# CompetitionAds: turning the EU data Meta hides into money, 4 months and 418 users, this route is already crowded · Chrome plugin

> Source: https://stringers.io/en/ext/chrome_jlaejmpgclckhipijdokaigggiihpfbp.html (Stringers / 什么值得做, generated 2026-11-08)
> Stringers answers one question every day: what small product can one or two people build in a few months and actually make money from. Numbers come from 15 databases we collect daily, each with source and date.
> For agents: these verdicts and the underlying databases (verified revenue, App Store / Google Play charts, ad libraries, GitHub, Product Hunt…) are queryable live over MCP — tools today / hot / products / directions / direction / data. Setup: https://github.com/komako-workshop/stringers (the user logs in at stringers.io → "配置 agent" to get a personal URL). Site index: https://stringers.io/llms.txt

> It hasn't really taken off: it adds a steady 8 to 10 users a day, driven by a store title stuffed with search terms and a website with a dozen SEO and competitor comparison pages. The product itself is no different from its peers.

[Chrome extension](https://stringers.io/en/ext/index.md) · written 11-6

Facebook Ad Library Spend & Reach — Meta Ad Library Ad Spy ·

# CompetitionAds: turning the EU data Meta hides into money, 4 months and 418 users, this route is already crowded

**What it is** Once installed, it opens the Meta Ad Library and shows an estimated spend on every ad delivered to the EU, calculated from the reach Meta publishes multiplied by a €6 CPM.

**Why it took off** It didn't really take off: it steadily gains 8 to 10 people a day, thanks to store titles stuffed with search terms, a website with a dozen-plus SEO and competitor comparison pages. The product itself is no different from the alternatives.

**C** **How you can follow it** Don't build another Meta spend plugin. Adapt its structure to a different data source: surface the transparency data hidden in the Google, TikTok, and LinkedIn ad libraries on the page, attract users for free, and charge for the daily history and alerts the platforms don't store.

C grade: Meta spend estimation is already standard in seven or eight plugins and Denote with 40k users. This one has only 418 people after half a year and no ratings. What's worth learning is the structure of "free badge + server-side history subscription" and the SEO approach; competing head-on isn't worth it. Few people know about it yet

383 users

CompetitionAds is a free Chrome plugin. Open the Meta Ad Library and it tags each ad card with an estimated spend, like €2,997, €11,447. The data is something Meta must publish under EU rules, and the algorithm is a single multiplication; there are at least seven or eight plugins doing this. It launched in May, and by Nov had only 6 418 users and zero ratings. What's worth watching is how it uses that small amount of free traffic to sell a $39/month subscription.

### The extra button that appeared in Nov 5

In Nov 5, the plugin went from 1.2.2 to 1.3.1. This time it added only one thing: a "+ Track advertiser" button next to the advertiser page's total spend. The official site says the badge can only tell you how much an ad has spent so far, "cannot tell you what changed this week, because Meta keeps no history. So we keep it". Click it, and it records that brand's ads and spend every day for you.

This button is the paywall. The plugin itself is "Free forever. No account, no card"; what costs money is this tracking service: $39/month or $390/year, tracking up to 100 brands, a 7-day free trial, no card required.

It's made by ADYNTEL PLATFORM SRL, a company registered 2025 years ago in Bucharest, Romania (Chrome store developer info, Romanian business registry). A company called Adyntel sells an ad intelligence API to Clay and GTM teams, starting at $44, with the same name. Whether they're the same company is unverified.

### What it is

The Meta Ad Library shows what creatives others are running and when they started, but not the money. The EU Digital Services Act (DSA) requires Meta to disclose how many people each ad reached in the EU, but that number is hidden in the "EU ad transparency" panel and has to be opened ad by ad.

The plugin reads that number and converts it into an estimated spend using **reach ÷ 1000 × €6** , shows it on each card, and adds a total spend for that advertiser at the top of the page. Ads running only in the US or Asia-Pacific have no data, so nothing is shown. The store copy itself says "COVERAGE — PLEASE READ", making clear this is a directional estimate, "good for ranking ads against each other, not for accounting".

|  | Metric | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| users | 418 | extops.dev,11-06 |
| 30 new in the last day | +255, 8–10 a day | extops.dev, 90-day curve |
| Rating | 0 reviews | Chrome Web Store, 11-06 |
| Launched | 2026-05-12 | Chrome Web Store |
| Size / permissions | 45KB, only facebook.com and its own domain | Chrome store, extops.dev |
| Paid | Plugin free; tracking $39/month, $390/year | Pricing section on competitionads.com |

### Has it taken off?

Not really. The user curve is a very straight line: Aug 31 33 users, Sep 28 119, Oct 8 190, Oct 28 344, Nov 6 418 (extops.dev). No single day jumps, nobody on X has mentioned it in nearly 90 days, no press coverage, and no sign of paid ads.

