Reddit Comments Scraper: Full Threads, $2/1K Comments

Get the comments of a Reddit post as clean JSON: the whole thread, not just the first screen. Paste post links, set a limit, and the Actor reads the post page, loads the "more replies" branches and the next pages of top-level comments the same way the site does when you click them, and then follows the "More replies" links that hide the deepest reply chains, until your limit is reached. Every row carries the author, the text, the score, the depth in the tree and the id of its parent, so you can rebuild the thread or just flatten it into a table.

It reads the same public pages Reddit serves to a logged-out visitor's browser, over plain HTTP with no page rendering, at a fixed pace that stays inside the request quota Reddit itself announces for these pages.

This is the comments member of our Reddit family. It shares its code, its field names and its output format with the Reddit Data Scraper and the Reddit Subreddit Scraper, so an input or a pipeline written for one works with the others.

What you get

One row per comment:

{
  "type": "comment",
  "id": "n8a5ajg",
  "postId": "1rahj9l",
  "subreddit": "learnpython",
  "author": "some_redditor",
  "score": 42,
  "body": "A compiler for a toy language, in C. Took me a year of evenings.",
  "createdUtc": "2026-02-21T14:05:11.000Z",
  "permalink": "https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/comments/1rahj9l/comment/n8a5ajg/",
  "depth": 0,
  "parentId": "t3_1rahj9l"
}

depth is 0 for a top-level comment, 1 for a reply to it, and so on. parentId is Reddit's fullname of the parent: t3_ plus the post id for a top-level comment, t1_ plus the comment id for a reply. A reply always comes after its parent, though not always right after it: deep chains are loaded later and land further down. Use parentId to rebuild the tree. score is absent when Reddit hides it. Deleted authors come through as [deleted], exactly as Reddit shows them.

With Include the post itself on (the default) the dataset also holds one row per post with type: "post": title, author, score, comment count, flair, link, UTC date and the body of a text post. Its fields are the same as in our other Reddit Actors.

Input

Field	Type	Description
postUrls	string[]	Links to Reddit posts, for example https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/comments/1rahj9l/what_is_the_most_complex_thing_you_have_ever_coded/. Short links like https://www.reddit.com/comments/1rahj9l/ and old.reddit.com links work too. Links to subreddits, user pages or search pages are not read by this Actor.
maxComments	integer	Max comments per post (default 1,000, hard cap 10,000). The post itself does not count. Loading stops as soon as the limit is reached.
sort	string	best (default), top, new, controversial, old or qa. This is the order Reddit uses to pick and arrange the comments it serves, so with a limit it also decides which comments you get.
includePost	boolean	Default true: the post is saved as one extra row and charged as a post.
commentedAfter / commentedBefore	string	ISO date bounds (UTC) for comments. Applied after fetching; filtered-out comments do not count toward maxComments.
includeNSFW	boolean	Default false. A post marked NSFW is skipped together with its comments unless you opt in.
startUrls	array	The same post links in the request-list form used by our other Reddit Actors. Either field works; both are read.
proxyConfiguration	object	Defaults to Apify residential proxies with no country pin, which is the supported configuration.

Example:

{
  "postUrls": [
    "https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/comments/1rahj9l/what_is_the_most_complex_thing_you_have_ever_coded/",
    "https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1x5nxzy/zxc_0150_decompression_2x_faster_than_zstandard/"
  ],
  "maxComments": 500,
  "sort": "top"
}

How to use it

1. Click Try for free or Start on this page.
2. Paste one or more post links.
3. Optionally set Max comments per post, a sort order and date bounds.
4. Run it. Comments land in the dataset as one row each. Export them as JSON, CSV or Excel, or pull them over the API.

To call it from code, use the Apify API or an official client. AI agents can call it through the Apify MCP server: the description and the input fields above are written to be read by an agent.

Pricing

Pay-per-event, two events, nothing else:

Event	Rate
comment-scraped	$2.00 per 1,000 ($0.002 each)
post-scraped	$2.00 per 1,000 ($0.002 each), one per post when includePost is on
Run start	free, there is no start event

What you get for $1: 500 comments. A thread of 300 comments with its post costs $0.602. Platform usage (compute, proxy) is charged to us, not to you, so the per-row price is the whole bill. Rates are as of the last README update. The Store page stays authoritative.

Limits (honest)

• You get fewer rows than Reddit's comment counter. The counter on a post includes comments that were deleted by their authors or removed by moderators and spam filters. Reddit does not serve those to anyone, so no scraper can return them. On three threads of 310 to 450 comments we measured on 21 October 2026, this release returned between 89% and 99% of the counter.
• Deep reply chains are followed to the end. When a chain goes deeper than Reddit renders in one branch, the site shows a "More replies" link instead of the replies. The Actor opens the fragment behind that link and keeps going down the chain, so long arguments 10 or more levels deep come out whole, each reply with its real depth and parent id.
• The sort decides which comments you get under a limit. With maxComments below the size of the thread, the Actor keeps the comments Reddit serves first under the chosen sort: the best ones for best, the newest for new, and so on.
• Text comes as plain text. Comment bodies keep their paragraphs, list items and code blocks, but not formatting such as bold, italics or link targets.
• A deleted or non-existent post gives an empty result for that link, with no charge, and the run goes on with the next link. A private subreddit's post is not readable without login and comes back empty too.
• No login, no captcha solving. The Actor reads only what Reddit serves to any logged-out visitor. It opens a session the way a browser does, completes Reddit's lightweight automated visitor check (a short script every visitor's browser runs), and then reads public pages with that session. If Reddit refuses a session, the Actor opens a new one from a fresh address. It fails honestly rather than fabricate data.
• A post whose comments were all deleted or removed ends as a failed link. Reddit's counter still shows those comments, so the Actor treats a post page with a counter above zero but no comment tree as a bad response and retries it; when every retry comes back the same, that link fails instead of being saved as the post alone.
• If more than 5% of requests in a run fail, the run log says so loudly. A run in which every fetch failed is marked failed, not "succeeded with 0 items". A run whose filters legitimately match nothing (say, a strict date window) still succeeds, with an empty dataset and an empty bill.

