The best SpyFu alternatives in 2026
SpyFu opens at $39 and moves to $119 a month. Here is what else shows you a competitor's paid search, what it costs today, and where each one is stronger.
SpyFu built its reputation on one thing: years of history. If you want to know what a competitor was bidding on in 2021, it is the cheapest credible way to find out.
Prices below were read from each vendor's own pricing page on 19 September 2026.
What SpyFu costs today
Three tiers: Basic, Pro + AI and Team/Agency. The headline offer is $39 for the first month, moving to $119 a month after that. One user is included, and each additional user is $30 a month. The Team/Agency tier includes five users with the same $30 for extras.
Read the footnote on that $39. A lot of people sign up at the intro price and are surprised in month two.
What ad spy tools can and cannot do
Worth saying plainly, because the category oversells itself.
They can show you which ads are running, roughly which keywords a domain appears for in paid results, and how that has changed over time.
They cannot see a competitor's actual spend, their real CPCs, their quality scores or their conversion rates. Every spend figure in every one of these tools is modelled from position and estimated volume.
They mostly do not tell you when something changes. They are search interfaces. You have to remember to go and look.
The alternatives worth a look
| Tool | From | Best at | Publishes prices |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Ads Transparency Center | Free | Every live ad, from the source | Free |
| Semrush | $139/mo | PPC plus organic in one tool | Yes |
| Adbeat | $249/mo | Display and programmatic | Yes |
| Figo | $49/mo | Weekly alerts across Google, Meta and TikTok | Yes |
The Google Ads Transparency Center, free
Start here before you pay anyone. Google publishes every ad an advertiser is running, with the date each was first and last shown, searchable by advertiser or domain.
It will not estimate spend or keywords, and it has no alerts, but for the question what are they actually saying in their ads right now it is the primary source that every paid tool is reading anyway.
Semrush, for breadth
At $139 a month and up, Semrush covers paid and organic in one place, with ad copy history and the reporting most agencies need. Less historical depth than SpyFu on PPC specifically, far more surrounding toolset.
Pick Semrush if PPC is one of several jobs and you want a single subscription.
Adbeat, for display
$249 a month for Standard, $399 for Advanced, Enterprise on request. Adbeat is not really a SpyFu competitor: it covers display and programmatic, the placements and publishers rather than the search keywords.
Pick Adbeat if you buy display and need to know where competitors' banners are landing.
Figo, for knowing without looking
Ours, so weigh it accordingly.
The honest gap in this category is that every tool listed above is something you have to remember to open. Figo checks the Google, Meta and TikTok ad libraries every week for each competitor you track and tells you what started, what stopped and how long each has been running, alongside their pages, rankings, reviews and pricing.
$49 a month for three competitors, $99 for eight, $249 for twenty across five client workspaces.
It does not estimate spend and it does not do keyword level PPC research. For what was this advertiser bidding on in 2023, SpyFu wins and it is not close.
Pick Figo if you want to be told within a week that a competitor launched a new offer, rather than finding out in a quarterly review.
When to keep SpyFu
- You need history. Multi year keyword and ad history at $119 a month is a genuinely good deal.
- You do PPC audits. New client, unfamiliar account, and you need to know what the market bids on. SpyFu is built for exactly that afternoon.
- You want keyword level estimates rather than creative level tracking.
A stack that covers the whole job
- Google Ads Transparency Center, free. Every live ad, straight from Google.
- SpyFu, $119. History and keyword estimates when you need to dig.
- Figo, $49. Weekly notice of what changed, across Google, Meta and TikTok at once.
That is $168 a month and it covers research, history and monitoring. Most teams buy one of the three and wonder why they keep getting surprised.
The short answer
For history, SpyFu is still the best value in the category. For live creative, use Google's own library and stop paying for something you can read for free. For being told when it changes, no ad spy tool does that, which is the gap we built Figo to fill.
Questions people ask
What is the cheapest way to see a competitor's Google Ads?
Free. The Google Ads Transparency Center lists every ad an advertiser is running, with first and last shown dates. SpyFu and others add history and keyword estimates on top of what Google already publishes.
Is SpyFu accurate?
Its historical coverage is genuinely good and its keyword estimates are modelled, like everyone else's. Treat spend figures as directional rather than exact.
SpyFu or Semrush for PPC research?
SpyFu goes deeper on history for less money. Semrush is better if you also need organic research, reporting and a wider toolset.
Does anything watch new ads for me automatically?
That is the gap most ad spy tools leave. They are search tools, not monitors. Figo checks the Google, Meta and TikTok libraries weekly and tells you what started and stopped.
See it on your own competitors
Figo checks their ads, pages, rankings, reviews and AI answers every week, then tells you what to do in plain words. Set up in two minutes.
Keep reading