Today's Trends vs Exploding Topics

A database tells you what's rising. A brief tells you what to do with it.

Exploding Topics is a genuinely deep trend-discovery database — 1.1M+ markets, products, and startups ranked by search volume and growth. Today's Trends is the layer above it: a curated weekly brief that tells brands how — and whether — to activate a trend while the window is still open.

Exploding Topics
Exploding Topics is a trend-DISCOVERY and content-research database — an always-on, searchable feed of 1.1M+ under-the-radar markets, products, and startups, ranked by search volume and growth percent. It's owned by Semrush Inc and sold through two doors: the standalone explodingtopics.com site and the Semrush App Center. Its buyer is a marketer, founder, researcher, or investor hunting new opportunities — not a social-content brand team.
Today's Trends
Today's Trends is the curated weekly brief for mid-size DTC brands and in-house marketing teams of 3–20 people. Rather than mining a database, you get the top songs, memes, formats, and moments from TikTok and Instagram packaged into actionable briefs — with activation ideas, IP "what NOT to do" cautions, and a Trend Health Index that flags the activation window.
Side by side

How the two stack up

An honest head-to-head. Exploding Topics is deeper on data and scale; Today's Trends owns the activation layer — how, whether, and when to make content.

Exploding Topics
Today's Trends
What it is
A trend-DISCOVERY / content-research database — an always-on, searchable database of 1.1M+ "under-the-radar markets, products, and startups" ranked by search volume + growth %. Owned by Semrush Inc — one product with two purchase doors: explodingtopics.com direct, and the Semrush App Center listing.
A curated weekly trend brief — songs, memes, formats, and cultural moments from TikTok and Instagram, packaged for brands and agencies.
Focus
Broad DTC product / startup / market discovery — tech, health, fitness, fashion and more, built for marketers, founders, researchers, and investors.
Squarely the TikTok / Instagram-native culture & meme moment — the songs, memes, and formats a social team can act on.
Brand-ready activation ideas
❌ No — it surfaces topics with volume/growth data, but gives no creative, format, or hook guidance for social content. "What's rising" ≠ "how to make the content."
✅ Every trend comes with specific, brand-ready activation ideas you can publish from.
IP / 'what NOT to do' rights cautions
❌ No — zero occurrences of "what not to do", "IP", or "intellectual property" on home + pricing pages. Standard Privacy/Terms pages only.
✅ Each trend carries IP and rights cautions so you never publish creative that lands your brand in trouble.
Trend lifecycle / activation-window signal
⚠️ PARTIAL — it offers quantitative rigor Today's Trends lacks: ML-driven Trend Forecasting, Meta Trends, and per-trend Trend Analysis / Channel Breakdown. But these are growth metrics — not a market-timing "act now vs. too late" activation window for publishing.
✅ We track whether a trend is Rising or Peaking with activation windows (our Trend Health Index), so you spend effort where the moment is still open.
Scale of the trend database
✅ 1.1M+ trends — a far deeper, always-on database than a curated weekly brief. Honest concession: ET is the heavyweight here.
A curated weekly brief — a readable, finite deliverable rather than a database to browse on demand.
Hard quantitative data
✅ Search volume + growth % per trend, with ML trend forecasting and channel breakdown. Today's Trends is not a quantitative database.
Not a database — a curated brief with activation guidance, not volume/growth metrics.
Free tier + API / CSV export
✅ Real free tier (free discovery feed, free SEO/keyword tools, free weekly email) plus a Trends API & CSV export on paid tiers — machine-readable data. Today's Trends is email + subscriber web page.
Email + subscriber web page — no free tier, no API/CSV export.
Delivery model
Always-on SaaS dashboard + searchable database you browse, filter, and export on demand. Not primarily a weekly brief (its free weekly email is a lead-gen newsletter).
A packaged weekly report your team can read and act on in one sitting.
Price
Standalone Pro: $39/mo (Entrepreneur), $99/mo (Investor), $249/mo (Business), each with a 7-day free trial; $99/mo via Semrush's App Center. The tiers a serious brand needs run $99–$249/mo.
Weekly at $49/mo or Premium at $149/mo — a simple two-tier subscription, no per-seat or database upsell.
Price

Exploding Topics pricing

Standalone Pro pricing from explodingtopics.com/pricing (USD). Via Semrush's App Center, the same product is listed at 'Free 7-day trial, then $99/mo'.

