Best ad spy tools in 2026: an honest comparison of prices and platforms
LLucas Reda · 5 Nov · 10 min
Short answer: in the app, open your competitor's profile, tap the three dots (⋯) in the top right, choose About this account, then Active ads. On desktop, go to the Meta Ad Library, pick the country and "All ads", search for the brand's Facebook Page name (not the @ handle) and filter by Platform: Instagram. Both routes are free and show only ads that are running right now.
The rest of this guide is what separates looking from learning: what the library shows and what it hides, why a search sometimes returns nothing, how to read start dates and versions, and how to build a competitor file you check every week instead of starting from scratch.
Everything here is public data. Meta keeps active ads open to anyone for transparency. Looking at a competitor's ads doesn't require access to anyone's account, and it's exactly the kind of "spy" FreeSpy works with: ads, not people.
On the app: the "About this account" route
This is the fastest option when you already know who the competitor is and your phone is in your hand. The steps from the Instagram Help Center:
- Open the competitor's profile on Instagram.
- Tap the three-dot icon (⋯) in the top right corner of the profile.
- Tap About this account.
- If the account is advertising, you'll see Active ads. Tap it.
- Instagram opens the Meta Ad Library already filtered to that advertiser, with all of its active ads across Meta technologies (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Audience Network and Threads).
There's a shortcut most people miss: when one of the competitor's ads shows up in your feed, tap the three dots on the ad itself. In many cases that leads to the same "About this account" screen, and from there to the active ads.
Three details the Help Center confirms that save a lot of confusion:
- You need to be logged in to Instagram to see "About this account". The Ad Library itself is open to anyone, with or without an account.
- Only active ads show up. Promotions that are paused, finished or cancelled don't appear.
- It doesn't show targeting, budget or spend. And the advertiser isn't charged when you open their ads this way.
The same screen shows when the account was created, the country it's based in and how many times the username has changed (Instagram Help). For competitor research that's gold: an account created a few months ago that has changed its name several times is a very different player from a brand that's been around for years.
What if "Active ads" doesn't show up?
It's almost always one of these:
- The account isn't advertising right now. That's the most common answer. Check again in a few days.
- A different profile runs the ads. Plenty of operators advertise from a separate "sales" page and keep the polished profile for organic content. Look at the name above the creative on the ad you saw in your feed: that's the advertiser.
- The option isn't shown for that profile. On small or new accounts the menu is sometimes shorter. If so, use desktop.
What if the account has no Facebook Page connected?
There's one special case. According to Instagram Help, a professional account can boost a post for the first time without connecting an ad account or a Facebook Page. Outside that case, practically every ad running on Instagram is tied to a Facebook Page, including ads that only appear on Instagram.
In practice that means two things. First, the in-app shortcut is the best route for Instagram-only brands, because it takes you straight to the right advertiser. Second, if you search the library and find nothing, the problem is rarely "they don't advertise": the Facebook Page just has a different name. Meta doesn't clearly document how an advertiser without a Page appears in search, so try both names: the Page name and the profile name.
On desktop: the Meta Ad Library
For real research, desktop wins. Bigger screen, full filters, and you can open ten advertisers in tabs.
- Open facebook.com/ads/library. No login needed.
- Pick the country. The library shows ads that were delivered to people in that country. If your competitor sells in the UK, searching in "United States" may show nothing.
- Under category, choose All ads. The "Issues, elections or politics" category hides every commercial ad.
- Type the advertiser name. As you type, the library suggests Pages. Click the right Page (logo and name match) instead of hitting Enter.
- Open Filters, choose Platform: Instagram and keep Active status: Active ads.
- If you only want video, use Media type: Videos. For Reels and Stories research, it's the filter that clears the screen the most.
Notice the difference between hitting Enter and clicking the suggested Page. Hitting Enter runs a keyword search: the library returns every ad that mentions the term in its text, including resellers, affiliates and anyone who just names the brand. Clicking the Page shows only what that advertiser published. To study a competitor, you almost always want the second one.
Why search by Page name, not by @ handle
Library search matches the advertiser's Facebook Page name. The Instagram handle is often different: "brandxyz.official" on Instagram may be "Brand XYZ" on Facebook, or even the parent company that runs several brands. If the handle returns nothing, try:
- the brand name exactly as it appears above the ad, with spaces;
- the store's domain (many Pages use the domain as their name);
- opening the brand's Facebook Page and, in the Page transparency section, clicking through to the Ad Library;
- the in-app shortcut above, which always lands on the right advertiser.
What the Instagram filter does (and doesn't)
Platform: Instagram shows ads running on Instagram. It doesn't mean "only on Instagram". Most advertisers leave placements on automatic, so the same ad carries the Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads icons at once. If you want to know what's Instagram-only, look at each card's icons: an ad with a single Instagram icon was placed there on purpose.