A line like this usually means search traffic. Both sources fit:

- **Store search** : the title is "Facebook Ad Library Spend & Reach — Meta Ad Library Ad Spy", stuffing in Facebook, Meta, Ad Library, Spend, Reach and Ad Spy, the terms people actually search. The developer name shown in the store is "Meta Competition Ads" (likely the main source).

- **13 pages on the official site** : competitionads.com has 13 pages in total, covering how to use the Meta Ad Library, how to read spend, methodology, plus five "alternative" comparison pages (SpyderAds, AdLibSpy, AdSpend Analyzer, AdSparo, Foreplay) aimed at people searching competitor names. These went live on August 28 and 29, and users started climbing three days later. How many visits the pages brought is unknown.

The demand is real, though. On Reddit, r/FacebookAds and r/AskMarketing keep getting people asking how to see how much a competitor spends. A post on r/GrowthHacking says: "Spend like 2-3 hours every week just scrolling through Facebook Ad Library trying to see what competitors are doing. Taking screenshots, losing track of..."

### Where the money comes from

The free badge brings people in; the paid product is what Meta doesn't give you: **history** . Meta only gives a cumulative reach figure, not daily data. To know whether a competitor is scaling up or pulling back this week, someone has to record it every day. That has to run on a server; a free extension can't do it.

The paid version gives a daily spend curve, plus a verdict ("scaling / stable / testing / pulling back / paused", which needs two weeks of data), alerts for new creatives and spend spikes, and CSV export. A free account can export 5 times a month.

Paid users and revenue aren't public. With 418 users, even a good conversion rate means a few hundred dollars a month (estimate).

### Who it's competing with

| Competitors | Scale | How it differs |
|---|---|---|
| Meta's built-in EU transparency panel | Everyone | Same data, but you click through one ad at a time, and it isn't converted into money |
| Spendo – Ad Spend & Sales Insights | 8,000 users, 1.6 stars / 20 ratings, 10-08 listing | 8K a month, very poor ratings, looks like inflated installs |
| Adlens - Ads Library Tracker | 5,000 users, 09-24 listing | Same developer as Spendo, shows how many days an ad has run |
| AdLibSpy | 2,000 users, 3.4 stars, listed 2024 years ago | Long-running equivalent, recommended by people on Reddit |
| AdSpend Analyzer | 2,000 users | Adds audience demographics and charts |
| Show Me Ad Spend, FB Ad Library Insights, SpendPeek | Each a few hundred to a thousand users | Doing nearly the same thing |
| Denote | 40,000 users | A large creative-saving tool; 10-08 added spend estimates and custom CPM to its extension |
| AdSparo | 100,000 users | An all-in-one ad intelligence tool |

Its own comparison page admits the differences aren't in the data: "the underlying public data does not [differ]." What sets it apart is that it's completely free, needs no sign-up, and is upfront about its limits, but you only notice those things after you've found it. Spendo and Adlens, the fastest growers, reached 13K users in just over two months, with weaker differentiation and lower ratings than this one. This category is a distribution game; the products are nearly identical.

### If it were you

**C: the structure is worth studying, but don't enter this patch.** "Convert Meta's EU reach into spend" is already a standard feature: seven or eight extensions do it, Denote added it in October with 40K users, and Meta itself shows the raw numbers on the page. 418 users and zero ratings show the badge alone doesn't attract people.

**Who it's for** : indie developers who can build extensions and are willing to maintain a bit of server-side code, looking for data that platforms were forced by regulation to publish but made hard to use on purpose.

**Who it's not for** : anyone who wants to build yet another Meta spend badge. The data, formulas and copy have no barrier to entry, and on launch day you'd be stuck behind eight similar products.

**How to do it:**

- Follow the same structure with a different data source: Google Ads Transparency Center, the TikTok Commercial Content Library, the DSA fields in the LinkedIn ad library. First confirm that no ready-made extension has already decoded that data.

- Make the free part just surface the hidden numbers on the original page, with no sign-up and as few permissions as possible. Make the paid part the things the platform doesn't store: daily history, changes and alerts.

- State clearly in the copy what the data covers and where it's inaccurate. Media buyers pay for trust.

