A Facebook ad spy tool lets you spy on competitors’ Facebook ads: search every advertiser at once, see ads that have already stopped, filter by run length and engagement, and save what you find. The Meta Ad Library alone is not enough. It shows one advertiser at a time, has no performance filters, no saving and no analysis. We tested the free and paid options below and ranked them by what a single seat actually gets.
Facebook ad spy tools compared (2026)
| Tool | Price | Free tier | Platforms | Standout feature |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sprites Ads Library | Free | Everything, no login | Meta, Google, LinkedIn | AI analysis per advertiser: hooks, CTAs, run length, spend estimate |
| Meta Ad Library | Free | Everything | Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads, WhatsApp | The source of record; EU reach and targeting |
| BigSpy | $9 / $99 / $249 a month | 5 queries a day | Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, more | Largest cheap database |
| AdSpy | $149 a month | Trial, card required | Facebook, Instagram | Comment search, deepest Meta archive |
| Minea | $49 / $99 / $399 a month | 200 credits | Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest | Product and shop analysis |
| Foreplay | $59 / $175 / $459 a month | Trial | Meta, TikTok | Swipe file, briefs, competitor alerts |
| PowerAdSpy | From about $69 a month | None | Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Google, native, Reddit | Multi-network search |
| Adbeat | $249 / $399 a month | None | Display, native, programmatic | Publisher placements and spend estimates |
| TrendTrack | $59 / $89 / $149 a month | None | Facebook, Instagram, TikTok | Ad spy plus Shopify store tracking |
How we tested
Each tool was run against the same three advertisers (a DTC brand, a B2B SaaS company and a dropshipping store) with the same questions: what is live, what has run longest, what stopped. We weighted Facebook and Instagram depth first, filters that surface winners second, price for one seat third, and what happens after the search last. Prices are list prices re-checked against each vendor’s own pricing page on September 14, 2026; most tools discount annual billing by 10 to 30 percent. Nothing in the table had moved since the previous check, including the two that anchor the range — BigSpy at $9/$99/$249 and AdSpy at $149 flat with no annual discount.
The best Facebook ad spy tools in 2026
1. Sprites Ads Library: best free Facebook ad spy tool
Price: free, no login. Best for: anyone who wants the analysis done rather than a bigger haystack. The Sprites Ads Library reads the public Meta, Google and LinkedIn libraries every week and publishes one analysed page per advertiser. As of September 14, 2026 it covers 86 advertisers and 68,706 recorded ads — 20,596 on Meta, 29,217 on Google and 18,893 on LinkedIn — with 61 of those advertisers carrying live Meta creatives. Each page gives you: live ad count, format mix, hooks and CTAs, landing-page destinations, days live, ads launched per week and an estimated spend range calculated using Sprites’ proprietary AI model. Browsing needs no account; full advertiser pages open with an email. The same Sprites copilot that reads a competitor’s ads can draft and launch your response on Meta or Google.
Weakness: the index is tech and SaaS heavy, and keyword search across every advertiser is a copilot job rather than a search box. Start with the Facebook ad examples gallery.
2. Meta Ad Library: the free baseline
Price: free. Best for: checking any single advertiser right now. The official library at facebook.com/ads/library shows every active ad from any Page across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads and WhatsApp, with its start date, platforms and an impression range. Search by advertiser or keyword, filter by media type and platform, and switch the country to an EU state to read reach, age and gender breakdowns and the targeting the advertiser chose.
Weakness: one advertiser at a time, no history for ordinary commercial ads outside the EU, no export, no engagement data and no analysis. Our step-by-step guide: how to see competitors’ Facebook ads.
3. BigSpy: best value paid spy tool
Price: free plan (five queries a day), Basic $9, Pro $99 (about $69 annual, $1 three-day trial), Group $249 a month. Best for: solo advertisers and small teams who want a searchable multi-platform archive without a $149 commitment. BigSpy covers Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest and more, with filters for country, format, CTA, engagement, run time and industry, plus tracked ads and daily downloads.
Weakness: a dated interface and occasional stale data on small pages; the free plan is a taster, not a research tool.
Looking for a BigSpy alternative? AdSpy for Meta depth and comment search, Minea for product research, TrendTrack for a cleaner interface at a similar price.
