Poseidon vs spy tools
Spy tools help you find ads. Poseidon helps you choose what to make.
Most ad spy tools are built to find products and stores, and to show you as many ads as possible. That's a real job. It's just not the one that loses you money.
What loses you money is the creative choice. Which format. Which hook. Which script. Which audience. Poseidon is built for that choice, and only for that.
"All of these spy tools just regurgitate the Ad Library, while we have deep analysis and rank for each ad." — Ilyas, founder
Compared on what each tool says on its own public pages, read on 12 November 2026. Something wrong or out of date? Write to contact@askposeidon.app and we fix it.
The short version
| Poseidon | Most spy tools | |
|---|---|---|
| What it's for | Choosing the format, hook, script and audience | Finding ads, products and stores |
| What it shows | Measured facts, with the day they were read | A feed of ads, sorted by how long they've run |
| Real reach per ad | Meta's own EU total, read every day, with its country, age and gender breakdown as shares | Usually not shown, or a total only |
| What happens with no data | It shows nothing | Often an estimate |
| How you pay | Per search, credits never expire | Monthly subscription |
Feature by feature
1. Real reach of each ad, by country, age and gender
| Tool | What its public pages say |
|---|---|
| Poseidon | Yes. Meta's own EU reach per ad, read every day, with its country and age × gender breakdown shown as shares. |
| TrendTrack | Partly. "Estimated reach and budget data" for EU ads from Meta's transparency report; daily reach and spend per EU brand on the Business plan. Age × gender per ad not found. |
| BrandSearch | Partly. Its free Chrome extension shows EU total reach and the country split. Age × gender not found. |
| AdTruffle | Partly. Daily EU total reach. Country or age × gender split not found. |
| AdScan | Yes. Meta's reach, age, gender and country breakdown per ad, for the UK, the EU and Brazil, in a Chrome extension. |
| Apify scrapers | Yes, per request. The official Facebook Ads scraper returns EU total reach and the country × age × gender breakdown when ad details are asked for. One read per call, no history kept. |
| Minea, BigSpy, Foreplay, Atria | Not found on their pages. |
| AdSpy | No Meta reach. Engagement (likes, comments) and an "estimated audience" instead. |
| PiPiAds, Kalodata | Mainly TikTok. Does not apply. |
2. The script, cut into sections
| Tool | What its public pages say |
|---|---|
| Poseidon | Yes. Every sentence of the script labelled Hook, Problem, Proof, Offer, CTA and more, for the ads analysed so far (about 830 on 12 Nov 2026). |
| Foreplay | Automated transcription. Sections not found. |
| Atria | "Extract video scripts." Sections not found. |
| Minea | AI transcripts, 10 a month on Starter, 50 on Premium, unlimited on Business. Sections not found. |
| AdScan | Instant transcripts. Sections not found. |
| BrandSearch | Hooks and copy "decoded". Transcripts not found. |
| TrendTrack | Hooks. Transcripts not found. |
| AdTruffle, AdSpy, BigSpy, PiPiAds, Kalodata, Apify scrapers | Not found. |
3. Weights per format, hook and audience, with the sample size
| Tool | What its public pages say |
|---|---|
| Poseidon | Yes for formats. How long winners run, how far they reach, how many versions brands make, with the number of ads behind each figure, median and top 10%. Nothing shown under 30 ads. Hooks and audiences are next, as they're measured. |
| TrendTrack | A 1 to 5 "performance score" that "summarizes engagement", and a ranking by reach gained over 7 days for EU and UK Meta ads. Sample size not shown. |
| Minea | A "success score". Method not published on its own pages. |
| BrandSearch | "Ad Rank", the top % by impressions within the same brand. |
| AdScan | Ranks ads by estimated spend. |
| AdTruffle | A 7-day reach gain. |
| Foreplay, Atria | Scores built on your own ad account, not on other brands' ads. |
| AdSpy, BigSpy, PiPiAds, Kalodata, Apify scrapers | Not found. |
4. The brands' own A/B tests
| Tool | What its public pages say |
|---|---|
| Poseidon | Yes. Finds the tests brands run against themselves (same text on different videos, same video with different texts) and shows which version won, by how much, with both ads. |
| Every other tool listed | Not found. |
5. Updated every day
| Tool | What its public pages say |
|---|---|
| Poseidon | Yes. Reach read every day for every winner it follows, and the history kept. |
| TrendTrack | Daily reach per EU brand, on the Business plan. |
| AdTruffle | Daily EU reach. Ads dropped after 30 days. |
| AdScan | "Last 7 days" and "last 30 days" filters. |
| Others | Not found. |
6. For your AI assistant (API and MCP)
| Tool | What its public pages say |
|---|---|
| Poseidon | Yes. Built to be asked by AI assistants first. |
| TrendTrack | API on Pro and Business, with daily limits. MCP yes. |
| BrandSearch | API and MCP. 5,000 calls on Starter, 10,000 on the other plans. |
| Foreplay | API and MCP. 10,000 credits a month included (20,000 on annual), packs beyond. |
| Atria | API and MCP on every plan. On Core, 1,200 API calls and 600 MCP calls a month. |
| AdTruffle | API and MCP from the $66 a month plan. |
| Apify scrapers | API, paid per 1,000 ads. |
| Minea | API not on the pricing page. MCP not found. |
| PiPiAds, Kalodata | API on enterprise plans only, per third-party pages. |
| AdSpy, BigSpy | Not found. |
| AdScan | API docs listed. MCP not found. |
7. How you pay
| Tool | Price on its pages, 12 Nov 2026 |
|---|---|
| Poseidon | Pay per search. €20 is 400 searches. Credits never expire. No subscription. 100 free credits to start. |
| TrendTrack | $34, $62 or $111 a month (yearly prices) |
| Minea | $49, $99 or $199 a month |
| AdSpy | $149 a month |
| BigSpy | Free, then $69 to $499 a month |
| PiPiAds | $49 to $900 a month (third-party pages, conflicting) |
| Foreplay | $59, $175 or $459 a month, plus $20 per extra user |
| Atria | $219, $549 or $1,549 a month |
| BrandSearch | $63, $79 or $149 a month (its own blog) |
| AdTruffle | $36 to $89 a month |
| AdScan | $99 a month for Pro, $199 for Team (shown as 50% off) |
| Kalodata | about $38 to $99 a month (third-party pages) |
| Apify scrapers | $0.75 to $5.80 per 1,000 ads |
"We do not charge a subscription because it's a form of racket. We just charge for what you use. Fair." — Ilyas
8. Limits on how much you can ask
| Tool | What its public pages say |
|---|---|
| Poseidon | No monthly cap. You use your credits as fast as you want, up to 3 requests a second. |
| BrandSearch | 5,000 or 10,000 API/MCP calls a month by plan |
| Atria | 1,200 API calls and 600 MCP calls a month on Core |
| Foreplay | 10,000 credits a month included, 1 credit per ad |
| TrendTrack | Daily limits, for example 24,000 a day on Pro |
| Minea | Transcripts and AI features capped by plan |
"People pay hundreds for ad spy tools, and they limit their API calls. It's a pure nightmare." — Ilyas
Where spy tools are bigger, honestly
Poseidon is not trying to have every ad on the internet.
TrendTrack says it covers 250 million ads and 5 million stores. AdSpy says 214 million ads. Foreplay's API page shows 54.7 million. Poseidon has seen 37,684 ads from 2,293 brands, and follows 3,690 winners in depth, in Europe only, today.
If you want to browse millions of ads or find a product to sell, a spy tool is the right tool.
If you want to know which format, hook and script to make next, and see the proof, ask Poseidon.