Guide

How to see how much a brand spends on Meta ads

A competitor’s ad keeps showing up in your feed, or a client asks what a rival is putting behind Meta. The Ad Library shows you the ads, not the budget. Here is the exact way we get a spend estimate, starting from the ad on your phone and ending with a number you can act on.

SpendPeek SpendPeek team·Updated October 2026·5 min read

The short version

Meta is required by EU law (the Digital Services Act) to publish reach data for every ad that targets people in the European Union. That public data lives in the Meta Ad Library, and it is enough to estimate how much an advertiser is spending. You can do the math yourself, or let a tool read it for you. Below is both.

1 · Phone
Spot the ad and copy its Ad Library link
2 · Ad Library
Open the brand’s page on desktop and see every live ad
3 · SpendPeek
Reveal estimated spend, reach and stage per ad

How we actually do it

Most guides start on a computer. In real life, the ad that makes you curious shows up on your phone. So that is where this starts.

  1. Grab the ad's Ad Library link from your phone

    When an ad shows up in your Instagram or Facebook feed, you can jump straight to its Ad Library page:

    Tap the three dots on the ad → Why you're seeing this ad → Advertiser choices → See ad details in the Meta Ad Library.

    That opens (or gives you the link to) that exact ad inside the Meta Ad Library. Copy the link and send it to yourself. Here is the full flow on a real ad:

    Instagram ad menu showing the 'Why you're seeing this ad' option
    1. Three dots, then Why you're seeing this ad
    Why you're seeing this ad screen with the Advertiser choices option
    2. Tap Advertiser choices
    Advertiser choices screen with 'See ad details in the Meta Ad Library'
    3. Tap See ad details in the Meta Ad Library
    The ad open in the Meta Ad Library with its Library ID
    4. The ad opens in the Ad Library

  2. Open the Ad Library on your computer

    Paste that link in a desktop browser. You will land on the advertiser's page in the Meta Ad Library, where you can see every ad they are currently running, not just the one you spotted. For Qogita, that was around 130 active ads.

    Qogita's Ad Library page: roughly 130 active ads at once. With SpendPeek, every card gets a Reveal spend button, and Reveal all spend (Pro) does the whole brand in one click.

  3. Reveal the estimated spend

    This is the step the Ad Library does not give you on its own. The Ad Library shows reach, but not money. With the SpendPeek Chrome extension installed, an estimated spend appears right on each ad card, next to the reach and EU targeting, so you can see at a glance which creatives have real budget behind them.

    Active ···
    Library ID: 1776813920028862
    Started running on Aug 14, 2026 · 62 days active
    SpendPeek Winner
    Est. spend
    ~€7.4k
    Per day
    ~€120
    EU reach
    247k
    EU targeting
    Locations10 EU countries, incl. Germany, France, Romania
    AudienceAge 18–65
    Top segmentMen 25–34
    SpendPeek on the same Qogita ad (snapshot from mid-October 2026): about €7,410 estimated spend, around €120 a day, 247,000 EU reach, and the countries and audience behind it.

Why the phone step matters: the extension runs on desktop Chrome, but the ad that sparked your curiosity almost always appears on mobile. Grabbing the link on your phone and finishing on your computer bridges the two.

Prefer to do the math yourself?

You do not need any tool to get a rough number. The Meta Ad Library shows an ad's reach for EU audiences. From there:

Estimated spend ≈ (reach × frequency ÷ 1000) × CPM. The numbers are the Qogita ad from this guide, with SpendPeek’s default assumptions.

Pick a CPM for the advertiser's industry (for many consumer brands something in the €5 to €20 range is a reasonable starting point) and a frequency of how many times, on average, each person saw the ad. It is a back-of-the-envelope estimate, not a billing statement, but it is enough to tell whether a competitor is spending €500 or €50,000. A tool like SpendPeek just does this on every ad for you, and lets you change the CPM and frequency so the assumptions are yours, not a hidden default.

A real example: Qogita

The example above is a real ad we came across. Qogita, a B2B wholesale platform that pitches "500+ vetted UK and EU suppliers in one place", showed up while scrolling Instagram. Following the steps, its Ad Library page confirmed the ad was active (Library ID 1776813920028862), running on Facebook, Instagram, Threads and Messenger, and targeting people 18 and older with a primary location in Spain.

On desktop, with SpendPeek running, the ad we had spotted showed an estimated €7,410 in spend behind about 247,000 reach, aimed at ages 18 to 65 (top segment 25 to 34, male) across ten EU countries including Germany, France and Romania. And that is just one of their ads. With roughly 130 active at once, the real budget is clearly much larger. Live for about two months and still spending around €120 a day, SpendPeek tags it a Winner: Qogita is not testing the waters here. That is exactly the kind of read this takes thirty seconds to get, and it is impossible to guess from the outside without it.

What to do with the number

A spend estimate is only useful if it changes what you do next. This is how media buyers and agencies use it:

Pick which creatives to study

Ads that run for weeks and still get budget are the ones a competitor has proven. Break those down (hook, angle, offer), not the ones still in testing.

Benchmark budgets

Compare a competitor’s spend per ad and per day with yours, so you know whether you are being outspent or out-created.

Answer clients with data

“Around €120 a day behind this ad, live for two months” beats “they seem to be spending a lot”.

What this can and cannot tell you

It is an estimate, not billing data, and it only covers ads shown in the EU, because that is the reach data Meta is required to publish. Think of it as order-of-magnitude competitive intelligence.

Great for

  • ✓Spotting which competitors are scaling
  • ✓Finding the creatives with real budget behind them
  • ✓Order-of-magnitude budget benchmarks

Not for

  • ×Exact billing or invoice numbers
  • ×Ads shown only outside the EU
  • ×Ads too new to have reach data yet

FAQ

Is there a Chrome extension to see competitor Meta ad spend?

Yes. SpendPeek is a Chrome extension that adds an estimated ad spend to every ad in the Meta Ad Library, right on each ad card, alongside reach and EU targeting.

Can I see how much a brand spends without any tool?

Yes, roughly. Use the EU reach shown in the Ad Library and multiply it by a CPM and frequency, as above. A tool just does it automatically on every ad and keeps the assumptions adjustable.

Is SpendPeek legal? Does it scrape Meta?

SpendPeek only reads the public data that the Meta Ad Library already shows you, inside your own browser. It doesn't access private data, your Meta account or your ad accounts.

Is SpendPeek safe for my Meta ad accounts?

Yes. SpendPeek never touches your Meta account or your ad accounts. It works on the public Meta Ad Library, and you don't even need to be logged in to Facebook to use it.

Is SpendPeek free?

Yes, there is a free plan: install the extension and sign in with Google or email to get 3 spend reveals every week, no card needed. Pro (from €4.92/mo billed yearly, or €6.99/mo) adds unlimited reveals and Reveal All.

See competitor spend on every ad

Install SpendPeek for free and the estimate shows up the moment you open the Ad Library. 3 reveals a week, no card.

Add to Chrome, it’s free