No public tool tells you what a competitor spends on ads. Several tools claim to estimate it, and the estimates are inferred from the same public data you can look at yourself.
What is public is more useful than a spend number anyway: the ads themselves, when they started, how many variations exist, and which ones have survived long enough to still be running. From those you can place a competitor in a budget band with reasonable confidence, and you can see what they are saying, which is the part that changes what you do.
This article covers exactly what each platform's library shows, what it withholds, and a thirty-minute method for turning it into a read on the competition.
Meta Ad Library
The Ad Library (https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2405092116183307) is the most complete of the four. Meta's help documentation says it "contains all active ads that are shown across Meta technologies," which covers Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and the Audience Network. Anyone can search it by advertiser name or keyword, without an account.
What it shows for ordinary commercial ads
The ad creative and copy, the Page that ran it, and the date it started running. Each result carries a "Started running on" date, an icon row showing which platforms the ad is delivered on, and, where relevant, a note that "this ad has multiple versions," which expands to show the variants.
What it does not show for ordinary commercial ads
Spend, impressions, reach, targeting, and results. Meta's documentation table is explicit: for ads that are not about social issues, elections or politics and do not deliver in the EU or UK, the dates column "only includes the date in which the ad started to run," and amount spent, impression ranges, reach and targeting are not provided. Inactive commercial ads are not archived; once a campaign stops, it disappears from the library.
What it shows for political and issue ads
This is where spend figures come from. For ads about social issues, elections or politics, Meta's help page lists an impression range "but not the exact number," an amount-spent range "but not the exact amount. For example: $1,000 to $5,000," age and gender breakdowns, location, and disclaimer information. Meta's transparency site (https://transparency.meta.com/researchtools/ad-library-tools/) summarizes this as "spend, reach and funding entities," and these ads are archived for seven years.
What it shows for ads delivered in the EU or UK
Under regulatory requirements, ads that deliver an impression in the EU or associated territories, or in the UK, show dates run, ad-level targeting choices, total reach in that region, and reach broken down by age and gender. They are archived for one year after the last impression, and the figures cover only the European portion of delivery.
Google Ads Transparency Center
Google describes the Ads Transparency Center (https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/ads/announcing-the-launch-of-the-new-ads-transparency-center/) as "a searchable hub of all ads served from verified advertisers." Its FAQ says it includes ads from verified advertisers served across Search, Play, Maps, Shopping and YouTube "for one year from the date the ad was last displayed," plus ads from unverified advertisers in Europe and Türkiye, per the Transparency Center FAQ (https://adstransparency.google.com/faq).
What it shows
The advertiser's name and, where different, the payer's name. The ads themselves, filterable by format, region and date. The last date each ad ran. Google shows the advertiser, not the agency that made the ads.
What it does not show
Spend, clicks, impressions or conversions for ordinary ads. Keywords that triggered a Search ad. The landing page; Google's FAQ notes that click-through to landing pages has been removed. For ads shown in Europe and Türkiye, the FAQ says there is "extra info, like the topic of the ad and more audience selection details," and Google's EU transparency policy page (https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/13733850) lists targeting information, total number of recipients and a subject-matter label. Outside those regions, none of that appears.
Political ads are separate
Election ads from verified election advertisers live in the Political Advertising Transparency Report, which does publish spend and impression counts by region and retains ads for seven years. Google's political FAQ (https://adstransparency.google.com/political/faq) explains that "total spending is based on where ads were shown" and that impressions count repeat views, not unique people. That report is the source of any "Google ad spend" figure you have seen quoted, and it covers election advertising only.
LinkedIn Ad Library
LinkedIn used to show a Page's ads in an Ads filter on the Page itself. Its help center says that filter displayed Sponsored Content "shown to at least one member in the past six months" and that from May 2024 it is being removed and replaced with links to the Ad Library, per LinkedIn's help page (https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a426649).
The Ad Library (https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a1517918) itself includes ads that ran after June 1, 2023, and keeps each one for a year after its last impression. Anyone can search it by company name, payer name, keyword, country and date range.
What it shows
Ad preview, ad format, advertiser name, payer name, and whether the ad is restricted. For ads targeted at the EU, additionally impression ranges, targeting parameters and the dates the ad ran.
What it does not show
Spend, clicks, or results for any ad. Impressions, targeting and dates for ads that were not targeted at the EU. Restricted ads have their preview and names withheld entirely.
TikTok Creative Center
TikTok's Creative Center (https://ads.tiktok.com/help/article/creative-center) is described by TikTok as "a free, public home" for trends, ad examples and tools. Its Top Ads section is the relevant part for competitor research.