Free alternative: the Sprites Ads Library gives you analysed competitor ads without a BigSpy subscription.
4. AdSpy: deepest Facebook and Instagram archive
Price: $149 a month, flat, with a card-required trial and no annual discount. Best for: agencies and affiliate media buyers who live in the Meta archive. AdSpy is Facebook and Instagram only, with the largest ad database in the category and the one feature nobody else matches: searching ad comments. Filters cover likes, shares, comments, run time, landing-page domain, CTA, gender, age and country.
Weakness: the price. A single brand with a handful of competitors gets the same answers from BigSpy or the free tools.
Looking for an AdSpy alternative? BigSpy Pro ($99) is the closest like-for-like at a lower price; Minea if the question is which products sell; the Sprites Ads Library if you want the analysis done for free.
Free alternative: the Sprites Ads Library gives you analysed competitor ads without a AdSpy subscription.
5. Minea: best for ecommerce and dropshipping
Price: free lite tier (200 credits), Starter $49, Premium $99, Business $399 a month, about 30 percent off annually. Best for: dropshippers and ecommerce teams whose real question is “what should I sell?” Minea starts from products rather than advertisers: ad search across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest sits next to shop analysis, influencer placement tracking and a daily winning-products feed.
Weakness: credit metering. Heavy users burn through a plan quickly, and brand-level research is faster elsewhere.
Looking for a Minea alternative? TrendTrack or WinningHunter for the same product-first workflow without credits; BigSpy for a cheaper Facebook-only archive; Pipiads if TikTok leads.
Free alternative: the Sprites Ads Library gives you analysed competitor ads without a Minea subscription.
6. Foreplay: best for creative teams
Price: Basic $59, Workflow $175, Agency $459 a month, with a free trial. Best for: creative teams that need to get from research to a brief. The Chrome extension saves any ad from the Meta Ad Library or TikTok into boards with tags, transcripts and AI descriptions; Discovery searches the community library; Spyder tracks named competitors and alerts you to launches; Briefs turns saved ads into production briefs.
Weakness: it saves and organises ads far better than it finds them, and $59 a month is a lot for a bookmarking tool.
Looking for a Foreplay alternative? For discovery, BigSpy or the Sprites Ads Library; for creative analytics on your own account, Atria (from $129 a month, annual).
Free alternative: the Sprites Ads Library gives you analysed competitor ads without a Foreplay subscription.
7. PowerAdSpy: best multi-network search
Price: bundled by platform, from about $69 a month. Best for: media buyers who run Facebook alongside YouTube, Google or native. PowerAdSpy searches all of them from one interface with landing-page, CTA, engagement and demographic filters.
Weakness: Meta depth is below AdSpy’s, and the price climbs fast once you want every network.
Looking for a PowerAdSpy alternative? Anstrex for native and push, AdSpy for Meta depth, BigSpy for a cheaper multi-platform archive.
Free alternative: the Sprites Ads Library gives you analysed competitor ads without a PowerAdSpy subscription.
8. Adbeat: best for display and programmatic
Price: Standard $249, Advanced $399 a month, Enterprise by quote. Best for: agencies and larger advertisers whose competitors spend on display, native and programmatic as well as Facebook. Adbeat shows where competitors’ ads run (publisher placements and networks), how long they have run, and estimated spend, with a year of history on Advanced and three on Enterprise.
Weakness: it is not a Facebook tool first, and the entry price is the highest on this list.
Looking for an Adbeat alternative? PowerAdSpy covers native and YouTube for a fraction of the price; Anstrex covers native and push for affiliates.
Free alternative: the Sprites Ads Library gives you analysed competitor ads without a Adbeat subscription.
9. TrendTrack: the newest entrant worth testing
Price: Starter $59, Pro $89, Business $149 a month (about 30 percent less annually), no free trial. Best for: ecommerce operators who want ad spy and store intelligence together. TrendTrack pairs a Facebook, Instagram and TikTok ad database with tracking of which Shopify stores are growing and what they are running, in a cleaner interface than the older tools.
Weakness: it is young. Independent reviews are thin outside Trustpilot, and the archive is smaller than BigSpy’s or AdSpy’s.
