7 Best Trend Platforms For Business and Consumer Trends

Finding a relevant trend platform for your needs can be tricky. That’s because each one is designed for different use cases.

For example, some trend platforms are designed for B2B research, while others are better suited for consumer research. Similarly, some specialize in identifying the most popular current trends, while others show steadier trends with long-term growth potential.

So here’s an overview of the best trend tools for various use cases.

1. Exploding Topics – Best For Identifying Emerging B2B And Consumer Trends
2. Trend Hunter – Best For Discovering Current Hot Trends
3. Trend Stop – Best For Discovering Fashion Trends
4. TrendWatching – Best For In-Person And Online Trend Research
5. Google Trends – Best Free Trend Platform
6. WGSN – Best For Enterprise Consumer Trend Research
7. Axios Policy Pro – Best For Detailed Political Trend Insights

Exploding Topics – Best For Identifying Emerging B2B and Consumer Trends

Exploding Topics is ideal for investors, entrepreneurs, and content creators that want to discover emerging trends with long-term growth potential.

While plenty of different trend platforms show the latest current trends, we wanted a tool that identifies steady, growing trends before they peak.

So we built Exploding Topics to solve this problem.

The flagship feature of Exploding Topics is the Trends Database, which contains over 14,000 trending topics.

To ensure each trend is relevant to business professionals, every topic is a brand name, product, or industry keyword. To find relevant trends, just select one of the 30+categories (education, health, beauty, travel, tech, marketing, science, etc.) and its trend status (exploding, regular, or peaked).

Then, Exploding Topics will give you hundreds of trending topic suggestions along with a graph of its historical Google Search volume:

You can also click on any topic to see a description of it and other related trends.

When you find an interesting trend, click “Track Topic” and save it to a Project to track its growth over time.

We realize you’re probably using the data from Exploding Topics to make critical investment decisions, so we wanted to ensure that each trend is unbiased and supported by reliable data. Additionally, we wanted to ensure that Exploding Topics doesn’t miss under-the-radar trends.

So to solve these problems, here’s an overview of our thorough trend identification and qualification process:

In addition to the Trends Database, Exploding Topics also offers a selection of other features to aid your trend research and analysis:

• Trending Startups: This database provides a list of startups that show promising growth potential. You can filter results by category, trend status, total funding, latest round, founded date, number of employees, and location.
  
  
  
  
• Trends Search: While the Trends Database is great for discovering new trends you’ve never heard of, Trends Search lets you create a trend report on the fly for any topic keyword. The trend report shows the keyword’s historical Google Search volume growth and other related trends.
  
  
• Weekly Reports: These trend reports cover four trending companies and products and are sent directly to your inbox. You can also view past trend reports in the Weekly Reports library inside Exploding Topics.

You can start your trend research process now by browsing the free Trends Database, or try out Exploding Topics Pro for free to view premium trends and use other advanced trend research features.

Target Audience/Use Case	It primarily serves investors, entrepreneurs, and content creators looking for under-the-radar trends that have long-term growth potential.
Key Differentiator	You can find under-the-radar trends in seconds rather than scanning endless content to extract key trends. It has an excellent track record of identifying new emerging trends before they peak thanks to AI, which can scan massive amounts of data that humans can’t. Trends are unbiased as they’re qualified for the database based on data rather than a person’s objective opinion. Trends are relevant to business as a human vets each one and only passes those that are product, brand, or industry keywords.
Data Quality/Sources	AI scans billions of sources for emerging topics. Some of the trend sources include Google, Amazon, forums (like Reddit/Quora), social media, podcasts, and YouTube. Topics are then qualified for the database based on its historical Google Search volume growth. A human manually evaluates each trend and only accepts brand, product, and industry keywords with legit business value.
Free Plan?	Yes – There is a free version of the trends database.
Pros	Trend relevancy and quality is very high – especially considering the price point is affordable for smaller businesses. Find new trends in seconds and save them to Projects for more detailed research. Provides suggested trends and meta trend ideas to continue your trend research process.
Cons	It’s not designed to find the latest fads, so it might not be ideal for social media influencers and content creators leveraging newsjacking strategies. It’s only designed to show topics with business relevancy, so it won’t provide data on pop culture trends like movies or celebrity news. It doesn’t have a staff of researchers, which keeps the price lower but limits consultation services.

