Toolradar Research
Advertising software statistics 2026
First-party data on the 86 advertising tools Toolradar tracks: LinkedIn Ads at 1.20 from 3,043 reviews, the weakest high-volume score in the catalog.
Founder, Toolradar & Dupple
Key findings
What the data shows.
- 01
86 advertising tools tracked, holding 43,503 aggregated third-party reviews. (Source: Toolradar directory, September 17, 2026.)
- 02
LinkedIn Ads sits at 1.20 from 3,043 reviews, the weakest high-volume score we publish. (Source: Toolradar directory, September 17, 2026.)
- 03
Podscribe leads volume at 4.60 from 13,206 reviews. ironSource holds 10,010 at 4.10. (Source: Toolradar directory, September 17, 2026.)
- 04
74% are paid-only. Ad tech is a paid-first category. (Source: Toolradar directory, September 17, 2026.)
- 05
The review-weighted average is 4.09. (Source: Toolradar directory, September 17, 2026.)
About the research
How we built this report.
Toolradar tool database. Editorial review with weekly pricing verification.
2026. Snapshot taken September 17, 2026. Refresh due Dec 17, 2026.
Public scoring rubric. See how we rate for the full criteria.
Creative Commons BY 4.0. Quote, link, and reuse with attribution.
Advertising has a hole at the bottom that is hard to ignore. Toolradar tracks 86 tools holding 43,503 reviews. 74% are paid-only. Podscribe holds 13,206 reviews at 4.60. ironSource holds 10,010 at 4.10. AdCreative.ai holds 3,955 at 3.90. LinkedIn Ads holds 3,043 at 1.20. Anyword holds 1,618 at 4.80. A 1.20 from three thousand reviews is not a niche complaint. It is the category's loudest fact.
Every figure below is computed from the Toolradar directory on September 17, 2026. The live dashboard is Advertising statistics. The buyer ranking is best advertising software.
How large the category is
We track 86 published tools, or 0.8% of the 10,619 tools in the directory. 99% (85 of 86) were added to Toolradar in 2026. "Added" means added to our directory, not founded this year.
A $39 ad tool is a creative seat. The $113 mean is a media platform.
How these tools are priced
74% of the 86 tools are paid-only. 26% offer a free tier or freemium plan (22 tools). 3% are fully free.
How advertising software are priced
n = 86 tools, September 17, 2026
For the 17 tools that publish a paid tier, the median entry price is $39 a month and the mean is $113.
Entry price distribution
n = 17 tools with a published paid tier
The catalog-wide median entry is $20 (software pricing statistics).
How these tools are rated
54 of 86 tools carry a rating (63%). Those ratings rest on 43,503 reviews. Unweighted mean 4.16. Review-weighted mean 4.09.
Rating distribution
n = 54 rated tools
The most-reviewed tools on September 17, 2026:
| Tool | Rating | Reviews |
|---|---|---|
| Podscribe | 4.60 | 13,206 |
| ironSource | 4.10 | 10,010 |
| AdCreative.ai | 3.90 | 3,955 |
| LinkedIn Ads | 1.20 | 3,043 |
Source: Toolradar directory, September 17, 2026.
LinkedIn Ads at 1.20 is the lowest score we publish for any tool with more than 3,000 reviews. The rest of the category sits in a normal 3.90 to 4.80 band.
The highest-rated tools with at least 150 aggregated reviews:
| # | Tool | Rating | Reviews |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anyword | 4.80 | 1,618 |
| 2 | DataFeedWatch | 4.80 | 415 |
| 3 | Swipe Pages | 4.80 | 355 |
| 4 | Podscribe | 4.60 | 13,206 |
| 5 | Quartile | 4.60 | 215 |
| 6 | SellerApp | 4.60 | 214 |
| 7 | Creatopy | 4.60 | 204 |
| 8 | Influ2 | 4.60 | 161 |
| 9 | SpyFu | 4.50 | 663 |
| 10 | Metadata.io | 4.50 | 346 |
Anyword leads at 4.80.
Review volume by platform:
| Review platform | Tools with a profile | Aggregated reviews | Mean rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| G2 | 49 | 24,050 | 4.51 |
| Trustpilot | 12 | 17,472 | 3.39 |
| Capterra | 19 | 1,751 | 4.62 |
| SourceForge | 6 | 209 | 4.32 |
| TrustRadius | 1 | 21 | 4.30 |
Three tools worth comparing are LinkedIn Ads, Anyword, and Podscribe if you want the volume leader.
How often pricing moves
Our pricing tracker logged 7 pricing changes for these tools in 2026, 0 of them applied.
How this data was measured
Every figure in this report is computed live from the Toolradar directory on September 17, 2026, covering the 86 published tools we categorize under Advertising. Pricing model is read from each vendor's official pricing page. The entry price is the cheapest positive monthly tier a tool publishes. Ratings and review counts are aggregated from third-party platforms (G2, Capterra, Trustpilot and others), not from Toolradar's own reviews. The leaderboard floor is 150 aggregated reviews. This is a directory snapshot, not a survey.
Cite this report
- APA: Corneloup, L. (2026). Advertising software statistics 2026. Toolradar Research. https://toolradar.com/reports/advertising-software-statistics
- MLA: Corneloup, Louis. "Advertising software statistics 2026." Toolradar Research, 17 Sept. 2026, toolradar.com/reports/advertising-software-statistics.
Browse the full category on the best advertising software page, or explore all of Toolradar Research.
Cite this report
Use the data, credit the source.
Released under Creative Commons BY 4.0. You may quote, link, and reuse the data with attribution.
More research
What Toolradar has stored: reviews and logos
57 of 10,667 published tools have at least one Toolradar review. 6,602 have a stored external-review payload. 4,065 have neither. 180 published tools have no logo file.
How fresh Toolradar prices are
On September 22, 2026, 7,331 of 10,667 published tools had their pricing re-checked in the last 30 days. 3,334 have never been checked. One check is older than 90 days. The median price lives on another page. This page is the age of the check.
Free trial share of software tools 2026
2,885 of 10,667 published Toolradar tools have a stored free-trial flag (27%). The free path is a different cut: 5,834 tools (55%) are free, freemium, or open_source. Among Paid listings, 1,433 of 4,786 (30%) carry the trial flag.