What it shows
A curated set of high-performing ads, filterable by region, industry, objective and time frame, and sortable by reach, click-through rate, two-second and six-second view rates and, on desktop, conversion rate and likes, per TikTok's dashboard guide (https://ads.tiktok.com/help/article/how-to-use-the-top-ads-dashboard). Each ad has a second-by-second engagement graph.
What it does not show
Every ad. TikTok's Top Ads page (https://ads.tiktok.com/help/article/top-ads) states that all featured ads "are authorized by advertisers," so a competitor who has not opted in is absent, and a competitor who has opted in appears only if the ad performed well enough to be selected. The performance graph shows "relative performance metrics," not absolute numbers, and spend is not shown for any ad. It is a source of category benchmarks, not an inventory of what any one competitor is running.
Inferring a budget band
With spend hidden for commercial ads on every platform, the honest position is a band, not a number. Three things are visible on Meta in particular and support an inference.
Count
How many active ads the Page has right now. One or two is a boosted-post budget. Ten to thirty is a managed account with someone testing. Fifty or more across many variations is a budget large enough to justify constant creative production, which itself costs money.
Duration
Sort by start date. An ad that has been running for four months is being paid for because it works; advertisers do not leave losing ads on. Several long-running ads next to a rotating set of new ones is the signature of an account with a stable winner and a testing budget on top.
Variations
The "multiple versions" note on Meta expands to show how many creative or copy variants an ad has. Systematic variation, the same offer with five headlines and three images, indicates structured testing, which usually indicates an agency or an in-house specialist, which indicates a budget that supports one.
None of this yields a dollar figure; any tool that gives you one is applying an assumed cost per impression to an estimated impression count, neither of which is published. The three signals give you a confident placement in one of three bands, occasional, managed or scaled, which is enough to decide whether you are competing with them on paid at all. How to split a $500 marketing budget (https://nibunam.ai/blog/split-500-marketing-budget) covers the arithmetic on your side of that decision.
The 30-minute competitor ad review
Pick three competitors. Do this once a quarter.
Minutes 0 to 5
Open Meta Ad Library, set the country to all, and search each competitor's Page name. Record the active ad count and the earliest start date still running.
Minutes 5 to 15
For each competitor, read the five oldest running ads. Note the offer, the hook, the format, and the call to action. Screenshot them. Oldest-first is the whole trick; the newest ads are experiments, the oldest are what works.
Minutes 15 to 20
Open Google's Ads Transparency Center and search each competitor. Record whether they run Search ads at all, whether they run YouTube video, and how many distinct creatives appear in the last ninety days. A competitor with Search ads is bidding on your keywords; a competitor with none is not.
Minutes 20 to 25
Open LinkedIn's Ad Library and search the same names. Most small businesses show nothing. If a competitor does, note the format and the offer; any presence on LinkedIn is meaningful.
Minutes 25 to 30
Write one line per competitor: band (occasional, managed, scaled), platforms, the offer in their longest-running ad, and what they are not doing. The last item is usually where your opening is.
A wider approach to this, beyond ads, is in our AI competitor analysis guide (https://nibunam.ai/blog/ai-competitor-analysis).
What the libraries cannot tell you
Whether the ads are profitable. A long-running ad means the advertiser believes it works, not that it does. Which audiences they target outside the EU. What they pay per click. For those you need your own test, on your own budget, against the offer the review told you to compete with. Ad IQ (https://nibunam.ai/ad-iq) turns a review like this into an advertising plan for your business, with channel choice, budget bands and the creative angles the competitor survivors suggest; it is one of three free reports, and the ads themselves still run from your own accounts.
Questions
Can I see how much a competitor spends on Facebook ads?
Not for commercial ads. Meta's Ad Library shows amount-spent ranges only for ads about social issues, elections or politics. For ordinary ads it shows the creative, the Page, the start date and the platforms, and that is all.
Does the Google Ads Transparency Center show which keywords a competitor bids on?
No. It shows the ads, the advertiser, the format, the region and the last date the ad ran. Keywords, spend, clicks and impressions are not published for ordinary ads.
Why can't I find a competitor in the Ads Transparency Center?
Google includes ads from verified advertisers and, in Europe and Türkiye, unverified ones. Outside those regions an unverified advertiser will not appear. Ads also drop out one year after they last ran.
Are third-party spend estimates reliable?
They are inferences from the same public data described here, combined with assumed prices. Use them for relative comparisons between competitors if at all, never as a figure to plan against.