Exploding Topics Pro vs. Free Plans: Which Is Right For You?

Whether you're a marketer, business leader, investor, researcher, or someone who's always coming up with new product ideas, it's helpful to know what your audience wants. A trend analysis tool can help with this.

Exploding Topics offers the most useful library of trends that I've ever encountered — and there's a lot you can do with the platform's free data sets. Let's take a closer look at what Exploding Topics is, how you can use it, and when you might want to upgrade from the free plan to a paid subscription.

What is Exploding Topics?

Exploding Topics is a trend spotting platform that shows you what people are talking about online right now — and what they’re going to be talking about a year from now.

The platform leverages an incredible amount of data to uncover trending products and topics. You can even see where online conversations about a particular topic are concentrated.

This makes Exploding Topics a really useful tool for both market research and marketing. But there are lots of other ways to use the app, too.

• Digital marketing pros can get a better feel for what their audience is going to be interested in next season and plan content creation or multichannel campaigns around this information
• Business owners can get an idea of what their competitors are charging for viral products on Amazon
• Buyers can research startups and products for potential acquisition
• Investors can pinpoint which markets are going to explode in value over the next year
• Analysts can evaluate how interests in companies and products has changed over a 15-year span

The amount of data you can get out of Exploding Topics varies based on the type of plan you have. There are four plan tiers available:

1. Free
2. Entrepreneur ($39 per month, billed annually)
3. Investor ($99 per month, billed annually)
4. Business ($249 per month, billed annually)

What Does Exploding Topics Give You For Free?

Unlike some other trend spotting tools that hide all of their data behind a paywall, Exploding Topics offers up a lot of information for free. You don’t even need to log in to the Exploding Topics website to take advantage of their free trend library and other tools.

I used Exploding Topics’ free version for over a year before signing up for the Pro version. (And yes, I used Exploding Topics Pro before joining the team here!)

I found that the free version was great for conducting search trends research, getting a top-level overview of an industry, and looking for emerging competitors.

And in the years since I first used Exploding Topics’ free tier, the team has added even more free tools and features for its users.

Three Things You Can Do With Exploding Topics For Free

You’ll find all kinds of tools on the Exploding Topics website — from trend graphs to search engine optimization (SEO) keyword data. These are the three things I recommend all free users do right away while exploring the app:

1. Research and Spot Trends

The current trends page shows you what’s most popular right now in 23 different industries, and each graph includes historical data from the past 15 years, too.

This makes it easy to see if a trend has been growing over time, like interest in smart litter boxes:

Or if it’s something that regularly experiences peaks and dips in interest, like flea and tick collars for pets:

You can also see when products or companies are declining in popularity, as is the case with the Bird Buddy:

Every trend graph includes three key pieces of information:

1. Current monthly search volume (you can see past search volumes by hovering over the peaks and valleys on the graph with your mouse)
2. Change in growth over the time period you select
3. Whether interest in the topic is at a regular level, is exploding, or has peaked

2. Read Trend Breakdown Reports

The Exploding Topics team regularly publishes comprehensive guides that explain changing trends in a particular industry. These reports are useful whenever you want to:

• Learn more about a new industry, like AI SaaS tools
• Compare alternatives to a paid tool you’re considering buying
• Understand how interest in products and services have changed over time
• Get a quick rundown of what your target audience might be most interested in

3. Use Free Tools For Market Analysis and Keyword Research

Exploding Topics now offers a variety of free SEO and research tools that can help you discover SEO keywords, measure a competitor’s website traffic, see where you rank in search engine results pages (SERPs), and more.

These free tools have quickly become one of the top things I recommend to business owners and marketers on a tight budget.

And because Exploding Topics' free keyword research tools pull their SEO data from Semrush, you can trust that the results are reliable.

How Does Exploding Topics Pro Differ From The Free Version?

While you can get a lot of information out of Exploding Topics for free, there are benefits to getting a paid Exploding Topics Pro subscription.

The Pro plans let you see more data, get access to additional reports, and allow you to search for specific trends that you're interested in.

For example, when I look at a topic for free, I see the graph and top-level information including search volume data:

But when I look at the same emerging trend as a paid user, I can:

• Adjust the chart to show me just the past few months of fluctuations
• View a trend forecast about future popularity spikes and dips
• Evaluate which marketing channels are seeing the most chatter about this topic

And while I can find company or startup data mixed in with trending topics and products in the free version, Exploding Topics Pro gives me access to dedicated reports about popular companies and products, complete with funding and pricing information:

This information is incredibly helpful if you need to conduct in-depth competitor analysis or refine your marketing strategy to compete with a particular company.

Some Exploding Topics Pro plans also include meta trends reports that help you discover new trends by seeing how they connect to a topic you're researching. (The ability to find and analyze meta trends is one of my favorite Pro features!)

This table shows you how the free and paid plans compare depending on how you’re interested in using Exploding Topics:

Your Role	Free Features You'll Like	Useful Paid Features	Best Paid Plan for You
Content Marketing Specialist	Trend graphs, free SEO tools	Channel breakdowns, meta trends reports	Entrepreneur plan
Social Media Marketer	Trend graphs	Channel breakdowns, trend forecasting	Investor plan
Business Leader	Trend graphs, trend breakdown reports	Trending startups list, trend reports	Business plan
Startup Founder	Trend graphs, trend breakdown reports	Trending startups list, trending products list, trend reports	Business plan
Investor	Trend graphs, trend breakdown reports	Trending startups list, trending products list, meta trends analysis	Investor plan
Researcher	Trend graphs, trend breakdown reports	Meta trends analysis, full trend database	Entrepreneur plan
E-Commerce Dropshipper	Trend graphs, free SEO tools	Trending products list, trend forecasting	Investor plan
Inventor	Trend graphs	Trending products list	Entrepreneur plan

How to decide if you need Exploding Topics Pro

If trend forecasts, channel breakdowns, product data, or startup funding info is important to you, then you're going to want to subscribe to Exploding Topics Pro right away.

If you aren't sure how you'll use trend data in your work, though, start by exploring what Exploding Topics has to offer for free. Then, if you find yourself limited in how much data you can gather — or if you've realized that a paid feature like channel breakdowns would be useful — upgrade to an Exploding Topics Pro plan.

You'll get a free seven day trial to explore the plan of your choice and see what it has to offer.

Start a Semrush trial alongside your Exploding Topics Pro trial and see how access to each platform helps you level up your marketing efforts, business research, and more.