7 Best Trend Forecasting Platforms in 2025
Most trend platforms show you what's currently trending.
But if you want to see what's about to trend, you need a trend forecasting tool.
In this post, we review the top trend forecasting websites to help you select the best option for your use case.
Platform | Best For | Pricing | Data Source |
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Exploding Topics | Emerging trends, trend forecasting, historical data | Free or paid from $39/mo | AI, ML, Google search volume, and human review |
Google Trends | Current search trends | Free | Google search volume |
Glimpse | Google Trends insights | Free or paid from $71/mo | Google Trends |
Trend Hunter | Current B2C topics | Free or $199/mo | Crowdsourced trends ranked by freshness and popularity |
Trends by HubSpot | Business trends | Free | Community discussions and reports |
CB Insights | Tech funding trends | Paid only, enterprise pricing | Funding data, public sources, private network |
WGSN | Fashion trends | Paid only, enterprise pricing | AI, social media, interviews, surveys |
1. Exploding Topics: Best for Identifying Emerging Trends and Trending Products
We’ve found that many trend forecasting websites are either too basic for businesses, or they’re designed exclusively for enterprise companies (like WGSN), which leaves a huge gap.
We built Exploding Topics to solve this problem.
Exploding Topics is easy to use, and each trend is supported by reliable data.
It's used by e-commerce entrepreneurs, investors, marketers, SEOs, and business leaders.
Trend Forecasting Features |
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Who is it For? |
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Pros |
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Cons |
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Free Plan? | Yes |
Here’s a closer look at some of our top features:
Trending Topics
First, you can sort by industry to find topics that are most relevant to you.
Then, Exploding Topics gives you a list of topics relevant to that category.
Each graph represents the Google search volume for each topic.
In Exploding Topics, you can sort by:
- Growth rate (exploding, regular, and peaked)
- Timeframe (Google search volume from the past three months to 15 years)
To make this data actionable, you can either export all of the trend data, or click “Track Topic”.
This allows you to create a Project, or add it to an existing Project.
This is a powerful way to track the trend's growth over time:
Trend Forecasting
You can also see a 12-month forecast for any trend in the Exploding Topics database:
Our forecasting tool uses a deep learning model based on millions of data points.
You can also sort any of the 750k+ trends that we track by future growth:
That way, you can stay one step ahead of what's likely to happen in your industry.
Trending Products
Most product research tools show you products that are currently trending.
That isn’t very helpful for trend forecasting.
That’s why we use Google Search volume trend data to identify trending products.
This allows you to see product search volume growth over a longer time horizon and make more accurate forecasts.
You can also filter products by:
- Growth status
- Category
- BSR (best seller rating)
- Monthly sales
- Price
- Revenue
- Review stars
If you click on any product, you’ll be able to see more details about that product as well as:
- Related products
- Related trending topics
- A breakdown of the product’s popularity on different social media channels
Trending Startups
The Trending Startups database also uses Google Search volume for the brand query to identify trending startups.
We’ve found that Google Search volume trend data is a great way to estimate the growth of a startup. Brand queries often reflect trends in customer demand.
In our Trending Startups database, you can filter by:
- Category
- Total funding
- Number of employees
- Last funding round
- Founded date
- Location
You can then click on any startup and see its trend data as well as other related startups, trending topics, and how it’s trending on different social media platforms.
You can save startups to your Projects, or export the data for further analysis.
Exploding Topics API
The Exploding Topics API allows you to visualize and export data from Exploding Topics.
This lets you use our trend information in dashboards, automations, or in LLM analysis.
Our API also lets you get notifications based on trends.
For example, you could set up alerts based on the topics or products you want to monitor, then get those alerts in Slack.
If you're interested in exploring what the Exploding Topics API can do, check out our complete guide to the API, with example use cases.
How Does Exploding Topics Get Its Data?
Exploding Topics is unique in the way it gathers data. Our key differentiator is data quality.
Trends are initially identified and qualified based on consumer interest data. Then human reviewers verify each trend for business relevancy.
Our Process | Why We Do This | What You Get |
AI and ML algorithms scan the internet for trends. To find new content gaining popularity, we scan:
| Trend finders relying on human researchers often miss the next big trends. Humans simply can't scan billions of content pieces daily. | Consistently find critical emerging trends in your industry. AI and ML are thorough, so you don't have to worry about missing the next big trend. |
Analyze each topic's search volume trend. Before qualifying for the Trends Database, each trend must show compounding search volume growth over several months. | Separating fads from trends is tricky. Our system omits noise, like news stories that spike and die, and presents only long-term trends with sustainable growth potential. | You only see trends with long-term growth potential, demonstrated by compounding growth in search volume. |
Humans manually vet topics for business relevancy. | AI can spot trends on a basic level, but many topics have no value to business professionals (like pop culture topics). | You only see relevant brand, product, or industry keywords that are human-approved to be shown in our database. |
Exploding Topics Pricing
Looking to compare Exploding Topics free vs Pro? You can use the free version to access trend data and try the platform for yourself.