What the Ad Library shows and what it doesn't
This is where most false expectations come from. The library was built for transparency, not market intelligence. It shows a lot about the creative and almost nothing about results.
| You can see | You can't see |
|---|---|
| Any advertiser's active ads | Commercial ads that have stopped running (outside the EU and UK) |
| The date the ad started running | Daily or total spend |
| Which platforms it runs on (icons) | The exact placement it was delivered in (Feed, Stories or Reels) |
| The creative, copy, headline and button | Likes, comments and shares on the ad |
| How many ads use the same creative and text | Interests, custom and lookalike audiences |
| Whether the ad has multiple versions | CPA, ROAS, conversion rate |
| In the EU: estimated reach, audience age, gender and country, who pays and who benefits | That transparency data for ads seen only outside the EU |
| For political ads: spend and reach ranges | Spend and reach for a regular commercial ad |
Checked in October 2026 on the Meta Transparency Center and in the library itself.
Two rows deserve a note.
Political and issue ads are stored for seven years, with spend and reach ranges. That doesn't apply to your competitor's product ads.
Ads shown in the European Union fall under the Digital Services Act (DSA). Because of it, Meta keeps those ads in the library for a year after their last impression and shows a European Union transparency section in the ad details: estimated reach, the age, gender and location used for targeting, and who paid for the ad. If your competitor also sells in Germany, France or Ireland, open those details. You'll get an estimated reach figure that simply doesn't exist for ads running only in the US.
Boosted post or Ads Manager ad?
Both look the same in the library, but they tell you different things about the competitor.
A boosted post comes from the "Boost" button inside the app. The ad is a post that already lives on the profile's grid. Typical signs: the copy matches the post caption, the button is often "Visit profile", "Send message" or "Learn more", and the creative looks like organic content.
An Ads Manager ad is built by someone who runs paid traffic seriously. It often doesn't appear on the profile at all (the classic "dark post"). Typical signs: several ads with the same creative and different copy, a "Shop now" button pointing to the store, versions of the same video with different hooks, and multiple placements.
Why it matters: a competitor that only boosts posts is doing brand awareness. A competitor with ten versions of the same video, live for weeks, is testing and scaling an offer. The second one is who you learn from.
Reels, Stories and Feed: telling where an ad runs
The library shows the platform, not the placement. It won't say "this ran in Reels". You can infer it from the format, though:
- Vertical (9:16), full screen, burned-in captions and music: made for Reels and Stories. It's the format you'll see most from brands selling physical products.
- Square or 4:5 with long copy: made for Feed. Common for info products, services and offers that need a lot of explaining.
- Carousel: Feed and sometimes Stories. Common for stores with a catalog and for comparisons.
- Catalog ad (several products rotating in the same card): almost always an Ads Manager sales campaign, usually retargeting.
When a competitor runs the same video in both 9:16 and 4:5, they're covering both worlds with one piece. That's a good sign the creative was worth the effort of adapting.
How to read what you found
Finding the ad is the easy part. Reading it is what turns into a test.
Start date: the most honest signal
Every card shows the date the ad started running. Count the days to today. An ad that loses money usually gets turned off within days, so the longer it's been live, the more likely it's paying for itself. A three-day-old ad tells you nothing. A two-month-old ad that's still active has survived several rounds of cuts. We cover the full logic in days live: the most honest signal.
Be careful with big brands. A well-known brand may keep a brand ad running for reasons that have nothing to do with direct sales.
"X ads use this creative and text"
When the library groups identical ads, it shows how many there are and swaps the button for a summary view. It means the advertiser launched the same creative several times, in different ad sets or campaigns. Duplicating is the most common way to scale. A creative running in many copies for weeks is what the competitor is betting on. More in what creative copies mean.
"This ad has multiple versions"
That's different from copies. It's one ad with variations in copy, headline or image, usually from Meta's automatic creative features or from the advertiser's own tests. Open the ad details and compare the versions: phrases that repeat across all of them are what the advertiser treats as essential. The ones that change are what they're still testing.
Copy and hook variations
When you see the same video with different copy, write down the opening of each (the part before "more"). You're watching the competitor's angle test live. Tag each one with the six creative angles: social proof, personal story, discount, authority, fear or curiosity. If one angle shows up in almost everything that's been live the longest, that's what works for that audience.
Where the ad leads
Click the button and look at the landing page. Price, offer (bundle, free shipping, guarantee) and page structure count as much as the creative. Lots of people study the video and forget that the page is what closes the sale.
Start date answers "does this sell?". Copies answer "how much are they betting on it?". Versions answer "what are they still testing?".
