Last updated August 2026
MagicBrief shut down: the alternative for the job Canva Grow dropped
MagicBrief shut down on July 31, 2026. Canva Grow, the product it pointed users to, creates and launches ads, but teardowns report the swipe file, the competitor tracking, and the ad library did not come with it. AdKit is built around exactly that job, and it also makes the ad.
The short version
| Dimension |   | |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Active. Independent and 100% bootstrapped. | Shut down July 31, 2026 at 8 PM EST. The platform is no longer accessible. |
| What it is | A purpose-built ads toolbox: competitor tracking, ad library, creative studio, and a built-in MCP. | Was a creative research, briefing, and analytics platform. Acquired by Canva in 2025 and shut down; users were pointed to Canva Grow. |
| The swipe-file job | Save any ad, keep tracking the advertiser, get alerted when they launch something new. | Boards, folders, and tags. No bulk export at shutdown, so saved collections did not come with you. |
| Ad library platforms | Meta, Google, LinkedIn. 500k+ ads, growing daily. | Meta and TikTok only. No Google Ads coverage at any level. |
| Beyond research | Generate creative in Studio, then create and launch campaigns through a draft-first MCP. | Stopped at the brief. Making and launching the ad happened in another tool. |
| Price | $29/month (1 ad project, MCP included, unlimited calls) or $49/month (unlimited). Free trial. | Was $249/month and up, scaled with ad spend and team size, custom quote, 3-month minimum. |
or ask an AI to help you choose:
"Awesome product! Before, my workflow involved a lot of manually discovering winning ads and replicating them manually in Figma or Canva. The reference image feature makes this process 100x faster which means I can test more creatives."
Simon Høiberg
Founder of FounderStack
The complete comparison
What happened to MagicBrief
MagicBrief shut down on July 31, 2026 at 8 PM EST. Canva bought it thirteen months earlier: the deal was announced at Cannes Lions in June 2025, and regulatory filings reported by Capital Brief put the July 2025 transaction at $22.5 million. MagicBrief's own FAQ said at the time that the platform would keep operating on its own with no changes to pricing.
Billing has already been cancelled and you will not be charged again. Insights reports exported as CSV, Overview reports only. Comparison reports and Co-pilot reports could not be exported that way.
The tool is gone. The question it answered every morning, what are competitors running and what should we make next, is still open.
Canva Grow does a different job
Canva Grow is an ad management platform, by Canva's own description. Grow 2.0 landed in June 2026 with AI ad generation, bulk publishing to Meta, TikTok, and LinkedIn, and a Learn dashboard that tags creative and reports on performance. If you used MagicBrief mostly to brief and produce ads, take the Canva offer: eligible customers get 6 months free on Canva Business, including the highest Canva Grow usage tiers.
The research side does not carry over. Teardowns published since the shutdown announcement report that the Inspire tab, competitor research, swipe-file boards, and AI tagging ended with the platform, reading Grow as a net-new product rather than a port of MagicBrief. AdKit is built around that layer: drop a competitor URL, get every ad they run on Meta, Google, and LinkedIn, and keep getting them.
Make and publish ads inside Canva: Grow. Know what your competitors shipped this week: AdKit.
Rebuilding your swipe file and tracking
There is no bulk export for MagicBrief collections, and there never will be. The shutdown FAQ gave the reason: the ads inside your boards were third-party content, so they did not come out. Your folders, tags, and saved ads ended with the platform, and any tool claiming it can import them is offering something MagicBrief never had.
Rebuilding in AdKit starts from URLs instead of files. Paste a competitor's website and AdKit finds the advertiser, pulls every ad they run on Meta, Google, and LinkedIn, then keeps pulling as new ones launch and alerts you when something goes live. Anything worth keeping goes to your swipe file, and the 500k+ ad library is already there while you rebuild.
The collection is gone. The list of brands you were watching is still in your head, and that is what the rebuild runs on.
Where MagicBrief was deeper than AdKit
MagicBrief beat AdKit on creative analysis. It scored ads against 60 attributes, transcribed video ads and broke them down scene by scene, generated storyboards from saved ads, and wrote scripts off performance data. AdKit has Ad Score, but nothing at that depth: no 60-attribute scoring, no transcription, no scene-by-scene breakdown, no storyboards.
It also had TikTok: the MagicBrief ad library covered Meta and TikTok, while AdKit's covers Meta, Google, and LinkedIn. If TikTok is where your creative research happens, this is a straight loss and you should know it now. The trade is breadth on the research side, plus everything that happens after the brief.
If scene-by-scene breakdowns and structured briefs were the reason you paid, start your comparison with Foreplay and Atria rather than with us. Stay here if the job was knowing what to make and then making it.
Research to launch without leaving the tool
MagicBrief never made an ad. The workflow ran research, analytics, brief, and stopped. Everything after that happened in a design tool, in an editor, or in Ads Manager, so MagicBrief sat on top of the rest of the stack instead of replacing any of it.
AdKit carries the same ad all the way through. Find it through tracking or in the library, save it, generate a variation in Studio from your own reference images, then create and launch the campaign through a draft-first MCP. Your agent writes drafts inside AdKit, and your live account stays untouched until you approve.
The loop closes in one place, at $29/month for one ad project or $49/month for unlimited. Flat, whatever you spend on ads.