Plan
Monthly billing
Billed annually
Entrepreneur7-day free trial
$39/mo
—
InvestorBest Value · 7-day free trial
$99/mo
—
Business7-day free trial
$249/mo
—

Exploding Topics Pro prices verified live on explodingtopics.com/pricing, 2026-08-24. Annual-billing discounts were not shown on the rendered page, so only the verified monthly figures are listed. These are Exploding Topics' own published numbers — listed for comparison, not as Today's Trends pricing.

Why Today's Trends

Head-to-head, honestly

Five things worth knowing before you choose. We're not pretending to be a database — and Exploding Topics doesn't pretend to be a brief.

1 · They win on scale & data

A 1.1M+ trend database with hard search-volume and growth-% figures, ML Trend Forecasting, and per-trend Channel Breakdown — far more breadth and quantification than a curated weekly brief. A fair page concedes ET is the heavyweight data/discovery engine.

2 · They have a free tier + API; we don't

ET offers a free discovery feed, free SEO/keyword tools, a free weekly email, and a Trends API + CSV export. Our counterpoint: Today's Trends is a curated, brand-ready weekly brief — a readable deliverable that saves the client the research, not a database they must mine themselves.

3 · The focus genuinely differs

We are TikTok/Instagram-native culture and memes — songs, memes, formats. ET is broad DTC, startup, and market discovery. Different jobs; different buyers.

4 · We own the activation layer

ET tells you what is rising; it does not tell you how your brand makes the content. No activation ideas, no creative guidance, no IP 'what NOT to do' cautions, and no content activation-window signal like our Trend Health Index. That is our cleanest, most defensible differentiator.

5 · Price & positioning — the brief, not the database

ET Pro starts at $39/mo, but the tiers a serious brand needs (Investor $99, Business $249) run $99–$249/mo, and the Semrush App Center price is $99/mo. Today's Trends' simple $49/mo (Weekly) / $149/mo (Premium) is lower and less complex — a ready-to-consume brief, not a tool you have to operate.
Background

About Exploding Topics

Ownership and delivery, confirmed live on explodingtopics.com and the Semrush App Center (2026-08-24).

What it is
An always-on, searchable trend-discovery and content-research database of 1.1M+ under-the-radar markets, products, and startups, ranked by search volume and growth percent.
Owner
A Semrush product — 'Exploding Topics is a Trademark of Semrush Inc' (© 2026, standalone site footer); site schema and login links are wired into Semrush.
Two purchase doors
One product, two doors: the standalone explodingtopics.com direct plans ($39/$99/$249 monthly) and the Semrush App Center listing billed at $99/mo ('Free 7-day trial, then $99/mo'). Not two different products.
Free tier & exports
A genuine free tier (free discovery feed, free SEO/keyword tools, free weekly email) plus a Trends API and CSV export on paid tiers.
Pro tiers
Entrepreneur $39/mo · Investor $99/mo (Best Value) · Business $249/mo, each with a 7-day free trial.
Sources

Comparison grounded in verified research

All Exploding Topics claims above were confirmed against live pages on 2026-08-24.

Today's Trends

Get the brief, not the database

Exploding Topics tells you what's rising. Today's Trends tells you how to make the content, what NOT to do, and when the window is open. See this week's trends, or pick a plan — with a 14-day money-back guarantee if the first two reports don't save your team hours.

View Plans & PricingBrowse This Week's Trends