**How it acquires users** : the store title is packed with the search terms people use; the official site only needs a dozen or so pages: one category explainer, one methodology page, and one "alternative" page for each major competitor. It published this batch of pages at the end of August, and users started climbing three days later.

**When to get in before it** : the route of switching data sources has to happen before big tools like Denote and Foreplay build the same feature in. They only added Meta spend in October, so transparency data from other platforms is probably one or two quarters behind.

**What would show I'm wrong** : (1) if its users pass 5,000 within three months, or a wave of "I paid" reviews appears, showing that "free badge + paid history tracking" also works on Meta, and the idea deserves a second look; (2) if Meta itself builds spend estimates or historical curves into the Ad Library, this kind of extension loses its demand, so check first whether the other platform would do the same.

[Chrome store page ↗](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/facebook-ad-library-spend/jlaejmpgclckhipijdokaigggiihpfbp)

**Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report**

Competitors

| Name | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs from this one |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spendo – Ad Spend & Sales Insights | Chrome | 2026-10-08 | 8,000 users, 1.6 points/20 ratings | The same developer's adlenstracker2026 product is a volume-driven one that also claims to show sales; this one is more restrained and free with no sign-up |
| Adlens - Ads Library Tracker | Chrome | 2026-09-24 | 5,000 users | Leads with ad run days plus spend; this one leads with the spend badge and paid history tracking |
| AdLibSpy | Chrome | 2024-04-22 | 2,000 users, rated 3.4 | Long-running equivalent with a free tier and paid upgrade; this one is entirely free and charges for server-side tracking |
| AdSpend Analyzer | Chrome | 2025-07-24 | 2,000 users, 5.0/7 | Adds audience demographics and charts; this one is only a spend badge |
| Denote | Chrome | 2023-02-25 | 40,000 users | A creative-saving platform where 2026-10 added spend estimates and custom CPM; this one is a single-purpose tool |
| AdSparo | Chrome | 2022-09-06 | 100,000 users | An all-in-one spy tool for ad discovery and filtering |
| Foreplay | Chrome | 2022-01-13 | 20,000 users, 4.7/257, from $49 | Creative saving and team collaboration, no spend display |
| Meta Ad Library's built-in EU transparency panel | Big-company features | 2023(DSA) | Everyone | Same data, but you open each ad individually, it isn't converted to money, and no history is stored |

Where users come from

- Inferred **Chrome Web Store keyword search** : the title stacks Facebook / Meta / Ad Library / Spend / Reach / Ad Spy, developer display name "Meta Competition Ads"; a linear rise of 8–10 users per day

- **Confirmed** **Official site SEO and competitor alternative comparison pages** : competitionads.com sitemap has 13 pages, including 5 alternative pages and category comparison pages, live from 2026-08-28/29 (Exa); growth began after 08-31

- Inferred **Resources from parent company Adyntel (ad intelligence API)** : developer ADYNTEL PLATFORM SRL and adyntel.com share a name; no evidence of cross-promotion found

- Inferred **Paid ads / X / Reddit / media** : 0 entries in the metaads library, 0 in x-radar, no media coverage

## Facebook Ad Library Spend & Reach (CompetitionAds) research report

- Store: [chromewebstore.google.com/detail/jlaejmpgclckhipijdokaigggii…](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/jlaejmpgclckhipijdokaigggiihpfbp)

- Website: [competitionads.com](https://competitionads.com)

- Developer: ADYNTEL PLATFORM SRL (Bucharest, Romania, founded 2025; store Details page, listafirme.ro). The store's Offered by name is "Meta Competition Ads"

- Research date: 2026-11-06

### One line

This is a free Chrome extension. It reads the "EU reach" figure that Meta must publish under the EU DSA from the collapsed panel in the Ad Library, converts it to an estimated spend using reach÷1000×€6, and shows it on each ad card. The real revenue comes from the "brand tracking" subscription on competitionads.com, at $39/month or $390/year.

### Verdict

**It hasn't really taken off.** It was listed 2026-05-12 and had only 11-06 users by 418, with zero ratings. The curve is a steady straight line, adding about 8–10 users per day (extops.dev readings over 90 days), with no sudden spikes and no evidence of any external channel. Users came mainly from two things: store search, with a name stuffed with Facebook / Meta / Ad Library / Spend / Reach / Ad Spy, and a small batch of SEO comparison pages on the official site. Any traction comes from **the SEO and comparison-page method** , plus the parent company Adyntel's existing ad intelligence API (the name match is an inference, not fully verified). The product itself isn't distinctive: the same DSA data and the same conversion method are used by at least 6–8 others, and this month a similar product that grew much faster appeared.