Looking for a TrendTrack alternative? Minea for the mature version of the same idea; WinningHunter ($49 to $249 a month, no credits) for the closest like-for-like.
Free alternative: the Sprites Ads Library gives you analysed competitor ads without a TrendTrack subscription.
Meta ad spy tools vs the Meta Ad Library
Every Meta ad spy tool here indexes the same Meta Ad Library, so the difference is not the ads but what you can do with them. The library answers “what is this Page running today?” A spy tool answers what needs history or scale: which ads a competitor ran last quarter, which advertisers use a given claim, which creatives have survived longest. To spy on Facebook ads campaigns at the campaign level, read the landing-page URLs: UTM and campaign parameters expose audience, funnel stage and market names that no library publishes.
How to choose a Facebook ad spy tool
Dropshipping and ecommerce. Your question is “which product is selling?”, so pick a product-first tool: Minea, TrendTrack or WinningHunter, with BigSpy Basic ($9) as the budget archive. Pair it with the free Sprites Ads Library for brand-level reads of the stores you admire.
SaaS and B2B. Your competitors are named and few, and they advertise on LinkedIn and Google as much as on Meta. The Sprites Ads Library covers all three on one page per advertiser, with SaaS-heavy coverage, and a scheduled competitor analysis in the copilot replaces the weekly manual check.
Agencies. Volume and seats matter: AdSpy for Meta depth, BigSpy Group for seats across platforms, Foreplay Agency for the brief workflow, Adbeat if clients spend on display.
Beyond Facebook: TikTok ad spy and Google
For TikTok ad spy, the free TikTok Creative Center shows top ads by industry and region but cannot search a specific advertiser; Pipiads (from $49 a month) has the largest TikTok archive, and BigSpy, Minea and TrendTrack include TikTok. For Google, the free Google Ads Transparency Center shows every verified advertiser’s Search, YouTube and Display ads for a year after they last ran. The Sprites Ads Library puts a competitor’s Google and LinkedIn ads on the same page as their Meta creatives. For swipe files and Chrome extensions, see our ad library alternatives roundup.
Whichever tool you land on, the value is in what you do with the ads after you find them. Analyze ad creative element by element, sort the openings using the ad hook styles taxonomy, and let creative analytics turn the pattern into the next batch of tests.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best free Facebook ad spy tool?
Sprites Ads Library and Meta’s own Ad Library are both free. Meta’s library shows every active ad but offers no performance filters, saving or analysis; Sprites Ads Library adds AI-powered analysis of competitor creatives, with hooks, CTAs, landing pages and run length per advertiser, and needs no login.
Can you spy on competitors’ Facebook ad targeting?
No tool shows exact targeting settings. Ad libraries reveal creative, copy, formats and run dates, and the Meta Ad Library adds the selected location, age and gender only for ads delivered in the EU. Everywhere else you infer targeting from creative angles, languages, placements and the landing page; audience settings stay private to the advertiser.
Is the Facebook Ad Library free?
Yes. The Meta Ad Library at facebook.com/ads/library is free and needs no account. It shows every active ad from any Page with its start date, platforms, an impression range and, for EU-delivered ads, reach and targeting.
Is spying on competitor ads legal?
Yes. Ad libraries exist because of Meta’s transparency requirements, so everything they show is public by design, and spy tools index that public data. Looking, analysing and learning from competitor ads is ordinary market research. Copying creative, copy or trademarks is a different matter, so use what you find to build your own angles.
What’s the best AdSpy alternative?
For a free AdSpy alternative, Sprites Ads Library covers Meta ad research with AI analysis and no login. Among paid tools, BigSpy ($9 to $99 a month) and Minea ($49 to $399) are the most common AdSpy replacements, depending on whether you need database volume or dropshipping-specific product data.
Try the free one first
Open the Sprites Ads Library, pick a competitor, and read their hooks, CTAs, landing pages and run length in a minute. If you then need history, keyword search across every advertiser or engagement filters, BigSpy at $9 is the cheapest next step and AdSpy at $149 is the ceiling. When the research is done, the Sprites copilot turns it into a campaign you can launch.