Reddit Scraper — Posts, Comments & Profiles

Extract posts, comments, and user profiles from any subreddit, search query, or Reddit URL — no API key required. Built for market research, brand monitoring, sentiment analysis, competitor intelligence, and AI/LLM training datasets.

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💰 Pricing

Pay only for what you extract — three separate billing events:

What	Cost
📄 Posts	$8 per 1,000
💬 Comments	$6 per 1,000
👤 User profiles	$8 per 1,000

A small one-time actor-start fee applies per run. Posts filtered out by score, date, or comment count are not charged.

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✨ Key Features

📄 Full Post Data

Every post record includes title, full body text, author, subreddit, score, upvote ratio, comment count, publish date, flair, NSFW flag, award count, thumbnail URL, and external link (for link posts). Rich structured JSON ready for analysis or AI pipelines.

💬 Comments with Full Thread Structure

Captures top-level comments and all nested replies in a single flat dataset. Each comment includes the full body text, author, score, depth level, and parentId for reconstructing threads. Deleted and removed comments are automatically skipped.

👤 User Profiles

Fetches the Reddit profile of each post author: total karma, link karma, comment karma, account age, gold status. Each unique author is fetched only once per run — no duplicate charges.

🔄 Four Input Types

• Subreddit URLs — scrape posts from any public subreddit
• Post URLs — scrape a specific post and optionally its comments
• User profile URLs — scrape a specific Reddit user's profile
• Search queries — find posts matching keywords across all of Reddit

🔃 Sort & Time Filters

Choose how posts are sorted: Hot, New, Top, or Rising. For Top posts, filter by time range: past hour, day, week, month, year, or all time.

🔍 Powerful Filters

• Minimum score — skip low-engagement posts
• Minimum comments — only posts with real discussion
• Date from — only posts published after a specific date
• Exclude NSFW — filter out adult content

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🚀 Quick Start

Option 1 — Subreddit

Paste a subreddit URL to scrape its posts.

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/
https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/
https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/

Option 2 — Specific Post

Paste a post URL to scrape that post and optionally all its comments.

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/abc123/post_title/

Option 3 — User Profile

Paste a user profile URL to scrape their Reddit profile data.

https://www.reddit.com/u/spez
https://www.reddit.com/user/spez

Option 4 — Search Queries

Provide one or more search terms as a list. The scraper returns the most relevant posts for each query.

["ChatGPT alternatives", "best productivity tools 2025", "startup advice"]

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⚙️ Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
startUrls	array	—	Reddit URLs: subreddit, post, or user profile
searchQueries	array	—	Keywords to search across Reddit
maxPosts	integer	50	Maximum posts to scrape (hard cap: 1,000)
sort	string	hot	Post sort order: hot, new, top, rising
timeFilter	string	week	Time range for Top sort: hour, day, week, month, year, all
scrapeComments	boolean	false	Extract comments for each post
maxCommentsPerPost	integer	100	Maximum comments per post (including replies)
scrapeUserProfiles	boolean	false	Fetch author profile for each post
filterByMinScore	integer	0	Skip posts with fewer upvotes than this
filterByMinComments	integer	0	Skip posts with fewer comments than this
filterByDateFrom	string	—	Only posts published on or after YYYY-MM-DD
excludeNsfw	boolean	false	Exclude NSFW (18+) posts

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📦 Output Format

All results are saved to the Apify dataset. Three record types are mixed in a single dataset and can be filtered by the type field.

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Post Record (type: "post")

One record per scraped post.