### 1. Data and growth

- User count (extops.dev curve, read on 2026-11-06): 08-31 33 → 09-28 119 → 10-08 190 → 10-28 344 → 11-06 418. +255 over 30 days, linear growth throughout.

- Our chromestore library: 11-01 383,11-07 421, 0 ratings.

- Version 1.2.2 → 1.3.1 (2026-11-05), so it's still being updated. The latest update added a "Track advertiser" entry point to push free users toward the subscription (extops version history; new Advertiser tracking section on the official site).

- Pricing: the extension itself is free and needs no sign-up. The paid part is the tracking service, at $39/month or $390/year, with a 7-day free trial, tracking up to 100 brands, daily spend curves, a "scaling / stable / testing / pulling back" verdict, new-creative alerts and unlimited CSV export (competitionads.com homepage Pricing). No public revenue figures were found.

### II. Competitors (doing the same thing)

Searching the chromestore library by name or description for ad library / ad spend / adspy (2026-11-07 snapshot), the peers fall into three groups:

**1. Those that also do "EU reach → estimated spend" (direct competitors)**

| Product | users | Launched | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spendo – Ad Spend & Sales Insights | 8,000 | 2026-10-08 | Developer adlenstracker2026; 8K a month, but 20 ratings average only 1.6 stars, suspected paid or inflated installs |
| Adlens - Ads Library Tracker | 5,000 | 2026-09-24 | Same developer as Spendo. Shows ad run days, spend, and reach. |
| AdLibSpy | 2,000 | 2024-04-22 | 3.4 stars / 10 reviews. On Reddit r/FacebookAds, someone recommended it with "EU only, to see spend." |
| AdSpend Analyzer | 2,000 | 2025-07-24 | Free, with audience profiles and charts. |
| Show Me Ad Spend | 1,000 | 2023-09-09 | 2.7 ratings |
| Ad Library Accelerator (ALA) | 549 | 2025-07-10 | Runs a blog for SEO. |
| FB Ad Library Insights | 277 | 2026-06-07 | The descriptions are nearly identical: "Injects the hidden EU transparency data into every ad card." |
| SpendPeek | 118 | 2026-04-06 | Free tier plus subscription, same model. |
| Reddit post: "I built a free chrome extension that makes ad library useful for EU ads" | — | 2026 | Estimated at $11 CPM by someone else. I only saw the search snippet; the full post 403 couldn't be read. |

**2. Large spend-tracking tools**

- AdSparo: 100k users, listed for 2022 years, ad finder plus spy.

- Denote: 40k users, 2026-10-08 The blog announced that the extension now has Show All Ad Spend, sorting by spend, and custom CPM (denote.net blog). **Bigger incumbents have already copied the feature as standard.**

- SpyderAds: claims 100k+ downloads, €39.99/month (per the competitionads.com/alternatives page).

**3. Download and save creatives only (no spend data)** AdLibNote 90k, Ad Library Cloud 50k, Copycat Ads 30k, Foreplay 20k (4.7 stars / 257 reviews, from $49), Swipekit 20k, and others.

**What the big players already offer** : Meta's own Ad Library shows reach for EU ads, but you have to open the "EU transparency" panel for each ad one by one, and it doesn't convert reach into money. So "the data is there but hard to use" is the whole reason this category exists.

Verdict: **It's not that there are no competitors. It's that the category is crowded.** Its 418 users place mid-to-low in the first group.

### 3. How users find it

| Channel | Evidence | Confirmed? |
|---|---|---|
| Chrome Web Store keyword search | The title stuffs in high-volume terms: "Facebook Ad Library Spend & Reach — Meta Ad Library Ad Spy." The developer display name is "Meta Competition Ads." It gains a steady 8–10 users a day, which fits search traffic. | Inference, likely |
| Website SEO and comparison pages | The sitemap has only 13 pages: a Meta Ad Library explainer, facebook-ad-library-spend, category comparisons, methodology, and five "alternative" pages for SpyderAds / AdLibSpy / AdSpend Analyzer / Adsparo / Foreplay. Exa shows these pages went live 2026-08-28/29, which lines up with when growth started at 08-31. Jina search for "competitionads" returns these pages. | Page existence confirmed, traffic they bring unknown |
| Parent company Adyntel's customers and channels | Adyntel.com is an ad intelligence API for Clay and GTM teams, from $44 (coldiq.com), with the same name as the developer ADYNTEL PLATFORM SRL. I found no evidence that Adyntel promotes CompetitionAds. | Same name, inferred, unverified |
| Paid ads | The metaads library has no advertisers named competitionads or adyntel. (That library only tracks products on its list, so absence doesn't mean they don't advertise.) | Not found |
| X / Reddit / press | x-radar: 0 mentions of "competitionads" in the last 90 days. Reddit only turned up recommendation threads for rivals. No press coverage. | Not found |

