In this article
Key takeaways
- AdSpy costs about $149 a month (published price, October 2026): a large Facebook and Instagram archive, with search across copy, URLs, comments and affiliate networks.
- In the Gulf three things let you down: weak Arabic search, no way to tell Salla from Zid, and the highest starting price among the global tools.
- GccFY from $19 dollars a month, with a permanent free plan of 20 searches a day and no card.
- The free alternatives: Meta's Ad Library to follow one advertiser, TikTok Creative Center, and GccFY's free plan for Gulf ads.
What AdSpy does well
AdSpy is one of the oldest and largest tools for Facebook and Instagram ads, and its strength is search depth:
- A large archive of Facebook and Instagram ads, with comments.
- Search across copy, URLs and comments, and across affiliate networks.
- Its audience: affiliates and power users who search global markets every day.
The published price in October 2026 is about $149 a month, the highest starting price among the common global tools (Minea, BigSpy, Pipiads and Foreplay start from about $49). Prices change with offers, so check the pricing page before subscribing. The full comparison is in Ad spy tools.
Why Gulf sellers look for an alternative
The first reason is price: a full AdSpy subscription equals a small store's ad budget. The second matters more: the tool is built mainly for Western markets, and the gap shows in three things:
- Weak Arabic search: search «عطر» (perfume) or «عباية» (abaya) and you find little.
- No way to tell Salla from Zid: yet 8% of the newest Arabic ads in our library lead to a Salla store, and 27% to a WhatsApp chat with no store. The store platform tells you who the competitor is and how they sell.
- The signal that matters: most global tools count likes and shares, while the more honest signal of a winning ad is how many days it has run (Ad running time).
Free AdSpy alternatives
Before any subscription, try the free options. Each has its limits:
| Free alternative | Enough if you | Its limits |
|---|---|---|
| Meta Ad Library | Follow one advertiser or search a word in one country | Active ads only, no sort by running time, no store page |
| TikTok Creative Center | Want ideas for TikTok ads | A curated selection, not a full database |
| BigSpy (free plan) | Want a broad look across several networks | A limited plan, thin Arabic coverage |
| GccFY (free plan) | Sell in the Gulf with Arabic ads | 20 searches a day, Facebook and Instagram only |
The Meta library is always the starting point: the full guide is in Facebook Ad Library, and how to read the active ads count of any page in Active ads count.
What GccFY offers instead
- Arabic first: an Arabic word searched inside the ad text, across 1,240,000+ Arabic ads of Gulf stores from 86,000+ advertisers.
- The six countries as filters, and the store platform: Salla, Zid, Shopify, YouCan, WooCommerce, EasyOrders, LightFunnels, WhatsApp.
- Longest running as a one-click sort, and stopped ads kept.
- The store page captured behind every ad, and the pixels it carries.
- Advertisers and domains: the total ads and the ads running now for every page and every website.
- An AI helper that searches in your words and builds reports, and connects to Claude and Cursor through MCP.
What GccFY does not do: TikTok and Snapchat, markets outside the Gulf, and the comment and affiliate-network search AdSpy is good at.
Side by side, and which to pick
| Criterion | AdSpy | GccFY |
|---|---|---|
| Published price (October 2026) | About $149 a month | Free plan (20 searches a day); paid from $19 dollars a month |
| Built for | Affiliates and power users, global markets | Gulf stores and Arabic ads |
| Networks | Facebook, Instagram | Facebook, Instagram |
| Search | Copy, URLs, comments and affiliate networks | An Arabic word inside the copy, the advertiser, the domain |
| Arabic search | Weak | Arabic first |
| Store platform (Salla, Zid…) | Does not tell Salla from Zid | A filter per platform |
| Gulf countries | General global coverage | A filter for each of the six |
| Its strongest point | The large Facebook and Instagram archive with comments | The store page behind every ad, longest running, stopped ads kept |
- You work in affiliate marketing or sell in global markets and need to search comments and URLs: AdSpy.
- You sell in the Gulf with Arabic ads: GccFY.
- You follow only one or two competitors: the free Meta library.
More alternatives and their prices in AdSpy and Minea alternatives.
