Magic Brief Alternatives: The 5 Best Replacements After the Shutdown

Magic Brief shut down on July 31, 2026. Canva acquired the company in June 2025, the team moved across to build Canva Grow, and the standalone product was switched off. Billing was cancelled ahead of the shutdown, so there is nothing left to unwind. What you need now is a replacement. This page covers the five best alternatives, which part of Magic Brief each one replaces, and how to pick between them.

Written by Kole Ogundipe, founder of Wilow. Last updated July 31, 2026.

What happened to Magic Brief?

Magic Brief was a creative intelligence tool for Meta advertisers. It tracked ad performance, held a searchable library of competitor ads, and turned what was working into briefs for creative teams. Canva announced its acquisition of the Sydney startup on June 17, 2025, and the team joined Canva full time.

For the following year Magic Brief kept running as its own product while that team built Canva Grow, a new ads and creative analytics workflow inside Canva. With Canva Grow live, Magic Brief closed on July 31, 2026, and the platform is no longer accessible. Canva was upfront that Canva Grow is a net-new product built on the same DNA rather than a direct port, so parts of the workflow you knew do not carry across one to one.

That is why "magic brief alternative" is still being searched so heavily. If you want the same job done rather than a new suite to learn, the sections below sort the options by which part of Magic Brief you actually used.

What to do now

1. Check what you exported. If you pulled your reports, creative labels, and performance history out before the shutdown, that history is still a useful baseline for whatever you move to. If you did not, it went with the platform, and your new tool starts its history from today.
2. Start a free trial of your top two picks. Wilow's free plan costs nothing and needs no credit card. Connect a Meta ad account and spend 30 minutes in each option you are considering. You will know quickly which one fits.
3. Do not run blind for long. Creative analytics is not something to go without. Campaigns launch, winning ads fatigue, and you lose the signal exactly when you need it most.

The 5 best Magic Brief alternatives

1. Wilow, the closest replacement for the analytics

Wilow is creative analytics built specifically for Meta advertisers. It tags every ad in your account the way Meta's algorithm reads it, by persona, offer, format, emotion, and creative type, then ranks them on a Creative Leaderboard so you can see what is actually winning. The AI Creative Tagging feature is the closest equivalent to Magic Brief's creative labelling. The free plan is genuinely free with no credit card, and Pro is $49/mo flat. If you used Magic Brief to work out which ads to scale and which to cut, start here.

2. Canva Grow, the official path

Canva Grow is where the Magic Brief team went and where parts of the product continue. If your team already designs in Canva, it is the lowest-friction move: create, launch, and analyse ads in one place. Worth knowing before you commit, Canva describes Grow as a net-new product rather than a port of Magic Brief, so treat it as a new tool to evaluate on its own merits rather than a like-for-like migration.

3. Foreplay, for swipe files and briefs

Foreplay is a creative workflow tool built around a swipe file. Save the ads you like with the browser extension, organise them into boards, track competitor accounts, and turn saved inspiration into structured briefs for creators. It is a pre-production tool rather than a performance tool: the entry plan is around $49/mo, with creative analytics and the brief builder on a higher tier. If you used Magic Brief mainly for inspiration and briefing, this is the closest match.

4. Motion, broader creative analytics

Motion covers more platforms than Magic Brief did, including Meta, TikTok, and YouTube, and offers strong reporting for agencies and larger teams. It is a lot more expensive: the entry Starter plan is $750 a month for brands spending up to $50k a month on ads, and it rises from there, so the multi-platform coverage and reporting depth need to be worth it. If your team needs TikTok analytics alongside Meta, Motion is the pick.

5. Madgicx, AI media buying plus analytics

Madgicx is an all-in-one Meta automation platform with creative tagging, audience management, and AI-driven media buying. It is built for agencies at significant spend, and users at lower spend levels consistently say the price is hard to justify. If you want the AI to manage campaigns rather than just report on them, this is the option.

Other Magic Brief alternatives worth knowing

• Atria positions close to Motion: creative analytics across Meta and TikTok with an agency workflow focus. Newer, with less community history, but a competitive feature set.
• GetHookd pairs a large ad database with Brand Spy competitor tracking, AI script generation, and ad cloning. It covers research and production, with no brief builder and a lighter analytics layer.
• AdLibrary covers competitive ad intelligence across several platforms with AI-powered ad analysis. A research tool, not an analytics or briefing one.
• BigSpy offers broad ad intelligence across Meta, TikTok, and YouTube at budget pricing with a free tier. Basic interface, no creative workflow.
• Segwise tags creatives across a wide set of ad networks and generates new ads from winning patterns. Strongest for user acquisition teams in apps and gaming.
• Krev combines ad research with AI creative generation: find winning ads, score what is working, and remake the idea for your brand. No traditional brief builder.
• BusyOcto is a free option focused on ad insights and brief creation. A lighter feature set, and the lowest-risk starting point for solo marketers.

How to choose, by the part of Magic Brief you used

• Performance analytics: Wilow for Meta with a free plan, or Motion if you need multiple platforms.
• Swipe files and briefs: Foreplay is the closest match, or Canva Grow if your team already works in Canva.
• The competitor ad library: our free Meta Ads Library tool searches any brand's live ads with no login, and GetHookd, AdLibrary, or BigSpy cover larger databases.
• Media buying automation: Madgicx.
• Smallest budget: Wilow's free plan or BusyOcto.

How They Compare

The bottom line

Magic Brief built a strong product in a space that matters, and Canva buying it was good for Canva. It still leaves a real gap for the performance marketers who relied on the standalone tool, and no single option fills all of it. Canva Grow is the official path if you live in Canva. Foreplay is the closest match if briefs and swipe files were your workflow. Wilow is the closest direct replacement for the analytics: same focus on Meta creative performance, a free plan that costs nothing to start, and AI labelling that reads your ads the way Meta's algorithm does. Whichever you choose, get it connected now. Every week you run without creative analytics is a week of signal you cannot get back.

See what users said about the tool while it was live on our Magic Brief reviews page.