BigSpy vs Minea: free Facebook ad search, or product research from $49
Pick BigSpy to watch Facebook ads for free and Minea at $49 to go from an ad to the Shopify product behind it. On BigSpy’s free plan our knee brace search showed same-day ads, with advertiser names masked; Minea showed whose ads they were.
| Tool | Best for | Entry price |
|---|---|---|
 BigSpy | Free access and channel countFacebook ads at zero cost; 11 channels on paid tiers | Free · $69/mo |
 Minea | Products behind Meta adsShopify products with their Meta ads; shops and brand tracker from $99 | $49 – $199/mo |
BigSpy vs Minea side by side
BigSpy and Minea both search Facebook ads, but they sell different things: BigSpy sells breadth and a free entry, Minea sells the product behind the ad. The table mixes what each vendor publishes with what we saw on October 14, 2026, on BigSpy’s free plan and a paid Minea Starter account; the source is named in each row.
| BigSpy | Minea | |
|---|---|---|
| Free access | Free planFacebook only, about 10 searches a day on our account | Free registrationad search opens, shop data locked |
| Entry paid plan | $69/moFacebook, Instagram, AppLovin | $49/mo$39 paid quarterly |
| Networks | 11 channelsall of them on Ultimate, $499 | Meta adsTikTok marked coming soon |
| Advertiser on the free plan | Name and domain maskede.g. “Fi***orm”, “tryf***.com” | Shown |
| Product research | Products from 40 e-commerce sites (vendor page) | “10M+ e-commerce Shopify products”shops from Premium $99 |
| “knee brace”, newest ad shown | 14 Oct 2026, same dayFree, Facebook | Published 13 Oct 2026Starter, Meta |
| FixedForm knee brace | 13 ads in 90 dayslast seen 4 Oct 2026 | 39 active adsproduct published 23 Sep 2026 |
One niche, newest ads
We searched “knee brace” in both on October 14, 2026, newest first. On BigSpy’s free plan, with Facebook and its default window of the last 90 days, it found 22K related ads, 4.9K after its strict deduplication, and its first cards were seen that same day. Only one of the first five, though, was plainly about knee pain; three were the same scooter ad.
Minea’s Meta library opened on ads published on October 13, the day before, still active. Both were current. The difference was who ran them: BigSpy’s free plan masks advertiser names and domains with asterisks, while Minea shows the page and links each ad to its landing page.
One product in both tools
Then we took a product from Minea’s list, the FixedForm Meniscus Brace at $44, which Minea shows with 39 active Meta ads. BigSpy found 13 related ads for “fixedform” in the last 90 days, 3 after strict deduplication, last seen on October 4 and October 1, 2026.
The counts are not the same measure: Minea counts the ads attached to one product, BigSpy the ads matching a keyword on Facebook. What the test shows is that both hold this advertiser, and that Minea starts from the product while BigSpy starts from the ad.
What BigSpy is better at
BigSpy is the one you can use without paying. Its free plan covers Facebook, and our account ran out after ten searches in a day. Paid tiers open more channels step by step: Starter at $69 adds Instagram and AppLovin, Growth at $159 adds TikTok, YouTube and Google Ads, and Ultimate at $499 opens all 11.
It also claims more than 1 billion creatives. On the free plan, though, advertiser names and domains are masked, so it shows what is running but not cleanly who runs it.
What Minea is better at
Minea is product research first. Starter at $49 opens Meta ads and a product library the app describes as “10M+ e-commerce Shopify products”, each with its active and total ads, plus 10 AI ad analyses and 50 image searches a month.
Shops, the brand tracker and store filters such as monthly visits and estimated revenue start at Premium for $99. TikTok is marked as coming soon on its pricing page, and Minea lists no free plan, only a free registration that opens ad search with shop data locked.
Compared head to head
Two tools at a time.
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Frequently asked questions
Is BigSpy better than Minea?
For free Facebook ad search, yes: BigSpy has a free plan and showed us knee brace ads from the same day, with advertisers masked. For product research, Minea is stronger, linking Shopify products to their Meta ads from $49.
Which is cheaper, BigSpy or Minea?
BigSpy, because it has a free plan; its paid Starter costs $69. Minea has free registration but no free plan in its pricing table, and starts at $49, or $39 a month paid quarterly.
Does BigSpy or Minea show TikTok ads?
BigSpy does from its $159 Growth tier; its free plan and $69 Starter do not. Minea marks TikTok as coming soon. Spytrend includes TikTok next to Facebook and Instagram on its $79 plan.
Can you see who runs an ad on BigSpy free?
Not fully. On our free account BigSpy masked advertiser names and domains with asterisks, such as “Fi***orm”. Minea Starter shows the page and landing page of each ad.
Vendor figures were read on each vendor’s own pages on 31 October 2026; BigSpy ran on its free plan and Minea on a paid Starter plan on October 14, 2026, with the query under each screenshot.