# How to find a competitor's ad spend > You cannot see most rivals' real ad spend. See what Meta and Google show, how to estimate a range from live ads, and a worked example with rupees. - **Author**: Marxx - **Published**: 2026-10-30 - **Category**: Competitor research - **URL**: https://marxx.ai/library-guides/how-to-find-competitor-ad-spend --- You cannot see a competitor's real ad spend for most ads. Meta and Google publish spend only for political, election and social issue ads, so for everything else you estimate a range from how many ads the brand runs and for how long. ## What the free tools show Checked 2026-10-20. | Source | What you see | Spend | |---|---|---| | [Meta Ad Library](/glossary/meta-ad-library), ordinary ads | Live ads, start dates, platforms | None | | Meta Ad Library, social issue, election and political ads | Who paid, reach, spend | Ranges | | Meta Ad Library, ads delivered in the EU | An estimated reach figure | None listed | | [Google Ads Transparency Center](/guides/how-to-use-google-ads-transparency-center) | Advertiser name, location, payer, ads served | None | | Google political ads page for India | Times shown, amount spent | Ranges, election ads only | Sources: [Meta's Ad Library API fields](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-api/reference/archived-ad/), [Meta's Ad Library tools page](https://transparency.meta.com/researchtools/ad-library-tools/), [Google's Ads Transparency Center help](https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/13733850) and [Google's India political ads page](https://adstransparency.google.com/political?topic=political®ion=IN). ## How to estimate a range 1. **Count the live ads.** Open the brand in the Ad Library. Write down how many ads are live and when each started. 2. **Mark the long runners.** Brands usually switch off ads that do not pay back, so an ad live for months probably has more money behind it. See [how to find out how long an ad has been running](/guides/how-to-find-out-how-long-an-ad-has-been-running). 3. **Guess a daily budget per ad.** Use your own account as the yardstick. Say INR 500 a day for a new test and INR 5,000 for a proven ad. 4. **Multiply.** Ads x daily budget x days. 5. **Give a range, not a number.** Halve and double your guesses. 6. **Repeat each week.** More live ads and fresh start dates point to rising spend. ## A worked example Say a rival has 40 live ads. - 30 started in the last two weeks. You guess INR 500 a day each: 30 x 500 = INR 15,000 a day. - 8 started one to three months ago. You guess INR 1,500 a day each: INR 12,000 a day. - 2 started over three months ago. You guess INR 5,000 a day each: INR 10,000 a day. That adds up to INR 37,000 a day. Over 30 days it is about INR 11 lakh. Halve every guess and you get about INR 5.5 lakh. Double them and you get about INR 22 lakh. Your honest answer is "somewhere between INR 5 lakh and INR 22 lakh a month". ## Mistakes to avoid - **Treating the ad count as spend.** One ad can take most of the budget. - **Forgetting Google.** A rival may spend more on Search than on Meta. The Transparency Center shows no spend either. - **Trusting a tool's "estimated spend" as fact.** The platforms do not publish ordinary ad spend, so every such number is a guess. - **Judging one week.** Compare weeks. We make Marxx. It tracks competitor ads on Meta and Google, with keyword tracking and an AI search over 100M+ ads back to 2022. See [competitor tracking](/features/competitor-tracking). ## FAQ ### Can I see how much a brand spends on Facebook ads? Only for ads about social issues, elections or politics, where Meta shows spend as ranges. For ordinary ads the Ad Library shows what runs and since when, not what it costs. ### Do ad spy tools show real spend? No. Spend for ordinary ads is not public, so any figure a tool shows is an estimate. Ask what it is based on. ### What is the best sign of a big budget? Many live ads, many versions of one idea and ads that keep running for months. See [how to tell if a competitor's ad is working](/guides/how-to-tell-if-a-competitor-ad-is-working). --- - [More Competitor research articles](https://marxx.ai/library-guides/category/competitor-research) - [All articles](https://marxx.ai/library-guides)