Pricing

Exploding Topics pricing starts at $39 per month and includes full access to the Trends Database, Weekly Premium Trend Reports, Meta Trends, and more.

Trend Hunter – Best For Discovering Current Hot Trends

Trend Hunter is a trend platform that offers a database of the latest hot trending topics.

It covers eleven categories, ranging from fashion and design to luxury and culture, and while they offer some B2B trends, it's primarily geared towards mainstream consumer brands.

Trend Hunter is unique from other trend platforms in that it mostly crowdsources trend ideas and ranks them based on the engagement of people who visit the Trend Hunter website.

The rankings are based on a score that's the average of the following three criteria:

• Freshness: How recently the topic was added to the trend database.
• Popularity: Number of Trend Hunter website visitors that upvoted the topic.
• Activity: Number of clicks the topic receives.

As freshness is a key factor of each trend's rank, most of the database's topics are current rather than emerging trends.

So it's an excellent resource for content creators and marketers looking for hot trending topics, but isn't the best fit for investors or entrepreneurs looking for under-the-radar trends with long-term growth potential.

In addition to the trend database, Trend Hunter also offers enterprise products and services, including detailed trend reports and forecasts, as well as live events, like keynotes and workshops.

Target Audience/Use Case	It primarily serves content creators, dropshippers, and consumer brands looking for topics that are currently hot and trending.
Key Differentiator	It uses the Trend Hunter community (people who visit Trend Hunter’s website) to rank a trend’s potential.
Data Quality/Sources	Trend ideas are sourced from AI, human researchers, and the Trend Hunter community. Trends are ranked based on Trend Hunter’s website visitors’ engagement (which may or may not align with your target audience’s opinions). Trend scores are based on freshness, activity, and popularity, so they tend to be current trending topics rather than under-the-radar trends.
Free Plan?	Yes – the basic Trend Hunter database is free.
Pros	The trend database is expansive, with millions of hot new trends. It’s an excellent resource for social media content creators and dropshippers to find unique, hot topics that are currently trending. It’s easy to search the database and provides images and descriptions of each trend.
Cons	Data quality is questionable as the score and ranking is based on the Trend Hunter website visitors' engagement with each trend. Those visitors may or may not align with your target audience's pain points and desires. In addition, trends that don't immediately rank well are harder to find and will therefore have lower engagement. It reveals current trending topics rather than emerging trends, so it’s not great for VCs or entrepreneurs looking for long-term investment ideas. It focuses primarily on consumer trends rather than B2B trends.

Pricing

The basic Trend Hunter database is mostly free, though the Trend Hunter PRO subscription starts at $199 per month.

Trend Stop – Best For Discovering Fashion Trends

Trend Stop specializes in helping fashion brands create products with strong demand and craft marketing messages that resonate with their audience.

Trend Stop's core offerings include its Color Compass and Seasonal Direction features, which help fashion brands forecast the colors and styles that will be popular in the coming season.

The Color Compass allows you to select the season you're planning for, browse 30 validated color shades, and then apply color research to the designs you've created.

Its Seasonal Direction feature provides more detailed consumer insights to help you predict the next season's most popular styles, patterns, and vibes to keep your brand fashion forward.

Target Audience/Use Case	It serves fashion brands that need detailed consumer data to identify the best colors and styles for any season.
Key Differentiator	It’s designed exclusively for fashion brands with advanced features like the Color Compass and Seasonal Direction features.
Data Quality/Sources	They don’t state how they gather data, though a few of the sources they mention include: Images from catwalks and street style photographers. Images from the top retail brands. Proprietary research conducted by their trend analysts.
Free Plan?	No
Pros	Detailed color research with 30 vetted colors for your selected season (you can choose between different seasons), and various shade suggestions. You can book a call with a live fashion trend consultant. Access detailed consumer forecasts geared towards fashion brands.
Cons	Data is limited specifically to fashion brands.

