YouTube Trend Spotter

Discover trending topics on YouTube before your competitors do. YouTube Trend Spotter uses the official YouTube Data API v3 to search any keyword, then scores every video using velocity, engagement, momentum, and niche opportunity algorithms — producing a fully ranked dataset of the most promising YouTube trends right now.

What does YouTube Trend Spotter do?

YouTube Trend Spotter analyzes YouTube search results and calculates four independent trend metrics for every video. YouTube Trend Spotter can extract and analyze:

• Trend Score (0–100) — Composite score ranking how "trending" a video is, with customizable weights
• Velocity Score — How fast a video gains views relative to its age
• Engagement Score — How actively the audience interacts (likes + comments vs. views)
• Momentum Score — Whether a video is accelerating or decelerating since your last run
• Niche Opportunity Score — Whether a topic is underserved or already saturated
• Channel Analytics — Subscriber count, total channel views, and video count per channel
• Upload Timing Analysis — Best posting days and hours by view and engagement correlation
• Tag Trend Intelligence — Top tags, rising tags, and recommended tags across results

Each run produces a ranked dataset with 35+ fields per video, a Trend Summary with keyword-level insights, and an optional HTML report with thumbnails and clickable links. Export in JSON, CSV, XLSX, XML, or RSS.

Why analyze YouTube trends?

YouTube has over 2.7 billion monthly active users and is the world's second-largest search engine. Identifying trending topics early gives content creators, marketers, and agencies a measurable competitive advantage.

Here are just some of the ways you could use YouTube trend data:

• Content research — Find which video formats are gaining views right now before investing production time
• Niche discovery — Identify keywords with high demand but low competition for new channel growth
• Competitor analysis — Track which competitor videos are accelerating in momentum
• Agency reporting — Schedule daily runs for client keywords and export to Google Sheets or Looker Studio dashboards
• Trend alerts — Monitor momentum scores on a schedule to know exactly when to publish

If you would like more inspiration on how analyzing YouTube trends could help your business, check out our industry pages.

How to analyze YouTube trends

1. Click on Try for free.
2. Get a free YouTube Data API v3 key from Google Cloud Console (see how to get a YouTube API key — 5 minutes, no credit card).
3. Enter your keywords and API key in the input form.
4. Click on Run.
5. When YouTube Trend Spotter has finished, preview or download your data from the Dataset tab.

To monitor keywords over time, use Apify's built-in scheduler to run daily or weekly. The Momentum Score updates automatically with each run.

How much will it cost to analyze YouTube trends?

Apify gives you $5 free usage credits every month on the Apify Free plan. YouTube Trend Spotter charges $0.50 per run, so you can get 10 trend analysis runs per month completely free — that's roughly 1,000 video analyses at no cost!

But if you need to run more YouTube trend reports regularly, you should grab an Apify subscription. We recommend our $49/month Personal plan — you can get up to 98 runs per month (approximately 9,800 video analyses) with the $49 monthly plan!

Or get roughly 998 runs (~99,800 video analyses) for $499 with the Team plan — wow!

The YouTube Data API key is free from Google (10,000 units/day). A typical run of 2 keywords × 50 videos uses ~206 API units, giving you about 95 keyword searches per day at no extra cost.

How to get a YouTube API key

1. Go to console.cloud.google.com and sign in with your Google account.
2. Click Select a project → New Project and give it any name.
3. Go to APIs & Services → Library, search for YouTube Data API v3, and click Enable.
4. Go to APIs & Services → Credentials → Create Credentials → API key.
5. Copy the key and paste it into the youtubeApiKey field in the Actor input.

No credit card is needed. Setup takes about 5 minutes.

Input parameters for YouTube Trend Spotter

Field	Type	Default	Description
keywords	String list	(required)	Keywords to analyze, e.g. ["AI tools 2025", "python tutorial"]
youtubeApiKey	Secret string	(required)	Your YouTube Data API v3 key from Google Cloud Console
maxResults	Integer	50	Videos to fetch per keyword (1–200)
region	Select	US	Search region — 34 countries supported
sortBy	Select	relevance	Sort order: relevance, date, viewCount, rating
enableHistory	Boolean	true	Store snapshots for Momentum Score calculation
outputHtmlReport	Boolean	true	Save a visual HTML report to Key-Value Store
velocityWeight	Integer	40	Weight for velocity in trend score (0–100)
engagementWeight	Integer	30	Weight for engagement in trend score (0–100)
momentumWeight	Integer	30	Weight for momentum in trend score (0–100)

Supported regions: US, GB, CA, AU, DE, FR, JP, BR, IN, MX, ES, IT, NL, SE, NO, DK, FI, PL, RU, KR, TW, TH, ID, PH, TR, AR, CO, CL, EG, SA, AE, ZA, NG, KE.