If you need to use our more advanced features, Exploding Topics' paid plans start at $39/ mo. You can test drive the Pro version with a 7-day free trial.
Entrepreneur | Investor | Business |
$39 per month | $99 per month | $249 per month |
Includes: • 100 Tracked Trends • 10 Trend Analyses | Includes: • 500 Tracked Trends • 100 Trend Analyses | Includes: • 2,000 Tracked Trends • 500 Trend Analyses |
If you'd like to use the Exploding Topics API, you'll need the Exploding Topics Business plan ($249/ mo) and the API add-on (starts at $1,000/ mo).
2. Google Trends: Best for Identifying Current Trending Topics
Google Trends lets you search any keyword and view a graph of its historical search volume to identify its trend growth.
Trend Forecasting Features |
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Who is it For? |
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Pros |
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Cons |
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Free Plan? | Yes |
You can compare terms and filter trend data by country, category, and search type (web, image, YouTube, etc.).
It’s a helpful tool if you already know the topic you want to research. However, the drawback of Google Trends is that it doesn't generally show you related trends or trends that are on the ascent.
Nevertheless, it’s a free tool that provides reliable data.
You can use the Trending Now feature to see current trending news, though this content is usually related to pop culture and politics rather than business trends.
Looking at current trending topics isn't very useful for forecasting, but can be helpful for some use cases.
Pricing
Google Trends is free.
Get More Search Traffic
Use trending keywords to create content your audience craves.
3. Glimpse: Best for Expanded Google Trends Insights
If you're already using Google Trends, Glimpse's "Google Trends Supercharged" is a Chrome extension that can help you extract more detailed insights from Google Trends.
Trend Forecasting Features |
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Who is it For? |
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Pros |
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Cons |
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Free Plan? | Yes – They offer ten free monthly trend searches and one free trend report. |
To discover new trends, you can either sort by category or type in a keyword.
When you find an interesting trend, you can track it in the dashboard.
It also has a section similar to a keyword research tool that provides "People Also Searched For" queries, related questions, attributes, and brands related to that keyword.
However, Google Trends Supercharged does not offer any features that show trending products or trending startups.
It also doesn't have a mechanism (human or AI) for filtering trends in terms of their relevancy. Therefore, you may have to sift through a lot of noise to find trends that are relevant to business use cases.
You can use the Chrome extension for free, though the downside is that it only offers one free trend report and ten free trend searches per month. Then, you have to upgrade to the $49 per month plan.
Build a winning strategy
Get a complete view of your competitors to anticipate trends and lead your market
Pricing
Hobbyist Free | Pro $71 per month | Expert $240 per month | Enterprise Not specified |
10 lookups | 100 lookups 25 keywords 10 exports | 500 lookups 250 keywords 50 exports Trend forecasts | Unlimited lookups Unlimited keywords Trend Forecasts |
4. Trend Hunter: Best for Identifying Current Trending B2C Topics
Trend Hunter is a trend platform and consultancy service primarily serving major retail companies like Starbucks, Walmart, and Red Bull.
Trend Forecasting Features |
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Who is it For? |
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Pros |
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Cons |
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Free Plan? | Yes – They offer one free report, and you can browse the trend database for free. |
They offer a variety of different products and services, including:
- Trend Database: A collection of crowdsourced trends spanning various industries (primarily B2C).
- Trend Reports: Trend Hunter publishes one free general trend report, and users can order custom reports.
- Custom Research and Consulting: You can hire their team to do custom research on an industry, product, or trend for you.
- Live Events: Trend Hunter's team also offers private keynotes and training sessions.
- Newsletters: Trend Hunter sends a free newsletter that contains information on the latest trending topics and updates from the Trend Hunter platform.
The Trends Database is perhaps the most popular and widely used aspect of Trend Hunter.
While it has thousands of trends, most are physical products.
In addition, all trends are crowdsourced and ranked based on freshness (how recently they were identified and added to the database), popularity (the engagement they receive from Trend Hunter users), and activity (how recently people interacted with the page).
This trend qualification process means that:
- Trends in the database will be new (thanks to the freshness score) and, therefore, might be fads rather than sustainable long-term trends. If you're forecasting, short-term data can be problematic.
- While trends may be popular with the Trend Hunter audience, that particular audience might not be an accurate estimation of how your ideal audience reacts to the trend. This is why it's better for mass retail products than niche or B2B products.