Pricing

They offer various products and memberships that range from about $29 to well over $10,000.

TrendWatching – Best For In-Person and Online Trend Research

TrendWatching is a general trend discovery and analysis brand known for its frequent trend conferences, workshops, and seminars for trend forecasters.

With events across the globe, from New York to Dubai to London, it offers a unique opportunity for trend researchers to connect in person.

TrendWatching also has a trend intelligence platform that gives users access to trend frameworks, an innovations database, trend reports, industry/regional portals, statistics, and an academy that provides detailed trend spotting advice.

You can chat with one of their trend analysts if you run into trouble while doing your trend research.

TrendWatching focuses primarily on serving B2C businesses that are interested in tracking new consumer trends to develop relevant products and messages.

It uses a combination of AI and hundreds of trend spotters across 90 countries to collect trend data.

Target Audience/Use Case	It serves a B2C audience that needs to know upcoming consumer trends to create products and marketing messages that meet future demand.
Key Differentiator	It offers conferences, workshops, and seminars for forecasters to connect one-on-one, in addition to its general trend platform.
Data Quality/Sources	Hundreds of trend spotters across 90 countries search for up-and-coming trends. AI assists trend spotters and helps them identify additional trends.
Free Plan?	No
Pros	It offers in-person conferences, seminars, and workshops. It offers flexible pricing plans, and users can choose to purchase individual features and offerings within the platform. Data is collected worldwide, so there should be some applicable data to your region. Access more than just trends – like industry and regional portals, trend reports, and an innovation database.
Cons	B2B users won’t find the data as relevant, as it tends to specialize primarily in consumer trends. Most of its customers are also consumer brands, like Starbucks, MasterCard, Netflix, and Uber. No online reviews make its credibility questionable. There are no monthly plans available – only annual billing options.

Pricing

Unfortunately, Trend Watching does not offer any public pricing information.

Google Trends – Best Free Trend Platform

Google Trends is a free tool offered by Google that allows you to type in any keyword and view a graph of its search volume history for the past several years.

This makes it easy to gauge a keyword's growth rate and interest over time which can help you assess its stability and risk. You can also compare various keywords to each other and segment the search volume data by region.

Google Trends offers some related topic suggestions, though sometimes the suggested trends aren’t irrelevant to the keyword that you search for

In addition, Google Trends is excellent at providing historical search volume to assess a topic's trend potential, though it doesn't aid you in discovering new trends. So you have to first research various trend databases to find a keyword to then assess in Google Trends.

Target Audience/Use Case	It serves anyone looking for historical growth data on a particular topic.
Key Differentiator	It shows a graph of the historical Google Search volume for any keyword.
Data Quality/Sources	All of the data is sourced directly from Google’s global search volume.
Free Plan?	Yes
Pros	It's easy to use – type in any keyword, and it provides a graph of its historical Google Search volume. The data is reliable as it’s Google’s proprietary search volume data and is based on a global data set rather than sampled data. It offers a long history of historical search volume data dating back to 2004. It’s completely free.
Cons	The search volume graph helps you assess a trend's growth rate, but it isn't a trend discovery tool, as you must know the trend to type it into the tool. It doesn't account for any trends mentioned on social media.

Pricing

Google Trends is completely free.

WGSN – Best For Enterprise Consumer Trend Research

WGSN is a global consumer trend forecasting platform that serves various industries, including home and interiors, beauty, food and drink, consumer electronics, lifestyle, retail, and fashion.

For each of these sectors, they offer detailed forecasts and reports to help you decide what products to create. To view data relevant to your demographic, you can segment by city and view curated insights for that local region.

