The 2026 ad intelligence market has 30-plus tools. Prices from free to $10,000-plus per month. Every tool claims to be the best. You need a framework.
Four-dimension evaluation framework
Channel coverage: 20-plus is baseline, 30-plus for multi-market teams. Data depth: does it count creatives or analyze content? AI capability: auto-tagging and pattern recognition vs just search. Price and scalability: entry level under $500, mid-tier $500-$2,000, enterprise $2,000-plus.
June 2026 data snapshot
Strategy: 1.36M ads, 203,938 creatives (+52.9%). Puzzle: 1.14M ads, 159,804 creatives (+62.9%). Arcade: 371K ads, 77,008 creatives (+69.6%). If your category is growing 50-70 percent monthly and your tooling is still manual, the gap will only widen.