"AdKit has this awesome feature called Ad Score that basically highlights the best performing ads. So all of a sudden, in a minute you have five different ideas on how to execute this, how to make the creative so they actually perform well."
Dan
Founder of CAD Scene
Why move now
Still struggling to choose?
Pick AdKit if your day starts with "what are competitors running?"
Your first tab in the morning was the Inspire feed, and the question was what changed since yesterday. You want that answered before you open a doc.
Your swipe file is a working tool, not an archive. You go back into it when a campaign needs a new angle this week.
You want the saved ad to become a live variation without switching products. Research, Studio, then a draft your agent writes and you approve.
You're done with a price that goes up because your ad spend went up. $29 or $49 flat, no quote, no minimum term.
That's marketers, founders running their own ads, growth leads, and agencies.
Stick with Canva Grow if your ads get made in Canva.
Your designers already work in Canva and your briefs land there. Grow sits in the same place as the artwork.
You want to create and publish in one flow. Grow 2.0 generates ads and bulk-publishes to Meta, TikTok, and LinkedIn.
The migration offer matters: eligible MagicBrief customers get 6 months free on Canva Business, including the highest Canva Grow usage tiers.
TikTok carries your media plan. Grow publishes there, and AdKit has no TikTok ad library, so the research half of AdKit would sit unused.
If that's you, take the Canva offer. It costs you nothing for six months.
"We switched to AdKit from another tool and haven't looked back. It does everything the alternative did, and then some. The biggest win for our agency has been managing ad accounts directly through Claude via terminal. Support has been genuinely great too, responsive and actually helpful. If you're running an agency and managing multiple ad accounts, this is worth a proper look."
Ankita Lewis
COO at Searchbox
A word from the founder
Hi there 👋 I'm Nico, the founder of AdKit 😄
Before building startups, I was a media buyer. I managed over $1,000,000 in Ads, sold two startups grown with ads, and helped 1,000+ makers learn Meta Ads through my online guides.
I love ads but... it involves a lot of repetitive, boring work 😩 And I hated every second of it. So I built AdKit to fix that.
To let me and other marketers focus on the fun parts: the strategy, the thinking, the creativity. And not have to waste my time clicking around in buggy interfaces.
It's the app I always dreamed of, and I hope you'll like it too 😀
Everything side-by-side
Status & company
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Active and shipping | Shut down July 31, 2026 at 8 PM EST |
| Company location | Singapore | Australia |
| Data hosted in | Europe | Unknown |
| Founder background | Nico Jeannen, ex media buyer. Managed $1M+ in ad spend, sold two startups grown with ads, taught 1,000+ makers Meta Ads. | George Howes (CEO), ex Wieden+Kennedy art director and ex Creative Director at Eucalyptus, with Dan Nolan (CTO). Sydney, Australia. |
| Date founded | April 2025 | Late 2022 |
| Funding | Independent & 100% Bootstrapped | $2M pre-seed (Blackbird Ventures, July 2023). No Series A. |
| Acquired | No | Canva. Announced June 2025 at Cannes Lions; regulatory filings reported by Capital Brief put the July 2025 deal at $22.5 million. |
| Trains AI on your data | No. | Unknown |
Ad library & competitor research (MagicBrief before shutdown)
| Meta Ads | Yes | Yes |
| Google Ads | Yes | No |
| Yes | Analytics sync only, no ad library | |
| TikTok Ads | No | Yes |
| Drop-in competitor tracking by URL | Yes, auto-scrapes every ad, continuously | Unknown |
| New-ad alerts | Yes | Unknown |
| Swipe file / saved inspiration | Yes | Yes, boards and tags. No bulk export at shutdown. |
| Scene-by-scene video breakdowns | No | Yes |
| 60-attribute ad scoring | No | Yes |
AI creative (MagicBrief before shutdown)
| Static ad generation | Yes | No |
| Ads Cloning workflow | Yes | No |
| Reference-image workflow | Yes | No |
| Creative briefs | Soon | Yes |
| AI storyboards from saved ads | No | Yes |
| Creative analytics reports | Soon | Yes |
Pricing
| Free Trial | 7 days, full access | 7-day trial, before shutdown |
| Entry paid tier | $29/month (1 ad project, MCP included, unlimited calls) | Was $249/month and up, custom quote |
| Pricing model | Flat. Same price at any ad spend. | Scaled with ad spend and team size |
| Minimum commitment | None, monthly | 3 months |
| Available today | Yes | No |
Research, create, launch, manage. One tool.
Research
Find what's working right now
Browse 500k+ ads or import your competitors. Filter by vertical so you see businesses like yours.
- Competitors tracked across Meta, Google, and LinkedIn automatically
- See which ads are evergreens vs. tests your competitors already killed
- Weekly digest in your inbox. No more scrolling ad libraries.
With your agent
ClaudeWhat's the ad Notion has been running the longest?
Their Postit style ad has been live 142 days, it points to their top landing page (126 ads running to it). Want me to save the creative and LP to your swipe file?
Frequently asked questions
Your competitors did not stop launching ads when MagicBrief closed.
Drop your competitor URLs into AdKit and tracking starts today. Search 500k+ ads across Meta, Google, and LinkedIn, generate the next variation in Studio, and launch through a draft-first MCP your agent can actually write with.