexes ads by advertiser, so the brand's exact domain works best — for example nike.com.

Google Ads Transparency has no ads on record for . That is an answer about the brand, not a problem with the search: they are not running Google ads that Google publishes, or they advertise under a different registered name.

We could not reach Google Ads Transparency just now, so this is not a result about that brand, we simply could not look. Please try again in a moment. This search has not been counted against your allowance.

Open your swipe file

free left ·

See it run

Live Google Ads Transparency data · Run length · Public data only

GOOGLE ADS TRANSPARENCY

Run length on every ad

AI-tagged hooks & angles

Why it works

How to compare ad spy tools without getting sold a feature list

Coverage first, filters second

Every one of these tools is ultimately reading advertising that the platforms publish themselves, so the interesting difference is which libraries a vendor chose to build on. Meta publishes Facebook and Instagram ads through its Ad Library. Google publishes Search, Display, Gmail and YouTube advertising through the Ads Transparency Center. TikTok exposes creative through its Creative Center and ad library. Native networks are a separate world with its own tooling. A tool cannot show you a platform it never connected to, and no amount of AI tagging fixes a missing platform, so decide your platform list before you compare anything else.

Nobody can sell you spend data

For ordinary commercial ads the public libraries publish no budget, no impressions, no click-through rate and no conversion rate. Political and social issue advertising carries spend ranges, and ads delivered in the EU and UK carry impression ranges, but a normal ecommerce or SaaS advertiser gives up none of that. So when a comparison table quotes a competitor spend figure, you are looking at an estimate produced by a model, not a number anyone measured. Treat precise spend claims as a reason for more skepticism rather than less, whichever tool is making them.

Judge tools on the signals they expose

Since results are private, the useful question becomes how much publicly observable evidence a tool surfaces per ad. Run length matters because advertisers switch off losers, so an ad live for four months has passed a test no design critique can replicate. Google indexes its ad record by advertiser, so every tool built on it, AdEye included, searches by brand or domain rather than by ad copy. Those capabilities separate a tool you decide with from an archive you scroll.

Side by side

Ad spy tools compared by what they actually cover

Platform focus is the first filter, because it is the one thing a subscription cannot change. Extension coverage was checked against each vendor's own site and documentation in August 2026.

Tool	Platform focus	Browser extension	Best suited to
AdEye	Google only: Search, Shopping, Display and YouTube, via the Ads Transparency Center	No, web app only	Teams who want retained history and run-length signals on a brand's Google advertising
AdSpy	Facebook and Instagram only	No	Affiliates who want deep filtering on a very large Meta archive and nothing else
BigSpy	Broad multi-platform, including Meta, TikTok and YouTube	Yes, saves from Meta Ad Library and TikTok surfaces	Breadth-first browsing on a small budget
Foreplay	Meta, TikTok and LinkedIn	Yes, needs an active subscription or trial	Creative teams who want a tidy swipe file and briefing workflow
PowerAdSpy	Meta, Instagram, YouTube, Google Display and more	Yes, free and works without an account	Buyers who want cross-network discovery and a no-commitment extension
Minea	Meta, TikTok and Pinterest, plus Shopify product data	Yes, adds ad and product data on stores you visit	Dropshippers researching products and the ads selling them together
Dropispy	Meta-focused dropshipping ads	Yes	Dropshippers on a tight budget who only need Meta
PipiAds	TikTok-focused	Check vendor site	TikTok-first sellers
Adbeat	Display and native desktop and mobile inventory	No	Media buyers auditing display placements and publisher mix
Anstrex	Native, push, pops and dropship	No	Affiliates running native and push traffic
AdPlexity	Native, desktop, mobile, push, social and YouTube, sold per vertical	No	Performance affiliates who need one specific traffic type in depth
AdSpyder	Google search and display, plus Meta	Check vendor site	Search advertisers who care most about Google ad copy
SocialPeta	Broad multi-platform, enterprise positioning	Check vendor site	Larger teams wanting mobile and gaming breadth
Sensor Tower and Pathmatics	Cross-channel, enterprise, custom pricing	No	Enterprises with a budget for licensed market data

Coverage and packaging change often, and several of these vendors block automated checks, so confirm the current details on the vendor site before you buy. We deliberately do not print a pricing column here, because a price we cannot re-verify is worse than no price at all. AdEye is a web app and does not ship a browser extension. It reads the Google Ads Transparency Center only, so it does not cover Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, Taboola, Outbrain or the open programmatic exchange.

What it surfaces

Every ad card carries the hook, angle and a working signal

You type a brand or a domain. AdEye pulls that advertiser's live public Google ads into one feed and AI-tags each creative on the paid plans, so you read the strategy and spot the long-running winners before you save a single one.

Compare tools on platform coverage before you compare feature lists
See which vendors ship a browser extension and which are web apps
Read one feed of Google Ads Transparency Center records
Sort competitor creatives by run length
Read the ad copy a named competitor is running
Filter to the exact format you are about to brief
Save keepers to a swipe file before the ad is switched off
See how long each competitor ad has been running

GOOGLE Top performer

image

META PLATFORMS, INC. · RUNNING 1,765D

Why AdEye

One feed, the AI read, the working signal in view

Not a stale doc full of screenshots. One query for a brand, the run length on every creative, and a swipe file worth reopening. Public ad-library data only.

Every platform at once

The Google Ads Transparency Center searched by brand or domain, so competitor ad research is one query instead of clicking through Google's own viewer.

The AI reads the why

Every creative is tagged with its hook, angle and format, and a working signal flags the long-runners and scalers, so you see why an ad works, not just what it ran.

