The best ad spy tools in 2026, and the free ones you should try first
The official ad libraries are free and more accurate than any estimate. Here is when a paid ad spy tool is still worth it, and what each one costs.
Start with the part most articles about this bury: for the three networks that matter to most advertisers, the best data is free and comes from the platforms themselves.
The free official libraries
Google Ads Transparency Center
Every verified advertiser's live ads across search, display and YouTube, with first and last shown dates and the regions they run in. Search by advertiser or by domain.
This is Google's own record. No third party estimate is more accurate about what is running right now.
Meta Ad Library
Every active Facebook and Instagram ad, searchable by page. Shows creative, format, and how many versions of an ad are running. For political and issue ads you also get spend ranges and reach.
TikTok Commercial Content Library
TikTok's equivalent, with advertiser search and ad details. Coverage is uneven by country but it is real data.
Between these three, you can see what most competitors are running today without paying anything. If you have never opened them, do that before reading the rest of this page.
So when is a paid tool worth it
Four reasons, and only four.
- History. The libraries show what is running now and recently. Paid tools keep years.
- Estimates. Keyword level paid search data and modelled spend, which the libraries do not provide.
- Networks the libraries do not cover. Programmatic display, native placements, and ad networks outside the big three.
- Being told rather than looking. The libraries have no alerts. Checking twelve competitors across three libraries every week is about an hour of clicking, and nobody does it for long.
The paid tools
Prices read from each vendor's own pricing page on 19 September 2026.
| Tool | From | Covers | Best reason to buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| SpyFu | $39 first month, then $119/mo | Paid search | Years of keyword history |
| Semrush | $139/mo | Paid search, display, PLA | Depth, if you need the rest of the suite |
| Adbeat | $249/mo | Programmatic and native display | Publisher placements nothing else shows |
| Figo | $49/mo | Google, Meta, TikTok, weekly | Being told when ads start and stop |
SpyFu, $39 first month then $119
The cheapest credible way to see what a domain has bid on over time. Extra users $30 a month. Its historical depth is the reason to choose it, and the estimates are modelled like everyone else's.
Read the intro pricing carefully. The $39 is month one.
Semrush, from $139
$139, $199, $299 and $549 a month, plus $45 to $100 per additional user depending on tier. Advertising research is one part of a large platform. Buy it for the platform, not for ad spying alone.
Adbeat, $249
$249 and $399 a month. The only tool here that shows programmatic and native display placements: which publishers, which networks, roughly what spend. If display is part of your market, nothing cheap replaces it.
Figo, $49
Ours. It checks the Google, Meta and TikTok libraries every week for each competitor you track and tells you what started, what stopped and how long each creative has been running, alongside their rankings, pages, content, social and AI visibility. $49 for three competitors, $99 for eight.
It does not do programmatic display placements or paid search keyword estimates. For those, Adbeat and SpyFu respectively.
The trap in this category
Every ad intelligence tool will show you a spend number. None of them know it.
The number comes from estimated impressions multiplied by an estimated CPM, or from estimated keyword volume multiplied by an estimated CPC and an estimated position. Two tools looking at the same advertiser routinely differ by a factor of three.
Use them this way: competitor A appears to be spending roughly twice what competitor B spends, and both went up in July. That comparison is sound. The specific dollar figure is not, and putting it in a client report as fact will eventually embarrass you.
A practical setup that costs nothing
- Bookmark the three official libraries with your competitors' pages saved.
- Once a week, open each and screenshot anything new.
- Keep the screenshots in a dated folder.
Six months of that is a better competitive ad archive than most agencies have. The only problem with it is the one every manual process has, which is that week five never happens.
Choosing
- Just starting: the free libraries, seriously.
- Paid search history matters: SpyFu.
- Display and native matter: Adbeat.
- You want the libraries checked for you every week with everything else: Figo.
- You already pay for Semrush: use what you have before adding anything.
Questions people ask
Can I see competitor ads for free?
Yes, and better than most paid tools for the main networks. Google, Meta and TikTok all run official public ad libraries showing every active ad with date ranges.
Are ad spend estimates accurate?
No third party knows what anyone spent. Every figure is modelled from position, estimated volume and panel data. They are useful for comparing advertisers, not for reporting numbers.
What is the best free Facebook ad spy tool?
The Meta Ad Library itself. It is Meta's own data, it is complete for active ads, and it costs nothing. Paid tools add search, history and alerting on top of it.
Do ad spy tools tell me when a competitor launches a campaign?
Mostly no. They are search tools you have to visit. If you want to be told, you need a monitoring tool that checks the libraries on a schedule.
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.
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