TL;DR: Foreplay is a focused swipe file tool—excellent at organizing ads for creative inspiration. Benly is an integrated creative intelligence platform combining ad discovery, AI generation, and analytics. Choose Foreplay if you only need organization; choose Benly if you need the full workflow from inspiration to production to measurement.
Quick Comparison
| Category | Benly | Foreplay |
|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | All-in-one creative intelligence | Swipe file organization |
| Ad database | 50M+ searchable ads | Only manually saved ads |
| AI creative generation | Yes, 100+ variations per brief | No |
| Performance analytics | Yes, cross-platform | No |
| Chrome extension | Yes, with metadata capture | Yes, clean ad saving |
| Team collaboration | Full workspace with permissions | Shared boards |
| Starting price | $99/month | $49/month |
| Best for | Production teams, agencies | Creative strategists, freelancers |
Company Background
Foreplay
Foreplay launched to solve the "messy swipe file" problem that plagued creative teams. Before Foreplay, inspiration lived in disorganized Google Docs, Notion pages, or desktop folders full of screenshots. Foreplay brought structure with beautiful boards, tagging systems, and a Chrome extension that made saving ads effortless.
The platform has grown a devoted following among creative strategists, particularly freelancers and small agency teams who need organized inspiration libraries. Foreplay's focused approach—doing one thing excellently—resonates with users who appreciate simplicity over feature sprawl.
Benly
Benly approaches creative intelligence as an integrated workflow problem. Rather than building a single-purpose tool, Benly connects the entire creative lifecycle: discovering winning patterns, generating new creative, and measuring performance. The platform is built for teams who produce creative at scale and need efficiency gains across the full workflow.
The integrated approach means Benly competes not just with swipe file tools but with ad spy platforms, AI creative generators, and analytics tools. For teams currently using 3-5 separate tools, Benly offers consolidation and workflow integration as primary value propositions.
Feature Comparison
Ad discovery and database
Benly: Maintains an active database of 50+ million ads across Meta, TikTok, Google, and YouTube. The database updates daily with new ads, and AI-powered search lets you find specific creative patterns using natural language. You might search "beauty brands using before/after UGC with green color schemes" and get relevant results instantly.
Foreplay: Works with your manually saved ads only. There's no discovery database—you browse Meta Ad Library or TikTok Creative Center externally, find ads you like, and save them to Foreplay. Your library is limited to what you personally curate, which means you might miss creative patterns you haven't encountered.
Bottom line: Choose Benly if you want proactive ad discovery and pattern identification. Choose Foreplay if you prefer curating your own focused collection and don't need database search capabilities.
Organization and collections
Benly: Offers collections for organizing saved ads, with tagging, filtering, and team sharing. The organization model is comparable to Foreplay's, with collections functioning like boards. Added capability: AI can automatically tag and categorize ads based on creative elements, reducing manual organization work.
Foreplay: Organization is Foreplay's core strength. Boards are visually beautiful, tagging is intuitive, and the UI is designed specifically for browsing inspiration. Many users cite Foreplay's organization experience as the primary reason they chose the platform. The focused feature set means no complexity from unrelated capabilities.
Bottom line: Foreplay's organization UI is slightly more polished since it's the product's entire focus. Benly's organization is functionally equivalent but exists within a larger feature set.
AI creative generation
Benly: Generate 100+ on-brand creative variations from a single brief. More powerfully, you can generate variations directly from saved ads—see a winning competitor concept and create your brand's version with one click. Brand guidelines ensure generated creative maintains visual consistency.
Foreplay: No creative generation capability. After finding inspiration, you use separate tools (Canva, Figma, AdCreative.ai) to produce creative. This creates a workflow gap where inspiration and production happen in different systems with manual handoff.
Bottom line: If you produce significant creative volume, Benly's integrated generation saves substantial time. If you only use swipe files for reference and produce creative manually or through other established tools, Foreplay's lack of generation isn't limiting.
Performance analytics
Benly: Connects to Meta, TikTok, and Google ad accounts for performance tracking. See which creatives are winning, identify patterns in top performers, and get AI-powered recommendations. Natural language queries like "why is CPA up this week?" provide instant analysis across your connected accounts.