A swipe file that stays current

Save winners to boards, each keeping its run length and a link back to the original creative on Google, so the file is still useful months later.

Good questions

Questions about ad spy tool comparison

There is no single best one, and any comparison claiming otherwise is usually paid. The right pick follows your platform list. For Meta depth alone, AdSpy has the largest Facebook archive. For native and push, Anstrex and AdPlexity are purpose-built. For display placement audits, Adbeat. For several platforms in one feed with run-length signals, AdEye. Decide the platforms first and the shortlist writes itself.

Check three things in order. First, does it read the Meta Ad Library directly, so what you see is live rather than a stale cache. Second, can you search ad copy across your whole category rather than only brands you can name. Third, does it show run length, which is the only public evidence that a creative is scaling rather than testing.

Trust the ones that name their sources and admit what they cannot see. A comparison that quotes competitor spend figures for ordinary ecommerce ads is presenting model estimates as measurements, because the public libraries publish no spend for those advertisers. A comparison that tells you where rivals beat the author is usually the more honest document.

Display and banner inventory is a different lane from social. Adbeat is the established choice for desktop and mobile display, and it reports on publisher mix and placement, which social-first tools do not attempt. Google display advertising also appears in the Ads Transparency Center, which AdEye reads. AdEye does not cover Taboola, Outbrain or the open programmatic exchange.

Look for creative-level detail rather than account-level dashboards. You want the hook, the angle, the format and how long the ad has run. Foreplay is strong on swipe file organization, Minea pairs ads with Shopify product data, and AdEye tags a brand's Google creatives and ranks them by run length. Note AdEye is Google-only, so it is not a Meta tool.

BigSpy competes on breadth and price rather than depth, covering many platforms and offering a low entry tier plus a browser extension that saves from the Meta Ad Library and TikTok surfaces. AdSpy goes far deeper on Facebook and Instagram specifically. Confirm current plan details on the vendor site, because BigSpy blocks automated checks and published figures go stale quickly.

YouTube advertising is published through Google's Ads Transparency Center, so any tool that reads it can show you competitor video ads. AdEye reads that source, so a brand's YouTube creatives appear alongside their Search, Shopping and Display ads. PowerAdSpy and BigSpy also list YouTube coverage. You can also search the Transparency Center directly for free.

Yes, and monthly billing is standard across the category rather than a concession. Entry tiers generally start well under a hundred dollars a month, with the cheapest options being the breadth-first tools and the free public libraries themselves. AdEye starts at 39 dollars a month. Because vendor pricing changes frequently, check the current number on each vendor site rather than trusting any table.

Nearly every serious option in this category sits under that ceiling, so the constraint is rarely price. Under 200 dollars a month you can get multi-platform coverage with creative tagging, or deep single-platform archives, but not licensed enterprise market data. Decide whether you are paying for breadth across platforms or depth within one, because that trade is what your money actually buys.

Instagram ads are published through the same Meta Ad Library as Facebook ads, so any Meta-capable tool sees both, with placement shown per ad. For affiliates the differentiators are archive size, how granular the filtering is, and whether you can search ad copy rather than only brands. AdSpy is the traditional affiliate pick for Meta depth.

Not for ordinary commercial advertisers. The public libraries publish no spend or budget figures for them, so any dollar amount you see is a model output. Political and social issue ads do carry real spend ranges, and EU and UK delivered ads carry impression ranges. Outside those cases, treat a precise competitor spend number as an estimate.

Reading public ad libraries is legitimate. Meta, Google and TikTok publish this advertising deliberately, for transparency reasons, and nothing about looking requires an account with the advertiser or notifies them. The lines that do matter are ordinary ones: do not scrape in breach of a platform's terms, and do not copy a competitor's images, video, logo or copy verbatim.

Foreplay, BigSpy, PowerAdSpy, Minea and Dropispy all ship browser extensions, though most require an account to get full data. PowerAdSpy's is free and works without one. AdSpy has no extension, and neither does AdEye, which is a web app that reads the public libraries server-side rather than capturing what you happen to scroll past.

If you check two competitors on one platform occasionally, the free libraries are enough and you should use them. Paid tools earn their keep when you need run-length signals, retention after an ad stops, saved boards and exports. The cost of doing that by hand is time, and it scales badly.

Compare on seats and client count rather than headline price, because agency work multiplies both. Ask whether extra users cost more, whether saved boards can be separated per client, whether exports and white-label reporting are included, and whether API access sits behind an enterprise tier. AdEye offers an Agency plan at 299 dollars a month, and there is no API.

Anstrex and AdPlexity are the specialists, both sold per traffic type, and Adbeat covers native alongside display. This is a genuine gap in AdEye rather than a soft spot: we read the Google Ads Transparency Center and nothing else, so if Taboola and Outbrain are your business, buy a native specialist.

You can compare messaging strategy with real confidence and results only by inference. What is visible is which angles a competitor is running, which formats they favor, and which creatives they have kept funding for months. That is genuinely enough to infer positioning and to see what they have committed to, which is usually the question worth answering.

Often enough that any comparison table should be treated as a starting point with a date on it. Vendors add platforms, repackage tiers and change prices several times a year, and several of them block automated checking, which is why this page compares on platform focus and extension availability and sends you to the vendor for current pricing.

It is a web app, so there is no browser extension to install. It reads the Google Ads Transparency Center only, which means no Meta, no TikTok, no LinkedIn, no Taboola or Outbrain, and no open programmatic exchange. It shows no competitor spend, because that data is not public. If any of those are the requirement, one of the specialists above is the better purchase.

Read every question we get

Explore more