comparisons

15 alternatives, and the case for buying one instead.

15 honest comparisons, each one naming the buyer who should choose the alternative. Several of them will lose us a sale, which is the point: a comparison page with no losing case is one you would discount entirely.

comparisons

places they lead

left for us

claims retired

losing cases published15 of 15

the faster route

Bring the brief you are actually weighing these against, and we will tell you which of them we would send you to.

Book a working session

the rule

Every page here names the buyer who should go elsewhere

Every one of these pages was written from our own competitive review, which was produced to be read internally and is considerably harder on us than a marketing page usually is. Nothing was softened on the way out. Each page carries the same four fields in the same order, and the field that describes the alternative comes first.

01 · verdict

One line that settles it

The summary sentence, written before the argument rather than after it, and written so it can be quoted back at us. Several of them recommend the alternative outright.

02 · theyAreAhead

Where they are ahead

Unhedged. No "but", no compensating clause attached to the end of the sentence. Live supply, service, track record and included creative appear on this list because they are real and we do not have them.

03 · whatIsLeft

What is actually left

Often narrow, and printed at the same size as the column beside it. Where the honest answer is three things rather than ten, the list is three things long.

04 · chooseThemWhen

Who should choose them

A non-negotiable field on every entry, and the one that costs us money. It names the buyer who should close the tab, and several of them describe most of the market.

A comparison page that cannot name a case where the competitor is the better buy is a page every reader discounts entirely, including the parts that are true.

The rule these pages are written under

What that adds up to

Across the 15 pages there are 65 places where an alternative is ahead against 62 things left for us, and 14 of the 15pages link the alternative’s own words through 23 external sources. The columns are counted from the same data the pages render, so neither of those numbers can be improved by editing this sentence.

If you want the short version, bring the shortlist to a working session and we will say which of these we would buy in your position.

Talk it through

the alternatives

15 alternatives, each with its winning case stated first

Two direct sellers, one demand-side platform, the duopoly, an agency, and running the seven channels yourself. Both blocks on every card are the same size on purpose: the left one is the case for not buying this, and it is the one worth reading if you are deciding today.

AdBuyMCP vs StackAdapt

5 ahead · 5 left

They are the stronger DSP by a distance. The gap they leave is UK-specific paperwork and visible approximation.

Choose StackAdapt when

You want a proven programmatic desk today, with live supply, support and a service team, and your channel set is the one a DSP already covers. That describes most buyers, and StackAdapt is the better answer for them right now.

Choose AdBuyMCP when

Your plan has to include UK cinema or addressable TV alongside programmatic, or you need the approximation in your targeting written down and auditable rather than assumed.

The full comparison 1 source linked

AdBuyMCP vs Universal Ads

5 ahead · 4 left

For UK television alone, go direct. AdBuyMCP's argument only starts when a second channel is involved.

Choose Universal Ads when

Television is the campaign. If you want ITV, Sky and Channel 4 and nothing else, going direct costs less and starts sooner, and there is no honest argument for adding a layer.

Choose AdBuyMCP when

TV is one line in a plan that also has to include audio, out-of-home, cinema, search or social, and you want the split between them argued rather than assumed.

The full comparison 2 sources linked

AdBuyMCP vs Global AdPower

4 ahead · 3 left

They own the inventory. If your audio and outdoor plan is a Global plan, buy it from Global.

Choose Global AdPower when

Your audio and outdoor buy is Global inventory, and you want it live tomorrow. Going direct is faster and cheaper, and we would be a layer between you and something you could reach yourself.

Choose AdBuyMCP when

You need audio and outdoor bought alongside television, cinema, search and social, against one audience, deduplicated in one ledger.

The full comparison 1 source linked

AdBuyMCP vs an agency

5 ahead · 5 left

The fee comparison flatters us and the capability comparison does not. Both are true.

Choose an agency when

You have no in-house media capability and need judgement more than you need tooling, or your procurement process requires a supplier with references and an insurance profile we do not yet have.