### 4. Why it grew this much

1. **Real demand, and a long-running problem** : Meta's Ad Library gives creatives but no spend figures. On Reddit r/FacebookAds and r/AskMarketing, people keep asking "how do I see how much a competitor spent?"

2. **Free data that's compliant** : The EU DSA requires Meta to publish reach for every ad served in the EU. The extension only reads pages the user already has open, with permissions limited to facebook.com and its own domain, so there's little friction to install.

3. **Free, no sign-up, works on install** : Store copy and the website repeatedly stress this, setting it apart from rivals that make you register or start a trial first.

4. **Serious SEO work** : Five alternative comparison pages, plus explainer pages on the three kinds of category work, aimed at catching people who search for competitor names. The launch dates line up with when growth started.

5. **Where the money comes from** : The free badge is for acquisition, and the paid tier is "Meta doesn't keep history, we record it for you every day." This makes sense, because Meta only gives cumulative reach, not a time series. A free extension can't do that; it has to run server-side.

### 5. Differentiation

- How it differs from peers: (a) completely free, no account; (b) restrained copy that openly says it can't see anything outside the EU and that estimates only show direction, which reads like it's courting professional media buyers; (c) the paid hook is **per-brand tracking history and judgment** , not more data. Most rivals either cram features into the extension or lock the data away.

- **Are these differences why it took off? Mostly no.** Everyone uses the same data source and formula (its own comparison pages even admit "the underlying public data does not [differ]"), and users can't see the "free, no sign-up" angle unless they've already searched for it. Its linear growth looks more like the result of store keywords plus SEO. Spendo and Adlens, the fastest-growing in the same category (13k users in two months), differ even less and have poor ratings. That suggests this category competes on distribution, not product.

### 6. Awareness, and is anyone copying it?

- Awareness: **Very few people know about it yet.** No ratings to speak of, no press coverage, 0 posts on X, no public revenue.

- Copycats: this feature is already very crowded. New entrants in 2026 include SpendPeek (April), FB Ad Library Insights (June), Adlens (September), and Spendo (October); Denote (40k users) added spend estimates to its extension in October. It's not that one player copied another; the whole category is building this.

### 7. What's worth borrowing

- The pattern: "platform-mandated data that's buried → an overlay extension surfaces it → server-side history sold as a subscription." It could be applied to other transparency data, such as Google Ads Transparency, the TikTok Commercial Content Library, or the LinkedIn Ad Library's DSA fields.

- Use alternative comparison pages plus category explainer pages to capture long-tail search. 13 pages is enough.

- Being explicit about the data's limits actually reads as credible.

### 8. What's still uncertain

- Whether Adyntel.com and ADYNTEL PLATFORM SRL are the same company (only the name matches; addresses and registration details were not cross-checked).

- How many of the 418 users converted to the $39 subscription is completely unknown.

- How Spendo and Adlens reached 8k and 5k users in one month is unclear. Ratings of 1.6 suggest paid acquisition or a poor experience, but I didn't dig further.

- What happened in the store between March and August (users <33): extops only has 90 days of data. The store was once named "Meta Competition Ads," so it may have been renamed.

### Sources

- Chrome Web Store page (read 2026-11-06, version 1.3.1, developer ADYNTEL PLATFORM SRL)

- extops.dev/extensions/jlaejmpgclckhipijdokaigggiihpfbp (90-day user curve, permissions, version history)

- competitionads.com homepage, /ad-library-chrome-extension, /alternatives, /sitemap.xml

- Local chromestore database: item / item_snap / related (2026-11-01, 11-07)

- denote.net/blog/how-to-use-ad-spend-in-denote-extension(2026-10-08)

- adyntel.com, coldiq.com/tools/adyntel, listafirme.ro/adyntel-platform-srl-51564675

- Reddit r/FacebookAds 1dofjlp, 1tcmccs (search snippets)

- x-radar search (0 posts); metaads database (0 ads)

This article was written by AI from public data and the data we collect daily. Numbers are sourced, and inferences are labeled.