Notch Is Joining OpenAI — The Best Notch Alternatives for AI Ads (2026)

On October 14, 2026, Notch announced that its founders, Vinay and Aman, are joining OpenAI. Notch built "Max", an AI growth marketer that researched competitors, made ad creative, and launched ads to Meta.

The announcement doesn't say what happens to the product, existing plans, or customer data. Notch had already moved to enterprise-only pricing. If you were on Basic or Pro, contact Notch support about your account. In the meantime, here are the tools worth looking at.

Disclosure: we build inReels, so we're a competitor. We've tried to be fair: each tool below gets its real strengths, including where it beats us.

What it does: Tell the inReels agent what you sell, or paste a product URL. It plans the ad, writes the script, makes the visuals and voiceover, and delivers a finished video or static ad. It covers UGC-style ads, product showcases, offer ads and static image ads in one place.

Best for: Founders, DTC brands and small teams who want Notch's "just tell it what you need" experience without an enterprise contract.

Key features:

• Chat agent for ads: describe the ad, or paste a product link
• Video ads, static image ads and UGC-style avatar ads
• Uses current video and image models (Seedance, Kling, Veo, Nano Banana and more)
• Self-serve plans, no demo call needed

Pricing: Free to start. Paid plans from $9/month.

Coming soon: connections to your Meta and other ad accounts, so you can launch ads and track their performance from inReels.

Try inReels free

What it does: URL-to-video ads with a large AI actor library, plus an Ad Agent, a competitor ad tracker and ad cloning on higher plans. It's the closest feature match to what Notch offered.

Best for: Teams running a high volume of avatar ads who want competitor research in the same tool.

Key features:

• URL to video ads
• 300 to 1,500+ AI actors, plus custom avatars on Pro
• Ad Agent, Competitor Ad Tracker and Ad Clone (Pro and above)
• Team seats and brand spaces on higher tiers, plus an API

Pricing: Free plan with watermark. Standard is $15/month and Pro is $55/month (about 20% less billed annually). API plans start at $99/month.

Honest take: Creatify is a mature tool with a wide feature set, and a strong choice when you need ads in bulk.

Visit Creatify

What it does: UGC-style video ads with a library of 1,000+ AI actors, translation into 30+ languages, and ready-made ad presets.

Best for: Brands and agencies running avatar UGC ads in several countries.

Key features:

• 1,000+ AI actors
• Translation into 30+ languages
• Captioning, editing and ad presets

Pricing: No public pricing page. There's a free trial, or you can book a demo.

Visit Arcads

What it does: High-quality avatar videos, including a custom avatar of you or your brand spokesperson, plus multi-language dubbing.

Best for: Brands that want the same recognizable face across every ad and longer explainer videos.

Honest take: HeyGen is an avatar video platform, not an ad agent. It's excellent for spokesperson ads, but you plan the strategy and scripts yourself.

Visit HeyGen

Moving off Notch? Do this first:

• Download your finished ads and any brand assets you uploaded
• Save your winning hooks and angles. They're more valuable than any tool.
• Recreate your top 2–3 ads in a new tool before cancelling anything that's still running

Every tool above has a free trial or free plan. Make the same ad in two of them and pick the one whose output you'd actually run.