Choose AdBuyMCP when

You already have the judgement, you want the trading and reconciliation layer without the retainer, and you want every fee visible against the media it was charged on.

The full comparison 4 sources linked

AdBuyMCP vs Google and Meta

4 ahead · 4 left

Not a replacement. An incremental layer around the budget you are already spending well.

Choose Google and Meta when

Your acquisition is still scaling profitably inside search and social. Adding channels before the cheap ones are saturated is a way to spend more for less, and we will not tell you otherwise.

Choose AdBuyMCP when

Costs are rising and incremental return is flat, and the question has changed from "how do we spend more here?" to "is there anyone left here we have not already reached?"

The full comparison 2 sources linked

AdBuyMCP vs doing it yourself

4 ahead · 5 left

For one or two channels, do it yourself. The case for a layer starts at three and gets stronger with each one.

Choose doing it yourself when

You are buying one or two channels, or you have a trading desk and the people to run it. The overhead of a layer is only worth it when there is enough to coordinate.

Choose AdBuyMCP when

You are running three or more channels, spending time reconciling them by hand, and cannot currently answer how many people you reached once across all of them.

The full comparison

AdBuyMCP vs MNTN

5 ahead · 4 left

They have the proven performance-CTV product. We publish what we charge. Decide which of those you need more.

Choose MNTN when

Connected TV is the campaign, you are buying US inventory, and you want a product that has been proven with real advertisers. Their effective programme minimums — around $10,000 for retargeting and $25,000 for prospecting on third-party comparisons — put them out of reach below that, but above it they are the established choice.

Choose AdBuyMCP when

You need to know what you are being charged, or connected TV is one line in a UK plan that also has to carry audio, out-of-home, cinema, search or social against the same audience.

The full comparison 2 sources linked

AdBuyMCP vs tvScientific

4 ahead · 4 left

Their pricing model is better than ours for a qualifying performance buyer. That is not a concession, it is the honest answer.

Choose tvScientific when

You are a performance advertiser with a clean, high-volume conversion event, you qualify for their outcome pricing, and connected TV is the channel you want. On those facts their model transfers risk away from you in a way a percentage of media does not, and you should take it.

Choose AdBuyMCP when

Your objective is not a single trackable outcome, or connected TV is one line in a UK plan spanning channels they do not sell.

The full comparison 2 sources linked

AdBuyMCP vs The Trade Desk

5 ahead · 4 left

The category's most capable buying platform, priced accordingly. Not a fair fight on supply, and not the same job.

Choose The Trade Desk when

You have a trading desk, or an agency running one for you, and enough volume to negotiate. At that scale their capability is not comparable to anything here and the fee buys something real.

Choose AdBuyMCP when

You have no trader, your channel set includes UK cinema or addressable television, and you want the approximation in your targeting written down rather than assumed.

The full comparison 1 source linked

AdBuyMCP vs DV360

4 ahead · 4 left

Unmatched scale inside Google's ecosystem. The neutrality question is the whole point.

Choose DV360 when

Your media is predominantly digital, YouTube matters to you, and you already run inside Google's stack. The integration is genuinely valuable and duplicating it through a layer would be daft.

Choose AdBuyMCP when

You want allocation decided by someone with no stake in the answer, or your plan includes channels Google does not sell.

The full comparison 1 source linked

AdBuyMCP vs Amazon DSP

4 ahead · 4 left

We are built to buy through them. If Amazon audiences and CTV are the whole plan, go direct and skip the layer.

Choose Amazon DSP when

Amazon audiences and inventory are the plan, and you can get a sub-seat. Adding a layer to reach one seller you can reach directly is a fee for nothing.

Choose AdBuyMCP when

Amazon is one leg of a UK plan and you want the split between it and five other channels argued rather than assumed — in which case Amazon DSP is one of the rails AdBuyMCP is built to buy through.