In addition, the other products and services they offer are likely out of the budget range for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and startups.
Pricing
The Trend Hunter Pro plan costs $199 per month, per user, billed annually. With that, you get access to the current library of trend reports, plus trackable topics and other features.
5. Trends by HubSpot: Best for Discovering Community-Identified Business Trends
Trends By HubSpot is a community of entrepreneurs and marketers who enjoy brainstorming business ideas. While it has a few trend reports, a list of about 1,000 trends, and plenty of founder stories, the main value of the product is the community itself.
The community has plenty of eight and even nine figure founders, and the Facebook group is quite active.
They also have events over Zoom, and some members meet up in person.
However, it doesn't offer a comprehensive, searchable trend database. In addition, the team selects the trends for the few reports available. While they certainly employ knowledgeable staff and each report is supported with quality trend data, it's easy for humans to overlook under-the-radar trends or inaccurately predict a trend's future potential.
If your goal is to connect with other entrepreneurs and maybe even find a co-founder, Trends by HubSpot is a great resource. However, it isn't one of the more comprehensive trend forecasting tools available.
Trend Forecasting Features |
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Who is it For? |
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Pros |
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Cons |
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Free Plan? | No – You can sign up for their newsletter, but it is a paid community, and there is no free plan. |
Pricing
Trends by HubSpot is free.
6. CB Insights: Best for Tracking Tech Funding Trends
CB Insights is a platform that provides funding and trend data for tech companies.
Investors and founders primarily use it to track key growth metrics of competitors and general market trends.
You can sort the company database by category and view various funding metrics, like funding rounds, total funding amounts, and top investors. It also shows metrics like employee headcount, key executive hires, and other valuable growth signals.
The market analytics and visualizations are also helpful as they provide insights on broader market trends, like total industry funding, TAM, and other investment activity.
The platform also offers plenty of other features, like connecting directly with leaders inside the platform, easy report generation, and a trend newsletter.
If you need more advanced help, you can also book a call with one of their research analysts.
Trend Forecasting Features |
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Who is it For? |
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Pros |
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Cons |
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Free Plan? | No – You can sign up for their newsletter for free, but the platform is paid. |
Pricing
CB Insights doesn’t publicly list its pricing, though it is an enterprise product. Third parties report that pricing starts at about $25,000 per year.
7. WGSN: Best for Advanced Fashion Trend Forecasting
WGSN is primarily a trend forecasting agency for consumer brands, though they also have some trend forecasting resources available through their website.
Their customers are predominantly brands in the fashion industry, though they also serve clients in the food & beverage, interior design, and consumer tech sectors.
WGSN's main product for fashion designers and brands is the TrendCurve+ product, which uses AI to gather consumer insights from social media, as well as shelf and fashion show data to create forecasts. They claim it has a 90+% accuracy in predicting the next key silhouettes, prints, colors, and design patterns.
The other main product that WGSN offers is the Barometer, which is a daily brand tracking product that gives you an overview of your performance in comparison to your competitors.
This report provides data from various consumers across the US, UK, and Germany, as well as insights from over 17,000 monthly interviews and survey responses from over 200 fashion brands and retailers.
The reports and forecasts are quite detailed and include the raw data along with expert industry analysis.
WGSN also offers a database of images from catwalks and Coloro and Pantone libraries to build out color palettes.
If you want more assistance, you can also schedule a one-on-one consultation with one of their analysts, and they also offer live events and webinars with more trend insights. They have offices across the globe, from New York and Los Angeles to London and Paris, so you can always talk to someone about trends in your target market.
Trend Forecasting Features |
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Who is it For? |
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Pros |
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Cons |
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Free Plan? | No – The platform doesn’t offer a free plan |
Pricing
While WGSN does not offer pricing information, it is a premium product geared more towards enterprise brands and isn’t designed for smaller businesses.
Start the Trend Forecasting Process Today
There are plenty of tools to forecast future trends, but we couldn't find a tool tailored to forecasting business trends (both B2B and B2C) that offered reliable data without an enterprise price tag. We also didn't want to spend time combing through endless reports to uncover key trends.
That's why we built Exploding Topics.
Exploding Topics makes it easy to uncover upcoming trends in seconds, and each trend is backed by reliable data and manually reviewed by an analyst.
You can try Exploding Topics for $1 today to see if it's the best trend forecasting solution for your needs.
Stop Guessing, Start Growing 🚀
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Exploding Topics is owned by Semrush. Our mission is to provide accurate data and expert insights on emerging trends. Unless otherwise noted, this page’s content was written by either an employee or a paid contractor of Semrush Inc.
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Written By
Josh is the Co-Founder and CTO of Exploding Topics. Josh has led Exploding Topics product development from the first line of co... Read more