In addition to their reports and forecasts, they also have a team of experts you can book a call with to get answers to specific questions. These experts also host industry-specific trend talks and webinars.

WGSN also provides unique insights for each industry, like its industry feed dashboard. This dashboard curates each industry's latest trending topics and hashtags on social media and provides expert analysis. This makes it easy to identify what consumers are talking about and how you can use it to guide your product and marketing decisions.

The platform also offers plenty of marketing insights, like reporting on what it takes to build an iconic brand, influencer trends, conference and event coverage, case studies of top-performing marketing campaigns, and a seasonal round-up of top campaign trends.

Target Audience/Use Case	It serves consumer brands in the beauty, home and interiors, food and drink, consumer electronics, lifestyle, retail, and fashion industries that need forecasts to inform product design and marketing decisions. It also aids marketers with access to detailed marketing campaign data.
Key Differentiator	It’s more of a consultancy for large consumer brands with detailed forecast data. It also offers insights and data geared specifically towards marketing teams.
Data Quality/Sources	Here are the data sources they use: Shows: They have a database of over five million catwalk images. Social Media: They track 100,000 social media posts monthly. Shelf: They track 10,000 brands from 200 retailers. Track: They track five years of search engine history. Sentiment: They survey 17,600 consumers monthly and 230 fashion retailers and brands.
Free Plan?	No
Pros	It offers one-on-one consulting with trend experts. It’s known for providing reliable data and they have a good track record of accurately forecasting trends. They even do daily consumer surveys. It specializes in consumer industries with region segmentation, which is great for consumer brands. Detailed marketing insights, like case studies and campaign analysis.
Cons	B2B users won’t find the data as relevant, as they focus exclusively on seven consumer industries. It doesn’t offer a trend database that lets users search for trending topics, brands, or other keywords. It’s a premium product for enterprise brands and is unrealistic for smaller companies.

Pricing

WGSN doesn’t provide any public pricing data, though third-party websites estimate that pricing plans start at approximately $25,000 per year.

Axios Policy Pro – Best For Detailed Political Trend Insights

Axios is a news resource that provides exclusive political insights from journalists.

Its Policy Pro offering is a great resource for decision-makers frequently impacted by politics and government laws, as it provides up-to-date coverage of breaking news.

Therefore, it isn't really a trend discovery platform, though it is an excellent resource for executives to stay up-to-date with political trends.

Axios Pro users receive access to premium newsletters (designed to cover the latest political news in just five minutes), live events, webinars, and exclusive industry reports. Users can also sign up to receive custom alerts on breaking news.

Target Audience/Use Case	It serves executives impacted by government policies who need to stay up-to-date with the latest political trends.
Key Differentiator	It provides exclusive, up-to-date political news and trend information.
Data Quality/Sources	All data is sourced from proprietary research performed by Axios journalists. These journalists have access to exclusive press events that aren’t available to the general public.
Free Plan?	There is a free version of Axios, though the Policy offering is paid.
Pros	Users receive access to premium, up-to-date political trend information curated into an easy-to-read format. The live networking events are a great place to connect with other executives. Receive notifications on breaking news to make adjustments quickly.
Cons	It’s an excellent resource for finding news-worthy trends, though it doesn’t offer a database to discover emerging trends. All of the data is selected and curated by journalists, and whenever humans are involved, there is always a possibility that the data and information angle could be biased. It only offers annual subscriptions.

Pricing

The annual subscription to Axios Pro’s Policy offering costs $1,199.

Select The Best Trend Platform For Your Needs

There are plenty of tools to find various trending topics, but we couldn't find one that fit the following criteria:

1. Specializes in identifying emerging trends for both B2B and consumer brands.
2. Uses reliable, unbiased data to find and identify trends.
3. Provides trends in a structured database that reduces the trend research process from days to minutes.

So we built Exploding Topics to be the solution to our own problem.

You can use the free Trend Database now to see how it works, or try out Exploding Topics Pro to explore additional trend research features, like Meta Trends, Trends Search, and access to premium reports.