Best Facebook Ad Spy Tools (2026): 9 Compared by Price and the Data You Get

Prices and terms checked Nov 9, 2026.

Start with Meta's own Ad Library: it's free, needs no login, and shows every ad a brand is running now with the date it started. What it doesn't keep is the past. On Nov 9, 2026 it listed 130 running US ads for Bombas and no stopped ones, because Meta keeps stopped commercial ads only if they were shown in the EU or UK. Pay for a spy tool when you need that history, engagement numbers or alerts: Foreplay for creative teams, GetHookd for cheap Meta tracking, Minea for product research, AdSpy for comment search.

Which ad spy tool fits your situation

How we ranked them

By what each tool adds to the free library for someone advertising on Facebook and Instagram, per dollar: ads that stopped, engagement or spend signals, tracking and alerts, other networks, and whether it makes the ad. We read every pricing page, help page and refund policy on Nov 9, 2026, pulled Meta's library ourselves for the counts below, and didn't buy any plans. AdMakeAI is ours. As a spy tool it's narrower than the three ranked above it, so it sits where its research fits.

What Meta's free Ad Library shows, and what it forgets

Anyone can search the Ad Library without an account. For an ad that never reached the EU or UK, Meta shows the creative, the Page and the day it started, and its help center lists archiving for those ads as "No": once the ad stops, it's gone. No commercial ad shows spend or impressions. Ads shown in the EU or UK add dates, targeting and EU reach, and stay for a year after their last impression; political and issue ads add spend ranges and stay seven years.

Ridge also advertises in Europe, so 2,723 of its stopped ads are still listed under Germany; filter to the US and 24 remain. Meta's Ad Library API has the same limit, covering only political ads and ads delivered in the EU or UK. A spy tool has a US brand's stopped ads only if it saved them while they ran, which is most of what you pay for. To keep one ad yourself, download its video from the Ad Library.

Days live: the signal the free library does give you

A brand keeps paying for an ad that sells, so how long an ad has run is the best public hint of a winner, and every tool below sorts by it. Two cautions from our pull. In November, holiday creative resets a library: 101 of Bombas' 130 running ads started in the last two weeks. And the oldest ads are often catalog ads, built from the product feed, which say nothing about creative.

Chubbies is the kind of library to study: 52 ads past 90 days, none of them catalog ads. So sort by days live, skip catalog ads and open anything past 30 days. AdMakeAI's competitor research lists rivals' running ads with days live and flags anything past 30, and our free Facebook Ad Library search shows a brand's running ads with no login.

8 paid Facebook ad spy tools compared

From each pricing page, help page and refund policy, checked Nov 9, 2026, monthly billing unless noted. "Last-seen dates" means the tool keeps an ad's last-seen date after it stops; none of these three says how far back it goes. Spend and engagement figures are the tools' own estimates or counts, not Meta's.

Tracking is where the prices split. The cheapest plan that follows competitors and shows you their new ads:

The 8 best paid Facebook ad spy tools

1. Foreplay: best for creative teams that want competitors' ad history and briefs

Foreplay is three tools in one plan. The swipe file and Chrome extension save ads from the Meta Ad Library, TikTok, LinkedIn and YouTube Shorts. Discovery searches ads its users have saved, sortable by longest running. Spyder tracks the Meta ads of brands you pick, live and inactive, with "Competitor Ad History (Up to 3 Years)" and Slack or email updates. That history is the gap Meta leaves for US brands.

Briefs turns a saved ad into a script and storyboard sketches with AI; Foreplay doesn't make the finished ad. From Workflow up, an MCP server and API connect it to Claude or ChatGPT.

Watch out for: the price for small teams. A January 2026 r/adtech roundup kept it anyway: "Most expensive one but ended up being the keeper. … Solo founders might find it pricey." Its pricing FAQ says the 7-day trial takes a card and bills you after, though its Spyder page says no card is needed. Its Trustpilot page has two reviews, both from affiliates.

Price: Basic $59 a month (save and search, 1 user); Workflow $175 (5 users, Spyder for at least 10 brands, 15 in its comparison table); Agency $459. Billed yearly, about 15% off with unlimited Spyder, and no refunds. Otherwise a 14-day money-back after the first charge.

2. GetHookd: best for cheap tracking of competitors' live Meta ads

GetHookd watches brands and tells you "every time they launch", with days running, how many ads a brand has live, and for Shopify stores, traffic estimates and best sellers. Its own FAQ is plain about the limits: Facebook and Instagram only, "not an archive of things that stopped running", and "We do not estimate a brand's revenue or invent a spend figure."

Clone Ads turns a competitor's ad into "Three new statics". The FAQ says cloning starts on Pro and connecting an AI agent on Team, while the plan cards list both on every plan, so check before you buy for either.

Watch out for: the trial. The "$0" 7-day trial takes a payment method and charges at the end, and refunds need to come within 24 hours with no usage. In an October 2026 Trustpilot review: "They will charge you even though you cancel your free trial well before the seven day free trial window closes." It still scores 4.2 from 26 reviews.

Price: Starter $29 a month ($19 billed yearly), Pro $49, Team $79, Agency $129, each with monthly credits for actions; browsing the library uses none.

3. Minea: best for dropshipping and product research

Minea puts products, shops and Meta ads in one place for e-commerce sellers. Magic search finds ads from a product photo, and each ad claims engagement, an estimated spend, its run time and the landing page. That spend figure is Minea's estimate; Meta doesn't publish one for these ads. For what dropshipping stores keep running, see 11 dropshipping ads that ran 100+ days.

