Ads Lighthouse vs BigSpy in 2026: brand-search monitoring vs multi-platform creative discovery
Ads Lighthouse records who appears on configured Google, Bing, and Shopping brand searches, with evidence packs and compliance records. BigSpy is a multi-platform ad library for creative discovery across up to 11 platforms, countries, and languages.
Ads Lighthouse
BigSpy- Ads Lighthouse monitors configured Google and Bing brand searches on every plan and adds Google Shopping from Growth. BigSpy is a discovery database, not a scheduled brand-SERP monitor.
- BigSpy publishes coverage for 11 advertising platforms, 80-plus countries, and 26 languages; Ultimate is needed for its listed Pinterest, Yahoo, and Unity access.
- Ads Lighthouse Starter costs $49/month for one project, 20 keywords, two locations, and 7,500 scheduled checks. BigSpy Growth costs $119/month billed annually.
- Ads Lighthouse retains search term, engine, location, device, time, advertiser domain, ad copy, and destination URL for saved observations.
- BigSpy Growth adds ad pages, domain analysis, TikTok Picks, TikTok Shop ads, charts, and followed pages and domains beyond the entry tiers.
- Neither product’s observed signals prove a competitor’s paid keyword, spend, conversion rate, or profitability.
Ads Lighthouse and BigSpy both help paid-media teams understand activity outside their own account, but their evidence starts from different questions. Ads Lighthouse asks who is appearing around a defined brand search at a specified engine, location, device, and time. It is built for monitoring, affiliate matching, redirect traces, and compliance follow-up. BigSpy asks which ads, pages, domains, and visual patterns are worth studying across a much larger set of advertising platforms. It is the better research database, particularly from Growth upward. Pick Ads Lighthouse when branded-search monitoring and a defensible record matter. Pick BigSpy when the strategist needs broad creative discovery and competitor research. Neither product turns observed visibility into advertiser-reported spend, conversions, or profit.
The tools at a glance
Ads Lighthouse
Evidence-led monitoring for branded Google, Bing, and Shopping searches
Ads Lighthouse is a monitoring product for a tightly specified job: documenting who appears on brand searches. A saved observation retains the search term, engine, location, device, time, advertiser domain, ad copy, and destination URL. That structured record is much more useful than a casual screenshot when an affiliate, reseller, competitor, or policy issue needs follow-up. Its observed visibility is a share of the searches you configure, not Google impression share or proof that someone bought a particular keyword.
Every plan includes Google and Bing search-ad monitoring, CSV and Excel exports, team accounts and roles, email, Slack and webhook alerts, and an MCP server for AI assistants. Growth adds Google Shopping product ads. The product also documents affiliate ID matching, policy cases, redirect traces, evidence packs, and complaint records. This makes it a specialised compliance and brand-protection workspace rather than an open-ended catalogue for discovering creative themes across social, video, and retail media.
Starter is $49/month for one project, 20 keywords, two locations per project, daily checks, 7,500 scheduled checks, and 100 on-demand checks. Growth is $99/month and Scale is $299/month; Scale introduces REST API access and white-label reports. Saved observations and related history are retained for three UTC calendar months, so teams needing multi-year in-product historical analysis should account for that limitation.
| Feature | Starter $49/month | Growth $99/month | Scale $299/month | Business $599/month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Projects | 1 | 2 | 5 | 10 |
| Keywords | 20 | 50 | 150 | 500 |
| Google and Bing search ads | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Google Shopping product ads | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| REST API and white-label reports | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Scheduled checks per month | 7,500 | 18,000 | 60,000 | 144,000 |
BigSpy
Multi-platform creative discovery and competitor research for paid-media teams
BigSpy is an ad-research database for people who need breadth before they need a case file. Its published coverage spans 11 advertising platforms, more than 80 countries, and 26 languages. Search combines keywords, features, and visual inputs with filters, sorting, and deduplication. That suits a strategist looking for patterns across many advertisers or a marketer testing where a creative concept has already appeared, rather than someone checking a fixed list of brand terms on a recurring schedule.
The plan boundary matters. Free is a limited Facebook preview with 10 total searches per day. Starter adds Instagram but remains a Facebook and Instagram product. Growth is the practical research tier because it adds Google Ads, YouTube, X, TikTok, Pangle, AppLovin ecommerce access, ad pages, domain analysis, TikTok Picks, TikTok Shop ads, charts, and followed pages and domains. Scale makes the Growth feature set available to five seats with separate per-seat quotas. Pinterest, Yahoo, and Unity are listed only on Ultimate.