{
  "type": "post",
  "postId": "1abc23",
  "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1abc23/title/",
  "title": "OpenAI releases new model with 10x lower cost",
  "body": "The full post body text goes here...",
  "author": "tech_user_42",
  "subreddit": "technology",
  "subredditSubscribers": 14500000,
  "score": 8420,
  "upvoteRatio": 0.94,
  "numComments": 312,
  "createdAt": "2026-04-01",
  "flair": "AI",
  "isNsfw": false,
  "isSelf": true,
  "isStickied": false,
  "isLocked": false,
  "awards": 3,
  "thumbnailUrl": null,
  "externalUrl": null,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-04-09T10:00:00.000Z"
}

Field reference:

Field	Type	Description
postId	string	Reddit post ID
url	string	Full URL to the post
title	string	Post title
body	string	Post body text (empty for link posts)
author	string	Reddit username of the author
subreddit	string	Subreddit name
subredditSubscribers	integer	Number of subreddit members
score	integer	Net upvotes (upvotes minus downvotes)
upvoteRatio	number	Ratio of upvotes to total votes (0–1)
numComments	integer	Number of comments on the post
createdAt	string	Date the post was published (YYYY-MM-DD)
flair	string	Post flair tag set by the author or moderators
isNsfw	boolean	True if the post is marked as 18+
isSelf	boolean	True if this is a text post; false for link posts
isStickied	boolean	True if the post is pinned by moderators
isLocked	boolean	True if comments are disabled
awards	integer	Total number of awards received
thumbnailUrl	string	Thumbnail image URL (link posts only)
externalUrl	string	External link URL (link posts only)
scrapedAt	string	ISO timestamp of when the record was created

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Comment Record (type: "comment")

One record per comment or reply. Use depth and parentId to reconstruct the thread structure.

{
  "type": "comment",
  "commentId": "k1x2y3z",
  "postId": "1abc23",
  "postTitle": "OpenAI releases new model with 10x lower cost",
  "parentId": "t3_1abc23",
  "body": "This is a really interesting development. The cost reduction alone changes everything for startups.",
  "author": "ml_engineer_99",
  "score": 342,
  "depth": 0,
  "createdAt": "2026-04-01",
  "isStickied": false,
  "distinguished": null,
  "awards": 1,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-04-09T10:00:00.000Z"
}

Field reference:

Field	Type	Description
commentId	string	Unique Reddit comment ID
postId	string	ID of the parent post
postTitle	string	Title of the parent post
parentId	string	ID of the parent comment or post (t1_... for comment parent, t3_... for top-level)
body	string	Full comment text
author	string	Reddit username of the commenter
score	integer	Net upvotes on the comment
depth	integer	Nesting level (0 = top-level, 1 = reply, 2 = reply to reply, etc.)
createdAt	string	Date the comment was posted (YYYY-MM-DD)
isStickied	boolean	True if the comment is pinned by moderators
distinguished	string	"moderator" or "admin" if applicable, otherwise null
awards	integer	Number of awards on the comment

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Profile Record (type: "profile")

One record per unique user. Only created when scrapeUserProfiles is enabled.

{
  "type": "profile",
  "username": "tech_user_42",
  "profileUrl": "https://www.reddit.com/user/tech_user_42",
  "totalKarma": 48200,
  "linkKarma": 12000,
  "commentKarma": 36200,
  "isGold": false,
  "isEmployee": false,
  "createdAt": "2019-03-15",
  "iconUrl": "https://styles.redditmedia.com/...",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-04-09T10:00:00.000Z"
}

Field reference:

Field	Type	Description
username	string	Reddit username
profileUrl	string	Full URL to the user's profile
totalKarma	integer	Total karma (link + comment)
linkKarma	integer	Karma from posts
commentKarma	integer	Karma from comments
isGold	boolean	True if the user has Reddit Gold
isEmployee	boolean	True if the user is a Reddit employee
createdAt	string	Account creation date (YYYY-MM-DD)
iconUrl	string	Profile avatar image URL

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🔍 Use Case Examples

Brand monitoring — find mentions of your product

{
  "searchQueries": ["notion app", "notion review", "notion alternative"],
  "maxPosts": 200,
  "scrapeComments": true,
  "maxCommentsPerPost": 200,
  "filterByMinScore": 10
}