Watch out for: search accuracy and refunds. One October 2026 Trustpilot reviewer: "Searching for "eye mask" even displayed products such as doorbells." Its Swiss terms rule out refunds except rare cases within 24 hours of a first purchase. At 3.8 from 310 reviews, it has the most feedback of any tool here.

Price: Starter $49 a month ($39 billed quarterly), Premium $99 with notifications on 10 shops, Business $199. A free plan is in its terms but not the plan grid.

4. AdMakeAI: best if you'll turn what you find into your own ads the same day

AdMakeAI is our tool, and as a spy tool it's narrower than the three above: Meta only, running ads only (from Meta's library), and no engagement or spend. What it adds is the step after. Drop your URL into competitor research and it finds your competitors, lists their running ads with days live and flags anything past 30 days. Remix one around your product for 2 credits, $0.16 on the $39 Starter plan; the angle and layout carry over, your product and brand replace theirs.

From there, the UGC video generator puts a person on camera with your product, and paid plans send finished ads to Meta as paused drafts. Statics run on the free credits; video and the Meta upload need a paid plan.

Price: Free: 30 credits, 1 research project with 2 competitors, no card. Starter $39 a month for 500 credits and 3 projects of 5 competitors; Professional $79 (10 projects of 10); Business $139 (50 of 30).

5. AdSpy: best for engagement and comment search on Facebook and Instagram

AdSpy is a database of Facebook and Instagram ads only, at "213,989,000+ Ads". Search by ad text, URL, page name or likes; sort by reactions, last seen or longest running; and search the comments under ads, which none of the others lists. Affiliate marketers get filters by network, offer ID and landing page tech. It covers no other network and makes nothing.

Watch out for: no trial and a 24-hour refund window: "Users are entitled to receive a full refund within 24 hours of purchase", after which it's at AdSpy's discretion. A Capterra reviewer in April 2025: "Can be pricey. only focuses on facebook and instagram". Its Trustpilot page (2.4 from 8) has no review from the last year.

Price: $149 a month, one plan, called an "introductory offer". No yearly price is published.

6. BigSpy: best free plan, and the most networks for the money

BigSpy's free plan gives 10 searches a day on Facebook ads, with no downloads. Starter adds Instagram; Growth adds Google Ads, YouTube, X, TikTok and Pangle and lets you follow 100 pages and domains; Ultimate covers 11 networks. Ad cards show running days and last seen. Its AI turns an ad into an AI prompt and analyzes videos; it doesn't make ads.

Watch out for: refunds: "we do not issue refunds once the order is completed and delivered", except "in rare cases" within 24 hours. In a June 2026 Trustpilot review: "There are cheaper options on the market. And sometimes the website takes way too long to load." It scores 2.1 from 25.

Price: Free; Starter $69 a month ($49 billed yearly); Growth $159 ($119); Scale $399 for 5 seats; Ultimate $499 ($399).

7. PowerAdSpy: best for engagement sorting and spend estimates across 11 networks

PowerAdSpy sorts ads by likes, shares, comments and impressions on every plan, and from Platinum adds an "Estimated Ad Budget". Basic covers Facebook and Instagram for one brand; Standard adds Pinterest and Google Display, five brands and unlimited ad tracking; Palladium covers all 11 networks, TikTok and LinkedIn included. Billed yearly, prices drop by more than half.

Watch out for: the trials and refunds. A $1 or $7 trial runs three days, then "rolls into the plan's regular monthly rate automatically", and the footer's Refund Policy link opens a copyright page. In a January 2026 Trustpilot review: "They took money for 3 months after I cancelled and are refusing to refund me."

Price: Basic $69 a month ($27 billed yearly), Standard $99 ($39), Platinum $279, Palladium $399 ($119).

8. Atria: best for agencies that want research, AI concepts and an MCP in one seat plan

Atria follows 50 brands on its first plan, with weekly email updates, active and inactive status and a sort by longest running, across Meta and TikTok. Its AI writes concepts, hooks and scripts, clones image ads, and its Ad Maker MCP makes image and video ads from an agent such as Claude. Every plan includes the MCP server; Core has 5 seats.

Watch out for: the generated ads. A March 2026 Trustpilot reviewer: "Horrible results - looking plastic and inhuman." It scores 3.0 from 8. Prices are shown only billed yearly, under a Black Friday discount.

Price: Core $129 a month billed yearly (struck from $219), Plus $343, Business $959. A free start with 1,000 credits and no card is on its homepage.

Also considered

• TrendTrack: Shopify store and Meta ad research from $34 a month billed yearly, scored 4.7 from 83 on Trustpilot.
• WinningHunter: e-commerce research across Meta, TikTok and Pinterest ads, from $30 a month billed yearly.
• PiPiAds: TikTok first, on credits, from $49 a month, with a 500-credit free trial.
• Segwise: creative analytics with competitor ads from Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn and Google, priced by ad spend from $250 a month.
• Swipewell: a plain swipe file, free for 10 saves, $10 a month billed yearly.
• AdSpyder: $10 a month for search, $20 with analytics and AI ad generation.
• MagicBrief: closed on July 31, 2026; its team joined Canva, whose ad tool we compare in Canva Grow vs AdMakeAI.
• Spying on Google ads instead: Google's own Ads Transparency Center is free.

Once you have the ads, the job is making yours. For tools priced per finished ad, see the best AI tools for Facebook ad creative; for a Shopify store, the best AI tools for Shopify ads.

Facebook ad spy tools FAQ