BigSpy publishes price, seats, platform access, downloads, AI-tool allowances, and tracking quotas more clearly than many library products. Annual prices run from $49/month for Starter to $399/month for Ultimate, with Growth at $119/month. Its popularity, impressions, duration, and last-seen fields are research signals, not advertiser-reported revenue or spend. No public API or integrations directory is published in the reviewed profile, so treat it as a hands-on research product rather than a data-feed substitute.
| Feature | Free $0 | Starter $49/mo billed annually | Growth $119/mo billed annually | Scale $299/mo billed annually | Ultimate $399/mo billed annually |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seats | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 1 |
| Platforms | Facebook, Instagram | Facebook, Instagram, Google Ads, YouTube, X, TikTok, Pangle | Growth coverage | All 11 listed platforms | |
| Searches | 10/day | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Creative downloads | Not included | 50/day | 300/day | 300/day per seat | 3,000/day |
| Ad pages and domain analysis | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Tracked creatives | 20 total | 100 total | 500 total | 500 per seat | 1,000 total |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | Ads Lighthouse | BigSpy |
|---|---|---|
| Primary job | Brand-search evidence and compliance | Creative discovery and competitor research |
| Scheduled brand-search monitoring | Yes | No |
| Google and Bing search ads | Yes | Growth includes Google Ads library |
| Multi-platform creative library | No | Yes, up to 11 listed platforms |
| Google Shopping observations | From Growth | Not verified |
| Affiliate and redirect evidence | Yes | No |
| REST API | From Scale | No public API published |
| White-label reports | From Scale | Not verified |
| Starting price | $49/month | Free, then $49/month annually |
Which should you choose?
Ads LighthouseBigSpyAds LighthouseBigSpyAds Lighthouse is the sharper purchase for a search-compliance or brand-protection programme because it preserves the context needed to act on a finding. BigSpy is the broader research purchase because it exposes more platforms and discovery modes. The tools overlap only at a high level: both reveal outside advertising activity, but one monitors configured search conditions while the other supports exploratory creative research. Select according to the evidence you need to produce, not the lowest listed price.
Bottom line
Choose Ads Lighthouse when a defined set of branded searches must be checked repeatedly, documented, and escalated through a compliance workflow. Choose BigSpy when the team needs creative references and competitor signals across its published platform coverage, especially on Growth or higher. BigSpy is not a substitute for brand-SERP monitoring, and Ads Lighthouse is not a substitute for a broad ad library. Neither should be used to state competitor spend or conversion claims as fact.
Frequently asked questions
Which tool is better for tracking competitors bidding on my brand name in Google search?
Ads Lighthouse is better for tracking configured brand-name searches because it records the search context, advertiser domain, ad copy, and destination URL over scheduled checks. BigSpy is a creative-research database and does not provide the same recurring branded-SERP evidence workflow.
Should a paid-social team use BigSpy or Ads Lighthouse to find new ad creative?
BigSpy is the better choice for finding new ad creative because it offers multi-platform search, visual and feature search, and broader country and language coverage. Ads Lighthouse is focused on Google, Bing, and Shopping observations around configured search terms.
Does Ads Lighthouse provide Google Shopping monitoring for a brand-protection team?
Ads Lighthouse provides Google Shopping product-ad monitoring from its Growth plan, which costs $99 per month. Starter includes Google and Bing search ads but not Shopping, so teams that need product-ad observations must start at Growth or above.
What does BigSpy Growth add for a multi-channel creative researcher?
BigSpy Growth adds Google Ads, YouTube, X, TikTok, Pangle, AppLovin ecommerce access, plus ad pages, domain analysis, TikTok Picks, TikTok Shop ads, charts, and followed pages and domains. It is the first tier with the reviewed profile’s broader research coverage.
Can either product tell me exactly what a competitor spends on ads?
Neither product can establish a competitor’s exact advertising spend, conversion rate, or profit from its published signals. Ads Lighthouse records observed searches, while BigSpy presents research indicators such as popularity, impressions, duration, and last-seen information.
Reviewed by Filipe Lins DuarteCo-Founder & CEOVast experience talking to customers and users to understand what good software looks like. Background spans commercial and product roles.
Checked by John RiceCo-Founder & CTO15+ years building tech products and web applications. Conducted hundreds of user interviews to know what a good product looks like.
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