Tooling
Best Tools to Monitor Competitor Facebook and TikTok Ads in 2026 (Free and Paid)
Every competitor ad is public somewhere. The free libraries show you what is running. Paid tools add history, alerts and a way to organize what you find. Most brands need less than they think.
The best tools to monitor competitor Facebook and TikTok ads in 2026 are the free Meta Ad Library and TikTok Creative Center to start, then Foreplay if you want competitor tracking and saved swipe files across platforms, PiPiAds for TikTok, Minea or BigSpy if you sell ecommerce on a budget, and AdSpy for the deepest Facebook and Instagram archive. Every competitor ad on Meta is public in the Ad Library, so you can see a lot without paying anything.
What paid tools add is history, search across many brands at once, alerts when a competitor launches something new, and a place to save and organize what you find.
Why monitor competitor ads at all
Meta and TikTok now decide who sees your ads largely from what the creative shows, so creative is the main thing you control. Competitor ads are the fastest research you can do on it. They show which angles, hooks, offers and formats other brands are paying to keep running in your category.
The goal is not to copy. It is to see which ideas are already crowded, which are working, and which angles nobody in your market is using yet.
The free official libraries
1. Meta Ad Library
The Meta Ad Library at facebook.com/ads/library shows every active ad on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads and Audience Network. Search a brand’s page and you see each ad’s creative, copy, platforms and the date it started running.
How much more you see depends on where the ad runs:
- Political and social issue ads, worldwide: spend ranges, impressions, audience breakdowns and who paid, kept for seven years.
- All ads delivered in the EU and UK: reach, age, gender and location breakdowns and payer details, under the EU’s Digital Services Act.
- Other ads elsewhere: creative and start date only. No spend, no impressions, no targeting.
There is also an API for pulling ads in bulk.
Best for: everyone. Start here.
2. TikTok Creative Center (Top Ads)
TikTok’s free Creative Center has a Top Ads section that shows high-performing ads you can filter by country, industry, objective, format and time period, with engagement data. You can browse without an account.
Limit: curated top ads, not a full library of a specific brand’s ads, and no run dates or spend.
3. TikTok Commercial Content Library
For ads shown in the EU, UK and Switzerland, TikTok’s Commercial Content Library at library.tiktok.com lists every paid ad from the past year, with dates, impressions and targeting, searchable by advertiser and keyword. No login needed.
Limit: no coverage of ads shown only in the US or other regions.
4. Google Ads Transparency Center
Not Facebook or TikTok, but useful for a full picture. Google’s Ads Transparency Center shows a verified advertiser’s search, YouTube, display and shopping ads, with the format and when each was last shown.
Limit: no spend, performance or targeting data.
The paid tools at a glance
| Tool | Platforms | Cheapest paid plan | Free option | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Foreplay | Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts | $59/mo ($49 annual) | 7-day trial | Brand and creative teams |
| Atria | Meta-focused | $159/mo | 7-day trial | Creative scoring against benchmarks |
| Gethookd | Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Google | $29/mo | 7-day trial | Research plus AI scripts |
| BigSpy | Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest and more | $9/mo | Free plan | Many networks on a budget |
| PowerAdSpy | 11 networks incl. Facebook, TikTok, Google | $69/mo ($27 annual) | $1 trial | Keyword and targeting filters |
| AdSpy | Facebook, Instagram | $149/mo | No | Largest Facebook archive |
| Minea | Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, stores | $49/mo ($34 annual) | Free plan, 200 credits | Ecommerce and dropshipping |
| PiPiAds | TikTok (some Facebook) | $49/mo | Free plan and trial | TikTok ads |
| Motion | Your own Meta, TikTok, YouTube accounts | $750/mo | Trial | Creative analytics for big spenders |
| Semrush AdClarity | Display, video, Facebook, Instagram | $169/mo add-on | No | Estimated spend benchmarks |
Prices from vendor pages and recent reviews, October 2026.
5. Foreplay: best all-round competitor ad tool
Foreplay combines a large community library of ads with Spyder, which tracks chosen competitors around the clock and keeps their ad history for up to three years, even after ads stop running. Save ads into boards, share them with your team, and turn them into creative briefs with AI. It covers Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn and YouTube Shorts.
Weakness: no free plan, and Google ads support is still on the way.
6. Atria: best for scoring creative
Atria lets you follow competitors and alerts you when their strategy shifts, and grades ads on hooks, formats and visuals against a large benchmark dataset of ad spend. It starts at $159 a month.
Weakness: expensive for solo marketers, and it is focused on Meta.
