Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover research & trends and seo & discovery. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Exploding Topics | SpyFu | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $39 | From $39 |
| Pricing model | Free trial, then paid | Paid subscription |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | 7 days | Not stated |
| API | Not stated | Yes |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
| Runs on | Web | Web |
| Covers | Research & Trends, SEO & Discovery | SEO & Discovery, Research & Trends |
| Works with | Nothing in particular | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | 1 | None right now |
Trends spotted before they peak
Exploding Topics watches search and social signals and surfaces subjects on the way up, which is a different job from a keyword tool that tells you what is already big. For somebody choosing what to make next, early is the whole value. It is now a Semrush product, and the cheapest plan holds back the CSV export.
Our note
The $39 plan cannot export, so the research stays in their interface. If the point is feeding a content calendar or a spreadsheet, the real entry price is $99.
Every keyword a competitor has bought or ranked for
SpyFu is built around one question: what is the other site doing. It keeps more than a decade of history on which keywords a domain ranked for, which ads it ran and what it paid, which is the part the general SEO suites treat as a side feature. For research on a competitor rather than maintenance on your own site, it is the cheaper specialist.
Our note
SpyFu is the cheap way to answer one question well: what is the competition ranking and bidding on. Pair it with a free rank tracker rather than treating it as a replacement for a full SEO platform.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.