Rate-limit etiquette (built in, with numbers)

• At most 20 requests per minute, with a hard 3-second spacing between requests. Reddit announces a quota of 225 requests per 10 minutes for these pages in its x-ratelimit-* headers. A 3-second spacing means at most 200 requests per 10 minutes, so the Actor stays inside that quota by design.
• The post page carries the first comments. Each further request loads one branch of replies, the next page of top-level comments or one deep reply chain. On the threads we measured, a request brought about 3 comments on average, so a 300-comment thread took 70 to 100 requests, that is 4 to 5 minutes, and 1,000 comments take roughly 15 to 20 minutes. The default run timeout of 1 hour covers about 3,000 comments per run; for bigger jobs raise the timeout in the run options.
• On an HTTP 429 the Actor waits 30 seconds, opens a fresh session and retries. On any other transient refusal it backs off (3 s, then 6 s, then 9 s), rotates to a fresh proxy session and retries, at most 3 times.
• If five requests in a row fail after all retries, the run stops instead of grinding through the rest of the plan.

FAQ

Do I need a Reddit account or an API key? No. The Actor reads only publicly available data as a logged-out visitor, never logs in, and does not use Reddit's developer API or anyone's credentials.

How is this different from the Reddit Data Scraper? Same code, same output rows, deeper job. The Reddit Data Scraper reads a post page with the first comments on it, about 25. This Actor keeps loading the "more replies" branches, the next top-level comments and the deep reply chains until your limit, and is priced per comment.

Why do I get 280 comments when the post says 300? See Limits: the counter includes deleted and removed comments, which Reddit serves to no one. On the threads we measured, the Actor returned 89% to 99% of the counter.

Does it use a browser? Not for the data. Pages are fetched over plain HTTP and read straight from the HTML Reddit serves, with no rendering. A real Chrome is kept on standby only as a last resort for opening a session, when no page gives one over plain HTTP.

Can I get the comments of a whole subreddit? Pair this Actor with the Reddit Subreddit Scraper: take the permalink of each post it returns and feed the list here as postUrls.

Are NSFW threads included? Only if you set includeNSFW: true. The default is off.

Where is my data stored? In your run's dataset on your Apify account, under your control. The Actor keeps no copy of scraped data outside your run and sends nothing to any third party.

Legal

This is an unofficial scraper. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Reddit, Inc. in any way, and it does not use Reddit's developer API. It reads only data that Reddit serves publicly to any logged-out visitor: no login, no credentials, no captcha solving. Website terms of service are a contractual matter between a website and its visitors, not criminal law. You are responsible for ensuring that your use of the collected data complies with the laws that apply to you and with Reddit's terms. Comment and post content belongs to its authors.

Personal data

Reddit is a pseudonymous platform: the author field contains the public username a person chose to publish under, not their real identity. This Actor collects no emails, no real names, no private messages, and performs no deanonymization. It stores exactly what any visitor sees on a public page. Scraped data lives only in your own Apify dataset and is not retained by us outside your run. If the data you collect contains personal data under the laws of your jurisdiction (for example the GDPR), you act as its controller: it is your responsibility to have a legal basis for processing and to honor data-subject requests, including deletion.

Rate this Actor

If this Actor saved you time, a short rating or review on its Store page helps other people find it. Missing a field, or did something break? Open the Issues tab on this page and tell us.

Need a custom scraper?

We can build a custom version of this Actor, for example with extra fields, other filters or another output format, or a new Actor for a site we do not cover yet. It runs on Apify like this one. Email actorforge.hq+orders@gmail.com with the site, the data you need and how often you need it.

Other Actors by ActorForge

• Reddit Data Scraper: subreddit feeds, posts with their first comments, keyword search and user history in one Actor.
• Reddit Subreddit Scraper: the hot, new, top and rising posts of any subreddit, with date bounds and only-new mode.
• Lazada Reviews Scraper: product reviews, ratings and buyer media from all six Lazada marketplaces.
• Wildberries Scraper: products, prices and reviews from Wildberries as clean, schema-validated JSON.
• Avito Real Estate Scraper: full property inventory from Avito with freshness stamps.

Changelog

• 0.1.6 (22 October 2026): a post page served with a comment counter above zero but no comment tree is retried instead of being saved as the post alone.
• 0.1 (October 2026): first release. Full comment threads with "more replies" branches, further top-level pages and deep reply chains, six sort orders, date bounds, the post as an extra row, $2 per 1,000 comments and $2 per 1,000 posts, no start fee.