Competitor sentiment analysis

{
  "searchQueries": ["linear vs jira", "figma vs sketch 2026", "shopify vs woocommerce"],
  "maxPosts": 100,
  "scrapeComments": true,
  "maxCommentsPerPost": 300,
  "filterByMinComments": 20
}

Trending topics in a niche subreddit

{
  "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/" }],
  "maxPosts": 100,
  "sort": "top",
  "timeFilter": "week",
  "filterByMinScore": 100,
  "scrapeComments": true,
  "maxCommentsPerPost": 100
}

AI/LLM training dataset from a subreddit

{
  "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/" }],
  "maxPosts": 1000,
  "sort": "top",
  "timeFilter": "year",
  "scrapeComments": true,
  "maxCommentsPerPost": 200,
  "filterByMinScore": 50
}

Lead generation — find people asking for recommendations

{
  "searchQueries": ["looking for CRM recommendation", "best project management tool", "need accounting software"],
  "maxPosts": 100,
  "scrapeComments": true,
  "maxCommentsPerPost": 100,
  "filterByMinComments": 5,
  "scrapeUserProfiles": true
}

Monitor a subreddit for recent posts

{
  "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/entrepreneur/" }],
  "maxPosts": 50,
  "sort": "new",
  "filterByDateFrom": "2026-04-01",
  "scrapeComments": false
}

Scrape a specific viral post with all comments

{
  "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/xyz123/post_title/" }],
  "scrapeComments": true,
  "maxCommentsPerPost": 500
}

Research influencers in a subreddit

{
  "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/" }],
  "maxPosts": 100,
  "sort": "top",
  "timeFilter": "month",
  "scrapeUserProfiles": true,
  "filterByMinScore": 200
}

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📊 Who Uses This

Use Case	Who	What They Get
Brand monitoring	Marketing teams	All Reddit mentions of a brand or product in structured JSON
Competitor research	Product managers	What users say about competitor products across relevant subreddits
Sentiment analysis	Analysts	Comment corpora with scores, dates, and thread context
Lead generation	Sales teams	Posts where people ask for product/service recommendations
LLM training data	AI & ML teams	High-quality discussion threads from expert communities
Trend discovery	Marketers & creators	What's going viral in a niche before it hits mainstream
Academic research	Researchers	Public discussion datasets for NLP and social science
Influencer identification	Agencies	Top contributors in niche subreddits with karma and activity
Market research	Consultants	Consumer opinions, pain points, and demand signals
Financial research	Investors	Retail investor sentiment from finance subreddits

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💡 Pro Tips

1. Use Top + time filter for the best content Set sort: "top" with timeFilter: "month" or "year" to get the highest-quality, most-upvoted posts in a subreddit. These tend to have the most valuable comments and discussion.

2. Combine subreddits and search in one run You can mix startUrls (subreddits) and searchQueries in a single run. Results from all sources are deduplicated — each post is processed only once.

3. Filter by minimum score to skip noise Set filterByMinScore: 50 or higher to skip low-engagement posts that have few votes and are likely low quality. This reduces cost and improves dataset quality.

4. Author profiles are deduplicated automatically When scrapeUserProfiles is enabled, each unique author is fetched only once — even if they authored multiple posts in the run. You are only charged once per author.

5. Use search for cross-subreddit coverage A search query like "best CRM tool" finds posts from r/sales, r/startups, r/smallbusiness, and more — all in one run. More comprehensive than scraping individual subreddits.

6. Nested comments via parentId Comment records include a parentId field. If parentId starts with t3_, the comment is a top-level reply to the post. If it starts with t1_, it is a reply to another comment. Use depth to quickly filter by nesting level.

7. Schedule weekly incremental runs Use Apify Scheduler with filterByDateFrom set to the previous Monday. This way each run only picks up new posts and you never scrape the same content twice.

8. NSFW filtering Enable excludeNsfw when scraping general-topic subreddits (like r/AskReddit or r/funny) to keep datasets clean for professional or academic use.