Output from YouTube Trend Spotter

Results are stored in three locations after every run:

1. Dataset — One row per video, ranked by Trend Score, with 35+ fields per row
2. Trend Summary — JSON record in Key-Value Store (TREND_SUMMARY) with keyword-level insights, upload timing analysis, and tag trends
3. HTML Report — Visual report with thumbnails and scores saved to Key-Value Store

Export in JSON, CSV, XLSX, XML, or RSS from the Output tab, or pull via the Apify API. Use the official Apify clients for Python or JavaScript to integrate trend data into your applications.

{
  "keyword": "AI tools 2025",
  "rank": 1,
  "title": "I Tried 500+ AI Tools, These 9 Will Make You Rich",
  "channel_name": "Simon Squibb",
  "channel_subscribers": 1250000,
  "channel_total_views": 98000000,
  "channel_video_count": 342,
  "view_count": 940751,
  "like_count": 37269,
  "comment_count": 797,
  "upload_date": "2026-01-28 16:01:24",
  "category": "Education",
  "tags": ["AI", "AI Tools", "business ideas"],
  "trend_score": 81.0,
  "velocity_score": 100.0,
  "engagement_score": 86.7,
  "momentum_score": 50.0,
  "views_per_day": 24784.9,
  "engagement_rate": 4.046,
  "like_to_view_ratio": 3.963,
  "comment_to_view_ratio": 0.085,
  "niche_opportunity_score": 89.4,
  "niche_verdict": "Excellent opportunity — high demand, low competition",
  "youtube_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgi5hb7yxjU",
  "thumbnail_url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Qgi5hb7yxjU/hqdefault.jpg",
  "has_history": false,
  "run_at": "2026-03-07T15:00:00Z"
}

Key output fields

Field	Description
trend_score	Composite score 0–100 (weights configurable)
velocity_score	Views-per-day score 0–100
engagement_score	Engagement score 0–100
momentum_score	Growth score 0–100 (50 = neutral/no prior data)
niche_opportunity_score	Niche opportunity 0–100
views_per_day	Average daily views since upload
engagement_rate	(likes + comments) / views as percentage
channel_subscribers	Channel subscriber count
growth_pct	View growth since last run (requires history)

Tips for analyzing YouTube trends

• Custom scoring weights — Adjust velocityWeight, engagementWeight, and momentumWeight to match your strategy. Try 70/20/10 for virality hunting, 20/60/20 for community-focused content, or 20/20/60 for momentum tracking. Weights auto-normalize to 100%.
• Enable history — Set enableHistory to true and run on a schedule to get real Momentum Scores. The first run defaults to 50 (neutral).
• Multiple keywords — Add all your keywords in one run. They're scored independently but land in the same dataset for easy comparison.
• Region targeting — Use the region field to see what's trending in specific countries. Results vary significantly by region.
• Upload timing — With 5+ videos in results, the Trend Summary includes timing analysis showing which days and hours correlate with higher views.
• Tag intelligence — The Trend Summary includes top tags, rising tags (correlated with high velocity), and recommended tags with weighted composite scores.

Is it legal to analyze YouTube trends?

Yes. YouTube Trend Spotter uses only the official YouTube Data API v3 — no web scraping, no headless browsers, no reverse-engineered endpoints. Each user supplies their own Google API key and is the direct API client of record with Google. All usage is governed by the YouTube API Terms of Service.

This Actor does not collect or store personal data beyond what YouTube's public API returns about public videos. Note that personal data is protected by GDPR in the European Union and by other regulations around the world. You should not scrape personal data unless you have a legitimate reason to do so. If you're unsure whether your reason is legitimate, consult your lawyers. We also recommend that you read our blog post: is web scraping legal?

FAQ about YouTube Trend Spotter

How much does YouTube Trend Spotter cost per run? This Actor charges $0.50 per run (flat fee). For a typical run of 2 keywords × 50 videos, the total cost including platform fees is approximately $0.50. The YouTube API key is free from Google.

Why is my Momentum Score 50 on the first run? Momentum requires two data points. On the first run there is no previous snapshot, so all videos default to 50. Enable enableHistory and run again to see real momentum data.

What does the Niche Opportunity Score measure? It compares average view count against a saturation threshold. A high score (above 70) means lots of viewers but few dominant videos — an opportunity to enter the niche.

Can I track multiple keywords at once? Yes. Add multiple keywords to the keywords field. Each is scored independently, and all results land in the same dataset with a keyword column for filtering.

What regions are supported? 34 countries: US, GB, CA, AU, DE, FR, JP, BR, IN, MX, ES, IT, NL, SE, NO, DK, FI, PL, RU, KR, TW, TH, ID, PH, TR, AR, CO, CL, EG, SA, AE, ZA, NG, KE. Region affects search results but does not require a local proxy.

Can I customize the Trend Score formula? Yes. Use velocityWeight, engagementWeight, and momentumWeight to control the composite Trend Score. Weights auto-normalize to 100%.

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Questions or feature requests: pythonmaildev@gmail.com

This product uses the YouTube Data API v3. YouTube is a trademark of Google LLC. YouTube API Terms of Service