Foreplay alternatives
Foreplay is built for paid social teams and starts at $49 a month. The alternatives if you save ads alongside pages and emails, work alone, or want a smaller bill.
TLDR
- Foreplay is the big one for paid social teams: a swipe file, a search over a huge library of ads, competitor tracking, and briefs. If ads are your whole job and you have a team, it’s probably worth it.
- It starts at $59 a month ($49 billed yearly) for one person, and most of the good stuff sits on Workflow at $175.
- If you just need somewhere to keep ads you liked, alongside the landing page and the email they came with, there are cheaper and broader options.
What Foreplay does well
Credit where it’s due. Foreplay saves ads in one click from the Meta, TikTok, and LinkedIn ad libraries, lets you search a library of millions of ads you never saw, tracks your competitors’ new ads (Spyder), analyses your own ads (Lens), and turns saves into briefs for editors. Agencies and in-house paid social teams run on it.
Why people look for an alternative
- The bill. Basic is $59 a month, or $49 billed yearly, for one user. Competitor tracking and the Chrome extension sit on Workflow at $175 a month. That’s a lot if you’re a freelancer or a marketer who runs ads as one part of the job.
- It’s ads only. The landing page the ad pointed to, the welcome email you got after clicking, the onboarding flow. They don’t live in Foreplay.
- The AI. Briefs, analysis, and an MCP to plug its ad library into AI tools. Some love it. Some just want their swipe file to be a swipe file.
Swipekit
Swipekit is the cheaper ad tool. $26 a month for five seats and five tracked brands, with a 14-day trial and no card needed. It saves ads from the ad libraries, tracks brands, and has AI scripts that turn a saved ad into a storyboard. If you want Foreplay’s shape at half the price, start here, and the Swipekit alternative page has how it stacks up against Savepad. The Foreplay vs Swipekit post goes into the difference.
Savepad
Savepad isn’t an ad intelligence tool. It doesn’t search ads you never saw and it doesn’t track anyone. What it does: keep the ad you saved, the page it linked to (as a full-page snapshot), the email that followed, and the onboarding flow in order, all searchable by the words inside them, screenshots included. Free for 150 saves, then €4.99 or €9.99 a month. No AI.
If you run ads for clients every day, you’ll miss Foreplay’s discovery. If ads are one of ten things you save, this is the better shape. The ad swipe file post shows how to build one from the free ad libraries.
The free stack
The Meta Ad Library, the TikTok Creative Center, the LinkedIn Ad Library, and the Google Ads Transparency Center are all free and show you what anyone is running. They’re where the paid tools get their ads from. What they don’t do is remember anything for you, which is where a swipe file comes in.
Side by side
| Tool | Search ads you never saw | Track competitors | Pages and emails | AI | Starts at |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Foreplay | Yes | Workflow plan | No | Briefs, MCP | $49 a month yearly |
| Swipekit | Shared library | Yes | No | AI scripts | $26 a month |
| Savepad | No | No | Yes | None | Free, then €4.99 |
| Free ad libraries | Yes | By hand | No | No | Free |
Prices from each pricing page in October 2026.
So which one?
If you’re on a paid social team, Foreplay or Swipekit, depending on budget. If you’re a marketer, founder, or freelancer who saves ads along with everything else, keep the free libraries for discovery and Savepad for keeping. The best ad swipe file tools post has a few more options, including the ones built for media buyers.
FAQ
How much does Foreplay cost?
Foreplay's Basic plan is $59 a month, or $49 a month billed yearly, for one user. Workflow is $175 a month and Agency $459 a month. Every plan has a 7-day trial that needs a card.
What's the cheapest alternative to Foreplay?
Swipekit starts at $26 a month for five seats. If you don't need ad discovery or competitor tracking, Savepad is free for 150 saves and then €4.99 or €9.99 a month.
Can I save ads from the Meta Ad Library without Foreplay?
Yes. Copy the ad's link from the Meta Ad Library and paste it into any swipe file tool, or screenshot the ad. Savepad keeps the ad and reads the text in screenshots so you can search it.