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❓ FAQ

Q: Do I need a Reddit API key or account? No. The scraper uses Reddit's public JSON API — accessible by appending .json to any Reddit URL. No API key, OAuth token, or Reddit account is required.

Q: Why is there a 1,000 post limit? This is a hard limit enforced by Reddit's API. Regardless of pagination, Reddit's listing endpoints return a maximum of 1,000 posts per sort category. This limit cannot be bypassed. For most use cases 1,000 posts provides more than enough data.

Q: Can I scrape private subreddits? No. The scraper only accesses publicly available content — the same content visible to any logged-out user. Private, quarantined, and banned subreddits return an error and are skipped.

Q: Can I scrape NSFW subreddits? NSFW subreddit content requires Reddit account authentication, which this scraper does not use. NSFW content from public feeds (mixed in with regular posts) is accessible, but dedicated NSFW subreddits are not.

Q: Why might some posts show score: 0? Reddit applies vote fuzzing to all posts — the displayed score is slightly randomized to prevent vote manipulation detection. Posts with very few votes may show 0 even if they have some upvotes.

Q: How are comments structured? Comments are returned as a flat list. Use depth (0 = top-level, 1 = reply, 2 = reply to reply) and parentId to reconstruct the full thread tree in your own code.

Q: Are deleted comments included? No. Comments where the body is [deleted] or [removed] are automatically skipped. Only comments with actual text content are saved.

Q: How does billing work? You are charged per event: $8 per 1,000 posts, $6 per 1,000 comments, and $8 per 1,000 user profiles. Posts that are filtered out by score, date, or comment count are not billed. A small one-time actor-start fee applies per run.

Q: Can I run this on a schedule? Yes. Use Apify Scheduler to run the actor daily or weekly. Set filterByDateFrom to avoid re-scraping old content. Each run only processes newly published posts from the specified date onward.

Q: What happens if Reddit rate-limits the scraper? The scraper automatically reads Reddit's rate-limit headers (X-Ratelimit-Remaining, X-Ratelimit-Reset) and pauses when the quota is nearly exhausted. On HTTP 429 responses, it backs off with increasing delays before retrying. You will never lose data due to rate limiting.

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⚠️ Limits & Notes

• 1,000 post cap — Reddit's API hard limit per listing endpoint. Documented honestly; cannot be bypassed.
• Public content only — Private, quarantined, and banned subreddits are not accessible without authentication.
• Vote fuzzing — Reddit randomizes vote counts slightly; score values may differ slightly from what you see in the browser.
• Comment depth — Reddit limits comment thread depth to 10 levels. Deeply nested replies beyond level 10 are not returned by the API.
• [deleted] content — Posts or comments where the author deleted their account show author: "[deleted]". The content may still be present or also deleted.
• Relative dates — All dates are converted to YYYY-MM-DD format from Unix timestamps for consistency.
• NSFW subreddits — Dedicated adult-content subreddits require OAuth authentication and are not accessible with this scraper.

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⚖️ Legal & Ethical Use

This scraper accesses publicly available data on Reddit — the same data visible to any user without logging in. Use it for legitimate research, content analysis, and data science purposes.

Always comply with:

• Reddit Terms of Service
• Reddit Privacy Policy
• Applicable data protection regulations (GDPR, CCPA, etc.)

Do not use scraped data to harass individual users, build spam systems, or engage in vote manipulation.

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🛠️ Technical Notes

• Built on the Apify SDK with pay-per-event billing (Actor.charge())
• Uses Reddit's public JSON API via www.reddit.com — no browser automation, pure HTTP requests
• No browser automation required — pure HTTP requests for speed and low resource usage
• Automatically reads X-Ratelimit-* response headers and pauses before quota exhaustion
• Exponential backoff on HTTP 429 (rate limit) and transient HTTP errors
• Residential proxy routing on all requests for reliable access
• Comment threads are fully flattened recursively — all nested replies are captured regardless of depth
• Author profiles are deduplicated per run — each unique username is fetched at most once