The full comparison 1 source linked

AdBuyMCP vs Blis

4 ahead · 4 left

Genuinely strong in the UK and on privacy, with a fee structure that beats ours. The gap is addressable TV, cinema and published fidelity.

Choose Blis when

Your channel set is the one they cover, UK geographic targeting is the core of the plan, and a structure with no platform fee matters more than cinema and addressable television. For a lot of UK buyers that is the right trade.

Choose AdBuyMCP when

Your plan has to include cinema or addressable television, or you want the approximation in every channel's targeting published rather than implied.

The full comparison 1 source linked

AdBuyMCP vs OOH specialists

4 ahead · 4 left

Better out-of-home tooling than ours. Buy from them if out-of-home is the campaign.

Choose OOH specialists when

Out-of-home is the campaign rather than a line in one. Their inventory tooling is better than ours and buying a specialist product for a specialist job is usually right.

Choose AdBuyMCP when

Out-of-home is one of several channels and you need to know how many people you reached once across all of them.

The full comparison 3 sources linked

AdBuyMCP vs Basis

4 ahead · 4 left

The same idea, built for agencies and for digital channels. The overlap is real and the gap is UK paperwork.

Choose Basis when

You are an agency, your channel set is digital, and you need planning inside a platform that also handles billing, reconciliation and client workflow. AdBuyMCP has no agency edition and says so.

Choose AdBuyMCP when

You are a brand rather than an agency, and your plan has to include the UK channels that transact as paperwork.

The full comparison 1 source linked

AdBuyMCP vs Caasie

4 ahead · 4 left

They proved the pattern. If you want DOOH with no minimum and no conversation, use them.

Choose Caasie when

You want digital out-of-home, you want it today, and you do not want to talk to anyone. For a small single-channel out-of-home buy they remove more friction than we do.

Choose AdBuyMCP when

Out-of-home is one channel in a plan, or you need to know what the media cost separately from what you were charged.

The full comparison 1 source linked

Every card above renders chooseThemWhen before chooseUsWhen, at the same type size and the same rule weight, because a losing case set in smaller type is a losing case being withdrawn.

Several of these will be the right answer for the person reading them. A working session is the fastest way to find out whether you are one of those people.

Talk it through

what we will not say

9 claims we refuses to make

Every phrase below was considered for this site and rejected for the reason printed beside it. Most of them are true of somebody in this category and several are true of the companies compared above, which is exactly why they are not available to us. Anyone who has read four competitor sites has heard every one of them, and the fastest way to be believed about anything is to be visibly unwilling to say the things that are not true.

01~~"AI-native" and "one brief"~~
why not
Category conventions, not moats. Everyone says both.
02~~"As easy as social"~~
why not
That is Universal Ads' explicit UK television promise, and they are closer to it.
03~~"Self-serve premium media"~~
why not
Offered directly by Universal Ads, Global AdPower, DCM, Blindspot, MNTN and Vibe among others.
04~~"Incrementality"~~
why not
Sold by Blis, MNTN, tvScientific and others. The difference here is refusing underpowered tests and separating modelled from causal evidence — not the word itself.
05~~"MCP" as positioning~~
why not
An integration surface. Amazon and other ad platforms already expose one.
06~~"Every screen"~~
why not
Inaccurate for audio, and it implies broader supply than exists.
07~~"One click to live"~~
why not
Inaccurate for cinema, addressable television and every clearance rail.
08~~"60 seconds to live"~~
why not
The same inaccuracy with a number attached, which makes it worse rather than more concrete.
09~~"First self-serve cinema"~~
why not
Unsafe. DCM has offered a campaign planner and established buying workflows for years.

The list is enforced rather than aspirational: the homepage copy carries a note explaining why it says “one sentence” instead of “one brief”, and the fee page refuses to quote a saving against traditional production because the platform deleted that figure from its own code as unsourced. If you find any of them anywhere on this site, it is a defect and worth telling us about.

