· Brandsearch Review · Comparison · 5 min read
Brandsearch vs TrendTrack (2026): Brand-First or Store-First Ad Research
Both tools spy on ecommerce ads and both cost roughly the same at entry. The difference is what sits at the centre of the index: 14M brands at Brandsearch, Shopify stores and email flows at TrendTrack.
Brandsearch and TrendTrack are aimed at the same buyer — the ecommerce operator who wants to see what competitors are running before it saturates — and they charge almost the same money. The plans diverge on something more useful than price: TrendTrack indexes shops, Brandsearch indexes brands.
That sounds like a semantic difference until you use both. A shop is a domain with traffic, products and email flows. A brand is a company with ads across Meta, TikTok and Instagram, landing pages, and a creative history going back months. Whichever one is at the centre of the tool decides what questions it answers well.
Pricing, as published in October 2026
| Brandsearch | TrendTrack | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry | Starter $63/mo | Starter $49/mo · $34/mo yearly |
| Mid | Outscaler $79/mo | Pro $89/mo · $62/mo yearly |
| Top | Agency $149/mo | Business $159/mo · $111/mo yearly |
| Annual discount | 25% | 30% |
| Quarterly billing | Not offered | 15% off |
Neither price includes VAT. TrendTrack’s yearly rate is the more aggressive one — its Starter at $34 a month billed yearly is the cheapest way into either product, provided you are willing to commit for a year before you know whether the data covers your niche.
Brandsearch’s counter is the discount on the first payment: the code WINNING takes 20% off, which puts the first month at $50.40, $63.20 or $119.20 depending on the plan, and the first annual invoice at $454.40, $569.60 or $1,145.60.
What the quotas actually allow
Plan names hide the most important numbers, so here they are next to each other.
| Limit | Brandsearch Starter | TrendTrack Starter |
|---|---|---|
| Lookups | 15,000 per month | 5 per week |
| Tracked competitors | 5 brands | 2 brands (Brandtracker) |
| Seats | 1 | 1 |
| API / MCP | 5,000 calls | Not on entry tier |
Five lookups a week is roughly twenty a month. That is a demo, not a research quota — it is enough to test the interface and not enough to study a niche. Brandsearch’s 15,000 is the opposite extreme: far more than a person can read, which is why the cap rarely binds.
The comparison only makes sense one tier up:
| Limit | Brandsearch Outscaler | TrendTrack Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $79/mo | $89/mo · $62 yearly |
| Lookups | Unlimited | 30 per week |
| Tracked competitors | 50 brands | 10 brands |
| Seats | 2 | 1 |
| API / MCP | 10,000 calls | Included with credits |
At the mid tier the two products stop converging. Brandsearch removes the lookup cap and includes a second seat; TrendTrack keeps a weekly quota and charges $29 per additional seat on the tier above. If your research volume is high, that is the decisive row.
Where TrendTrack is the better tool
Shop analytics are the core product. Traffic estimates, product performance, reviews and social growth for a single store, plus a “similar shops” view. If your job is to find stores that are accelerating and reverse-engineer what they sell, TrendTrack is built for that and Brandsearch is not trying to be.
The email library is first class. Browsing a shop’s campaigns and flows, with sending patterns, is a genuinely different dataset from a swipe file of ads. For lifecycle and retention research it is the reason to pick TrendTrack.
Shopify-first coverage. TrendTrack’s shop index is deep on Shopify stores, which is where most dropshipping and DTC research happens. Brandsearch’s 14M brand figure spans companies, not just stores, which is broader but shallower per store.
Cheaper annual entry. $34 a month billed yearly is $408 for the year — less than Brandsearch’s annual Starter at $568 even after the code.
Where Brandsearch is the better tool
The ad index is bigger where it counts. 400M+ ads against TrendTrack’s shop-led library, and the search is built around ad creative across Meta, TikTok and Instagram rather than around stores. If your question is “which creatives have been running longest in this category”, Brandsearch answers it faster.
Lookups are not the bottleneck. Unlimited search at $79 is a structural advantage over a weekly quota. Research is iterative; a quota changes how you work, not just how much you work.
MCP from the entry tier. Brandsearch includes API and MCP calls on Starter. TrendTrack puts API/MCP on Pro and above, so automation starts $30 higher.
Landing pages travel with the ad. A Brandsearch record carries the page the ad points at alongside the creative. For funnel teardowns, that saves a step on every ad you inspect.
The decision
- You research products and stores: TrendTrack, and its email library is the tiebreaker. Budget for Pro rather than Starter — Starter’s five lookups a week will frustrate you within a day.
- You research creative and competitors: Brandsearch Outscaler. Unlimited lookups, 50 tracked brands, two seats and MCP at $79 is the strongest research package either vendor sells under $100.
- You want the cheapest possible annual commit: TrendTrack Starter at $34 a month yearly, accepting that ad research on that tier is largely a demo.
- You automate research into your own workflow: Brandsearch, because the API allowance is published per plan instead of gated behind the mid tier.
Whichever you pick, run it on a niche you already know before you judge it. Both indexes have thin spots, and neither vendor’s page will tell you where they are.
For the full Brandsearch plan breakdown, see the pricing page. For the cheaper alternative on the store side, the WinningHunter comparison covers that matchup. If you have not used either tool yet, the three-day trial plan applies to Brandsearch and is the cheapest way to check coverage.