Best ad testing tools in 2026, compared

1. System1 Test Your Ad

System1 calls Test Your Ad "the world's most predictive ad test". It reports three ratings: the Star Rating, which predicts long-term market share growth from the types of emotion viewers feel; the Spike Rating, for short-term sales potential; and the Fluency Rating, for how well the ad is branded. FaceTrace shows the emotional response second by second. For TV, System1 says viewers "self-select how the ad made them feel", so the emotion is declared rather than read from faces. Full reports arrive from 24 hours, and the AI-based Test Your Ad Screen returns predicted ranges in minutes for up to 100 assets. Pricing is not published. (System1)

Best for

Brands that want a single rating with a large normative database behind it.

Watch out for

Emotion is self-reported, and the Star Rating's construction isn't published. EchoDepth vs System1

2. Kantar LINK+ and LINK AI

LINK+ is Kantar's survey-based pre-test. Its four core measures are engagement, associations, near-term sales effect and long-term brand equity contribution, with six optional diagnostics, including facial coding. Kantar says results are available "in as little as six hours" and describes its benchmark as the largest normative creative database in the world. (Kantar) LINK AI predicts how an ad will perform without a survey, with results in about 15 minutes, and can be run self-serve. (Kantar LINK AI) Pricing is not published.

Best for

Global enterprise programmes that need consistent norms across many markets.

Watch out for

Facial coding is an optional add-on, not the core measure.

3. iMotions

iMotions sells webcam facial coding for ad testing, "powered by Affectiva's technology", captured "with explicit respondent's opt-in consent". Its benchmarks draw on "more than 100,000 ads and over 18 million faces analyzed in around 90 countries". (iMotions) Its separate Predictive AI scores attention, expressiveness and valence without recruiting respondents, with a median of under three minutes from upload to verdict. (iMotions Predictive AI) Pricing is not published on these pages.

Best for

Research teams who want to run and analyse studies themselves.

Watch out for

It is a research platform you operate, not a done-for-you study. Affectiva and iMotions alternatives

4. Adverteyes

Adverteyes is the ad testing business that Realeyes spun out in November 2025. It scores every ad on sales impact, brand awareness and interactions. Its human measurement shows ads to a sample audience in platform context, and it also predicts attention and emotion with models; it cites a Mars programme reported at 78% accuracy. Named users include Mars, Nestlé, Haleon and Procter & Gamble. Pricing is not published. (Adverteyes)

Best for

Large advertisers that want attention scores linked to sales outcomes.

Watch out for

Enterprise focus and composite scores whose construction isn't published. What happened to Realeyes

5. EchoDepth (our product)

EchoDepth measures how real, consenting viewers respond to an ad on their own webcam. It codes 44 FACS Action Units on every frame, converts them to valence, arousal and dominance, and plots them second by second as an Emotional Response Curve. It also reports the Cavefish Emotional Index, a 0 to 100 score read from what viewers say after watching. The method is published, and every score can be traced back to the moments and facial movements behind it. Studies typically use 15 or more viewers per audience segment and are run for you, with a debrief. It has no large normative database yet, and it doesn't do eye tracking.

Best for

Teams who want measured facial response with a method they can inspect.

Watch out for

No published norms or sales validation yet; pricing is quoted per study. How EchoDepth ad testing works

6. Element Human

Element Human is one of the few vendors that publishes prices. Testing is bought in credits: $1,995 a credit for 1 to 50, $1,895 for 51 to 150 and $1,695 for 151 or more, with 5% off quarterly and 10% off annual terms. One credit tests one creative; a full campaign report covering up to 12 creatives costs two credits and covers diagnostics across attention, emotion and recall. (Element Human pricing)

Best for

Social and influencer creative where price certainty matters.

Watch out for

The pricing page doesn't say which methods sit behind the emotion measures.

7. Behavio

Behavio pre-tests text, visual, audio and video ads with "Brand-Need-Emotion scoring" and implicit response measures, and promises "specific scene-by-scene fixes, not just scores". Results take 3 to 7 days, or 15 minutes with its AI Pre-Test. Ad testing is priced per test or as a subscription; no ad-testing figure is published. (Behavio)

Best for

Teams who want practical edit recommendations.

Watch out for

It doesn't code facial expressions.

8. RealEye

RealEye is a self-serve webcam eye-tracking platform with basic facial coding of three states: happiness, surprise and neutral. The Basic plan is $390 a month, or $325 a month billed annually, for studies up to three minutes; Standard is $990 a month, or $825 a month annually, for studies up to ten minutes. RealEye panelists cost $15 each. (RealEye pricing)

Best for

Self-serve attention studies on a small budget.

Watch out for

Eye tracking first; facial coding is limited to three states and you do the analysis.

Also considered

Zappi Amplify uses a survey with second-by-second emotion captured "with emojis" and a default sample of 400 category consumers per ad, adjustable from 200 to 800. (Zappi) Neurons predicts ad performance with models trained on what it describes as the world's largest consumer neuroscience database, of more than 300,000 people. (Neurons) Both are strong options; we left them out of the top eight because neither measures facial response from real viewers of your ad.

How we chose

EchoDepth is our product, so read this ranking with that in mind. We ranked tools on five things: how response is measured (from real viewers' faces, from what viewers say, or by a model with no viewers), how open the method is, speed, whether prices are published, and the size of the evidence behind each tool. We placed EchoDepth fifth because it has no normative database or published sales validation yet, which the top four do. Every competitor fact comes from that vendor's own website on 17 October 2026 and is linked; where a vendor doesn't publish something, we say so. If anything here is wrong, email hello@cavefish.ai and we'll correct it.

Prices and approaches change quickly. For what tests typically cost, see ad testing cost. For how accurate facial coding is, see is facial coding accurate?

Questions