// before you shortlist

Ask us which one you should buy.

Bring the brief and the shortlist to a working session. We compile the brief live in the sandbox, and where the honest answer is that Universal Ads, Global or your existing agency serves it better, that is the answer you get, in the session rather than after a contract.

Book a working session

45 minutes. Bring a real brief and we compile it live. · deterministic sandbox · no credentials and no card

the standing disadvantage

What every alternative on this page has, and this does not

A set of comparison pages that never states the thing every alternative on them shares would be doing exactly what this page argues against. StackAdapt, Universal Ads, Global, an agency, Google and running it yourself all have these three. We have none of them, and no amount of published methodology substitutes for any one.

0 of 25

Live supply, proven with money

We grade every connector on a six-level evidence ledger. Of 25: eighteen are client-built, six are stubs that make no vendor call at all, and one — Vibe — has had read-only calls accepted by a live vendor. Nothing has reached spend-tested or report-verified, and a continuous-integration check keeps those two counts at zero until something genuinely earns them.

None

Customers you can take references on

There are none, so we publish none. What you get instead is the sandbox, the supply matrix, the fee waterfall and the methodology — the evidence that actually exists.

Nobody

Someone to ring when it goes wrong

AdBuyMCP is software, not a media agency. Nobody here writes your strategy deck, and there is no account team, no support SLA and no status page — those are unbuilt rather than unmentioned. What it does instead is publish the fee, charge no undisclosed rebate, and put the fee on the statement beside the media it was charged on.

The evidence behind the first number is published rail by rail on the supply status page, including the two levels of the ledger nothing has reached. It is the page a competitor would use against us, and it is on the site because if you find the limit stated beside the claim you read the claim differently.

If those three gaps are disqualifying for your procurement process, that is a ten-minute conversation rather than a six-week one, and we would rather have it now.

Talk it through

What buyers ask when they are comparing

4 questions, including the two a category pitch normally answers with a slogan: who the closest competitor actually is, and what is genuinely left once the conventions are stripped out.

Who is AdBuyMCP's closest competitor?

StackAdapt, on capability, and it is ahead on almost every axis that matters today: live supply, a first-party data hub, DCO, attribution, agency tooling and support. The defensible gap is narrower than a category pitch would suggest — UK cinema and addressable television workflows, seller-neutral allocation, published fidelity and policy provenance, and measurement that keeps delivered, responded, caused and remembered apart, with the fourth published as a placeholder rather than a feature.

Isn't an MCP server the differentiator?

No, and claiming it would be the first thing a technical buyer discounted. MCP is an integration surface, and Amazon among others already exposes advertising capabilities through it. What is unusual here is not that an MCP server exists but that the agent transport and the browser exercise the same routes, tenant boundary, wallet gates and approval records, so pointing an agent at a budget does not mean accepting weaker rules.

What can you do that nobody else can?

Take one audience definition and show what it becomes in the native targeting vocabulary of seven UK channels, with a fidelity score and a lawful-basis manifest on each, including the channels that transact as paperwork rather than as APIs — and then keep delivered, responded, caused and remembered apart in the report, with modelled evidence never presented as observed. Each individual piece exists somewhere. The combination, UK-first, with the approximation published rather than implied, is the thing.

Why publish the claims you have retired?

Because anyone who has read four competitor sites has heard every one of them, and the fastest way to be believed about anything is to be visibly unwilling to say the things that are not true. Every phrase on that list was considered for this site and rejected for the reason printed beside it.

what happens next

Bring the alternative you are actually weighing.

In a working session we compile a real brief live and show you the sandbox output for the channels you care about, against the seat, the seller or the agency you are comparing it with. If the plan is one or two channels, or the buy is a Global buy, or television is the whole campaign, the honest recommendation is on the relevant page above and you will hear it again on the call.

Book a working session

45 minutes. Bring a real brief and we compile it live.