What is the best ad spy tool in 2026?

Foreplay started from a simple need: save an ad from Meta's library before it disappears. Saved ads go into your swipe file, organized into folders and boards your team shares. They stay there after the advertiser turns them off.

Around that, Foreplay built its own ad library, fed by its community, with unlimited AI search on every plan, and Spyder, which follows the brands you pick and keeps every new ad they launch. Spyder isn't on Basic. It starts with Workflow (10 to 15 brands depending on where you look on Foreplay's page, unlimited on annual).

The catch is team pricing. Basic covers one user ($20 per extra user), and competitor tracking, the part that really pays off, needs Workflow at $149 a month billed yearly. There's a 14-day money-back guarantee after your first charge; after that, a cancelled annual commitment isn't refunded, not even pro rata.

BigSpy is the Swiss army knife here. The free plan shows Facebook with 10 searches a day and no downloads. Starter opens Facebook and Instagram with unlimited searches and 50 creative downloads a day. Growth adds Google Ads, YouTube, X, TikTok and Pangle, with 300 downloads a day. Ultimate covers all 11 networks, including Pinterest, Yahoo and Unity. For teams, Scale gives you 5 seats at $299 a month billed yearly, $399 monthly.

Here's the trap: TikTok only comes with Growth, at $119 a month billed yearly. If TikTok is your main channel, Starter shows you nothing you care about. Check the network column before you pay.

Refunds are tight: 24 hours after the first payment, and only the first one (not renewals or upgrades). Start on the free plan to judge result quality in your niche.

Meta's Ad Library shows every active ad running across Meta's products: Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and the Audience Network. Type a brand, pick a country, and you see each of its ads with its start date, versions and placements. It's the fastest way to see what a competitor is pushing this week.

Two cases give you more. Ads delivered in the European Union stay visible for one year after their last impression, even once stopped, with estimated EU reach and age, gender and location targeting. Ads about social issues, elections or politics stay for seven years, with spend and reach.

The limit: outside those cases, a stopped ad vanishes, and Meta shows no spend or results for a commercial ad. No swipe file, no alert when a competitor launches. That's exactly what paid tools sell.

TrendTrack ties ads to the stores running them. Start from an ad, jump to the store, and see its other ads and products. It's the tool most focused on one question: does this product really sell?

Plans differ by detailed store lookups: 5 a week on Starter, 30 on Pro, unlimited on Business. The Meta, TikTok and Google libraries show on Pro and Business; for Starter the pricing page isn't clear, so check when you sign up.

The limit: 5 lookups a week runs out fast when you're product hunting. Budget for Pro if you'll use it for real.

Minea is a European ecommerce spy tool. It covers all Facebook ads and influencer placements, with AI ad analysis and transcripts counted per month: 10 on Starter, 50 on Premium, unlimited on Business. Brand tracking comes with every plan, unlimited on Premium, which adds 10 tracked stores.

TikTok, Pinterest and Snapchat ads are listed as "coming soon" on the pricing page. If a review sells you Minea for TikTok, it's ahead of the product.

The limit: refunds are case by case within 24 hours of the first purchase, and only for new users. Cancelling stops future charges, but the rest of the billing period isn't refunded, so put the date in your calendar.

Creative Center is TikTok's free hub for advertisers. Its Top Ads section shows a collection of high-performing ads. TikTok's help center lists filters for region, industry and campaign objective; the page itself adds language, format and likes, and lets you sort by reach or CTR.

According to TikTok's help center, each ad comes with a second-by-second graph that pinpoints the most engaging moment in the video. That's a strong clue for where to put your hook.

The limit: TikTok picks these ads. It's not every ad from a competitor, and you can't follow a specific brand. For that there's TikTok's Commercial Content Library: it lists ads shown in the European Union with their publish date, last-seen date, targeting and how many people saw them, for up to a year after they last ran. Outside the EU, you need a paid tool such as BigSpy Growth or PiPiAds.

PowerAdSpy sells plans by number of networks. Basic covers Facebook and Instagram. Standard adds Pinterest and the Google Display Network. Platinum adds YouTube, native and Google Search. Palladium covers all 11, including LinkedIn, TikTok, Quora and Reddit.

The monthly-to-annual gap is the biggest on this list: Palladium drops from $399 monthly to $119 billed yearly. The flip side: annual is charged upfront in one go.

The trial costs $1 for three days on Basic, then the plan starts at $69 unless you cancel before day three. On Standard, Platinum and Palladium, the trial is $7 for three days, then rolls into $99, $279 or $399 a month. Set a reminder.

PiPiAds grew up on TikTok and that's still its home turf: search across TikTok ads, plus a Facebook section and Meta's library (Instagram, Audience Network, Messenger, Threads). It runs on credits: each result costs 1 credit and each detailed ad page 20, out of 30,000 credits a month on Basic.

The Ad Tracker is the real reason to pay: 2 tracked advertisers on Basic, 10 on Advanced, 20 on Flexible, 100 on Enterprise. That's the thing the free Creative Center can't do.

The limit: there's a single user on Basic and Advanced, and credits drain quickly if you open a lot of ad pages. For two users you need Flexible at $180 a month (200,000 credits, 20 tracked advertisers), before Enterprise at $900. The free trial (500 credits, no detailed ad pages) is enough to judge the database in your market, not much more.

AdSpy is one of the oldest tools around. It claims 213M+ ads and 30M+ advertisers across 225 countries and 88 languages, on Facebook and Instagram only.

Its edge is filters others lack: search inside ad comments, by affiliate network, affiliate ID or offer ID, and by landing page technology. For an affiliate, it's the most direct way to see who is pushing which offer.

The limit: a single $149 a month plan, no annual and no entry tier, and nothing beyond Meta. For a brand, that's a lot for what Meta's free library already shows.

Atria is more than a library. Core includes 5 seats, tracking for 50 brands, AI search across the library, and tools to write scripts, copy and ad concepts. It also analyzes your own ad accounts, up to 5 on Core.

It's the most complete tool here for a team that ships a lot of creative. You need to know performance-marketing vocabulary to get the most out of it.

The limit is price: $129 a month billed yearly, $219 billed monthly, then $549 billed monthly for Plus. On Atria's page those monthly prices appear struck through next to the annual price, with the saving spelled out ($1,080 a year on Core). Under a few thousand dollars of monthly ad spend, it's out of proportion.