Build a competitor file
Looking once is curiosity. The value is in looking every week and seeing what changed: what's new, what's gone, what's still there.
A simple spreadsheet does the job:
- A list of 5 to 15 competitors, with Facebook Page name, Instagram handle and a pre-filtered library link (copy the URL after applying filters; it keeps the country, advertiser and platform).
- One row per creative that caught your eye, with start date, format (9:16, 4:5, carousel), angle, opening hook, offer and link.
- A "last seen" column. Every week, check whether the ad is still active. Anything that survives four weeks in a row moves up the list.
- A "what I'll test" column. Not the ad, but its structure: the hook, the order of the arguments, the offer. The method is in copy the structure, not the creative.
Block 15 fixed minutes a week for this. If you want a routine for that session, use the one in mining the Ad Library in 15 minutes.
Common mistakes
- Searching by @ handle. Search matches the Facebook Page name. Use the library's suggestion or the in-app shortcut.
- Forgetting the country. The library filters by where the ad was delivered. A competitor selling in Australia won't show up under "United States".
- Leaving the category on politics. It hides every commercial ad. Use "All ads".
- Assuming "Platform: Instagram" means Instagram-only. Check the card's icons.
- Mixing up keyword search and advertiser search. Hitting Enter returns ads from everyone who mentions the brand.
- Judging by the prettiest creative. Looks aren't a signal. Start date and copies are.
- Drawing conclusions from a new ad. Under a week old, almost everything is a test.
- Copying the ad. Beyond the risk of reports and a banned ad account, you enter the auction against someone who already has that creative's history. Copy the angle, rebuild the piece.
- Copying health ad copy. For supplements and similar niches, describe the angle to yourself. Copied health claims are the fastest way to a rejected ad.
How FreeSpy shortens the work
FreeSpy is our product, so here's plainly what it does and what it doesn't.
What it does. Every day it reads public ads from Meta (Facebook and Instagram), TikTok and YouTube, groups copies of the same creative and hands you the reading: how many days the ad has been live, how many copies are running, and a 0 to 100 score for the advertiser. Instead of opening the library competitor by competitor, you can:
- use Explore to filter by country, niche, format and days live, and see only what's been running for weeks;
- add competitors to the Store Monitor. Every morning FreeSpy checks each one and shows what's new, what went offline and what became a champion. It's the competitor file from the previous section, updating itself;
- keep the creatives that matter in Saved, organized into collections;
- see in Top Scaled who repeats creatives the most in your market, including competitors you didn't know about.
If you work with AI, you can ask Claude or ChatGPT the same questions through the FreeSpy MCP. The walkthrough is in ad library MCP: ask Claude or ChatGPT what's scaling.
What it doesn't do. It doesn't show spend, targeting or sales results, because that data isn't public. Metrics are estimates based on public data and don't guarantee results. TikTok and YouTube coverage is smaller than Meta's. Coverage focuses on several European countries, Brazil and Latin America. And there's no browser extension: FreeSpy is a website.
What it costs. The account is free forever and doesn't ask for a card. On Free you get 3 collections, a Monitor of 5 advertisers and MCP with 100 queries a day. Pro is optional, for people who want higher limits; details are on pricing. To start, create your free account.
Take the method to other networks
The same reasoning (start date, copies, versions, structure) works beyond Instagram:
- On TikTok, the official library has different rules depending on the country, and the US and UK are not treated the same. See TikTok Ad Library: is it available in your country?.
- To tell whether what you found is actually scaling, and not just running, read scaling offers: how to find and confirm them.
Frequently asked questions
Can I see a competitor's Instagram ads without them knowing?
Yes. The Ad Library is public, and so is "About this account". The advertiser isn't notified and, according to Instagram Help, isn't charged when you open their active ads.
How do I see if an Instagram account is running ads?
Open the profile, tap ⋯ and then About this account. If Active ads appears, the account is advertising right now. If it doesn't, search the brand in the Ad Library by its Facebook Page name, because the ads may run from a different Page.
Is there a separate Instagram Ad Library?
No. Instagram uses the Meta Ad Library. It covers Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Audience Network and Threads, and you use the platform filter to see only what runs on Instagram.
Can I see a competitor's old Instagram ads?
Commercial ads that have stopped running drop out of the library, with two exceptions: political and issue ads (kept for seven years) and ads shown in the European Union (kept for a year after the last impression). To keep history on a regular ad, you have to save or track it while it's live.
Can I see how much a competitor spends on Instagram ads?
No. The library only shows spend for political ads. The best proxy is to combine days live with the number of copies: a long run and many copies point to high, steady spend.
Next time a competitor's ad shows up in your feed, don't scroll past it: three dots, About this account, Active ads. Write down the start date and come back next week to see if it's still there.
One guide per platform: the others are in Guides.