7. Gethookd: research and scripts in one place
Gethookd indexes millions of ads across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Google, flags brands that are scaling, transcribes video ads and writes new scripts from what you find. Plans start at $29 a month.
Weakness: the company itself says it is less useful if your traffic is mostly TikTok or native ads.
8. BigSpy: most networks for the least money
BigSpy covers Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, X and several mobile ad networks, with a genuine free plan and paid plans from $9 a month (Pro is $99 for unlimited searches, with a $1 three-day trial).
Weakness: breadth over depth. Use the trial to check the data for your niche.
9. PowerAdSpy: best search filters
PowerAdSpy searches 11 networks by keyword, advertiser or domain, with filters for gender, age, device and ad position, plus AI tags for intent and hooks. Basic is $69 a month or $27 billed annually, with a $1 trial.
Weakness: built mainly for affiliates and media buyers, so the interface is busy.
10. AdSpy: biggest Facebook and Instagram archive
AdSpy holds over 200 million Facebook and Instagram ads from 225 countries and can search inside ad comments, which is unique and useful for spotting complaints and buying objections. It costs $149 a month flat.
Weakness: no TikTok, no free trial.
11. Minea: best free start for ecommerce
Minea searches Meta, TikTok and Pinterest ads and live online stores, and traces an ad back to the product and supplier. The free plan gives 200 credits with no card, and paid plans start at $49 a month ($34 annual).
Weakness: TikTok and Pinterest ads and AI competitor research need the higher plans. Our trending product research tools guide covers Minea’s product side.
12. PiPiAds: best for TikTok
PiPiAds is built around TikTok ads, with search by keyword, product and advertiser, and detailed ad metrics. There is a limited free plan and trial, and paid plans start at $49 a month.
Weakness: credits make your real monthly cost hard to predict at scale.
13. Motion: creative analytics, not a spy tool
Motion analyzes your own Meta, TikTok and YouTube ad accounts to show which creative drives results, and its Inspo feature lets you follow competitors and save their ads. Pricing starts around $750 a month.
Weakness: competitor monitoring is a side feature. Buy it for analyzing your own creative, not for spying.
14. Semrush AdClarity: estimated spend benchmarks
AdClarity estimates competitors’ ad spend and impressions across display, video and Facebook and Instagram, and compares them side by side. It is a Semrush add-on from $169 a month.
Weakness: spend figures are estimates, and TikTok coverage is not clear.
A note if you used MagicBrief: it shut down at the end of July 2026. Foreplay and Atria are the closest replacements.
How to tell which competitor ads are working
Outside the EU and UK you cannot see a rival’s spend or results. You can still read the signals:
- Run time. Advertisers stop paying for ads that do not sell. An ad still running after 30, 60 or 90 days is very likely profitable. This is the main signal every spy tool sorts by.
- Many versions at once. A brand running five variations of the same concept is scaling a winner.
- Repeated angles. If several competitors keep coming back to the same hook or offer, it works in your market. It is also getting crowded.
- Landing pages. Click through. The offer, price and page structure tell you as much as the ad.
- EU data. If a competitor also advertises in Europe, check the EU view in the Meta Ad Library or TikTok’s Commercial Content Library for real reach numbers.
A simple weekly routine
- List your five main competitors and two brands outside your category whose ads you admire.
- Once a week, check their new ads in the Meta Ad Library and TikTok Creative Center, or let a paid tool alert you.
- Save anything that has run for 30+ days into a swipe file, tagged by angle: social proof, problem and solution, demonstration, comparison, offer.
- Each month, look for angles nobody in your market is using, and brief new ads around them.
Then make your version, not a copy. Our guides to Facebook ads strategies after Meta’s latest updates and the best AI video ad generators cover turning what you find into new creative fast.
Which should you use?
Just starting, or on a tight budget: Meta Ad Library plus TikTok Creative Center. Free, and enough for most small brands.
Ecommerce or dropshipping: Minea’s free plan, then BigSpy or PiPiAds if TikTok is your main channel.
Brand or creative team running regular tests: Foreplay.
Facebook-heavy affiliate: AdSpy.
Agency that needs spend estimates: Semrush AdClarity.
The bottom line
You do not need a paid tool to see competitor ads. The Meta Ad Library shows everything running on Meta for free, and TikTok’s Creative Center covers top TikTok ads. Pay for a tool when you need history after ads stop, alerts across many competitors, TikTok search by brand, or a shared swipe file for your team. For most brands that means Foreplay, or Minea and PiPiAds for ecommerce.