Foreplay: No analytics capability. Creative decisions are made without performance context—you know an ad exists and looks appealing, but not whether it actually performed well. Connecting creative inspiration to results requires separate analytics tools.
Bottom line: Benly provides closed-loop feedback between creative choices and performance outcomes. Foreplay users need separate analytics solutions and must manually correlate inspiration with results.
Chrome extension
Benly: Chrome extension saves ads from Meta Ad Library, TikTok Creative Center, and LinkedIn. Beyond basic capture, the extension extracts estimated spend signals, run duration indicators, and targeting hints where available. One-click option to generate variations from any saved ad.
Foreplay: Clean, focused extension for saving ads with minimal friction. Quick tagging and board selection during save. The extension does one thing well without extra complexity. Many users prefer Foreplay's extension simplicity.
Bottom line: Both extensions work well. Foreplay's is simpler; Benly's captures more metadata and enables generation. Personal preference matters here.
Pricing Comparison
Foreplay pricing
| Plan | Price | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Solo | $49/month | 1 user, 10 boards, 500 saves |
| Pro | $65/month | 1 user, unlimited boards, unlimited saves |
| Teams | $99/month | 3 users, team features, priority support |
Benly pricing
| Plan | Price | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $99/month | Full platform: database, AI generation, analytics, 2 ad accounts |
| Growth | $249/month | Everything in Starter + 10 ad accounts, team features |
| Scale | $499/month | Everything in Growth + unlimited accounts, white-label reports |
Total cost of ownership
Direct price comparison is misleading because the platforms solve different problem scopes. Teams using Foreplay typically also need:
- Ad spy tool for discovery: $49-149/month (Minea, AdSpy, BigSpy)
- AI creative generation: $29-149/month (AdCreative.ai, Pencil)
- Analytics platform: $72-279/month (Supermetrics, Triple Whale)
A typical Foreplay + ecosystem stack costs $200-500/month. Benly at $99/month consolidates these capabilities, though you're comparing focused best-of-breed tools against an integrated platform. Some teams prefer the integrated approach; others prefer specialized tools.
Who Should Choose Foreplay
Foreplay is the right choice if:
- You specifically need a swipe file tool and already have other solutions you're satisfied with
- You're a freelance creative strategist building inspiration libraries for clients
- You value focused, single-purpose tools over integrated platforms
- Your budget is strictly limited and $49/month is your ceiling
- You produce creative manually or through established design processes that work for you
Ideal Foreplay user: A creative strategist at a small agency who builds beautiful inspiration boards for client creative briefs, uses established design tools for production, and doesn't manage performance analytics.
Who Should Choose Benly
Benly is the right choice if:
- You need the full creative workflow: discovery, generation, and measurement
- You're producing 50+ ads monthly and need efficiency at scale
- You want creative decisions informed by actual performance data
- You're currently using multiple tools and want to consolidate
- You manage campaigns across Meta, TikTok, and Google and need unified visibility
Ideal Benly user: A growth team at a DTC brand or agency producing hundreds of creative variations monthly, needing to quickly identify winning patterns and generate new concepts while tracking performance across platforms.
Switching from Foreplay to Benly
If you decide to switch, migration is straightforward:
- Export: Download your Foreplay boards and saved ads
- Import: Upload to Benly's ad library with preserved organization
- Connect: Link your ad accounts for analytics integration
- Configure: Set up brand guidelines for AI generation
- Replace: Install Benly's Chrome extension
Most teams complete migration in a single day. Your existing organization transfers, so you're not starting from scratch. Benly offers migration support for teams with large libraries or complex organizational structures.
Final Verdict
Both platforms are well-built for their intended purposes. The choice comes down to scope:
- Foreplay does one thing excellently—organizing creative inspiration with beautiful UI and minimal complexity
- Benly addresses the broader creative intelligence workflow, trading focused simplicity for integrated capabilities
If your workflow genuinely only needs swipe file organization, Foreplay is perfectly suitable and possibly preferable for its focus. If you need discovery, generation, and analytics connected in one system, Benly provides those capabilities without requiring multiple tool subscriptions.
The best evaluation approach: try both with your actual workflow. Both offer trials that let you experience the differences firsthand. Your specific creative process and team structure will determine which fits better.
