Reddit Communities Scraper: find subreddits by topic or name, no account needed

Give it topics or community names. You get one row per subreddit that Reddit's own community search returns for each term: the name, title, public description, link, id, creation date and icon.

What you will not get is a member count or an adult flag. Reddit's public community search does not publish either, so the rows do not carry them.

Input	Topics, community names, r/ names or reddit.com/r/ links, up to 50 per run
Output	One row per community
Ceiling	About 250 communities per search term, where Reddit's own search stops
Account needed	None from you
Price	$0.93 per 1,000 communities, flat on every plan

🔍 What Reddit Communities Scraper does

Each search term goes to Reddit's subreddit search on its own. The communities come back in Reddit's order until the term runs out or your limit is reached, and rank keeps that order on every row.

Two terms often find the same community. It is delivered once, under the first term that found it, so one run never charges you twice for the same subreddit.

Switch on exactNameOnly and it stops being a search and becomes a lookup. Give it the names you already have and you get back the one community per name whose name matches exactly, with its id, title, description and creation date. A name that does not come back on the first page of Reddit's results gets a free NOT_FOUND note instead.

📥 What you give it

{
  "queries": ["home espresso", "r/gardening", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/"],
  "maxCommunitiesPerQuery": 100,
  "exactNameOnly": false,
  "includeNsfw": false
}

Field	Default	What it is
queries	none	Topics or community names, one per line. r/name and reddit.com/r/ links are read as the name. Up to 50 per run, and repeats are searched once.
maxCommunitiesPerQuery	50	The most communities per search term, 1 to 250. It is also your spend cap per term.
exactNameOnly	false	Return only the community whose name is exactly the term.
includeNsfw	false	Mix adult (18+) communities into the results. See nsfw below.
proxyConfiguration	off	Leave it as it is. It exists for people who send requests through their own servers, given as http:// or https:// addresses.

queries is the only field you need. Start a run with no terms and you get one free example row instead of a search.

📤 What you get back

A real row from a run on the term gardening, exactly as the actor wrote it:

{
  "name": "GardeningUK",
  "title": "Gardening subreddit for the UK",
  "description": "GardeningUK is a subreddit for the discussion of gardens, gardening, tips, advice and successes with other gardeners here in the UK. Visit the Wiki for tips on where to buy seeds and what information to include when asking for advice.",
  "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/GardeningUK/",
  "communityId": "t5_31s8w",
  "createdAt": "2014-05-15T16:24:31.000Z",
  "iconUrl": "https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/GqWu88Abb2ZB30Ng.jpg",
  "createdBy": "richards182",
  "nsfw": false,
  "query": "gardening",
  "rank": 3,
  "exactMatch": false,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-03T04:39:13.501Z"
}

Field	What it is
name	The community's name as Reddit writes it, without r/
title	The title its moderators set
description	The public description as plain text, or null when the community has none
url	The community's page on reddit.com
communityId	Reddit's own id for it, t5_ and a code
createdAt	When the community was created
iconUrl	Its icon when one is set, otherwise null
createdBy	The username Reddit lists as the community's creator, or null when it lists none
nsfw	false on a normal run. null when adult communities are included, because the search does not say which ones they are
query	The search term that found it
rank	Its position in Reddit's results for that term, from 1
exactMatch	true when the name is exactly your term, ignoring case and spaces
scrapedAt	When the row was written

How full the fields are, counted on 506 communities from three test runs: title and createdAt on every row, description on 96%, createdBy on 76% and iconUrl on 33%. Icons thin out the further down the results you go.

🧾 Reading the output

Three kinds of row can land in the dataset, and only the first kind is charged.

Row	How to spot it	Charged
A community	no _sample and no _diagnostic field	yes
The free example	_sample: true, only when the run had no search term	no
A note	_diagnostic: true, with an errorCode, an error in plain words and usually the query	no

To keep only communities, drop every row that has _sample or _diagnostic. The example row carries a communityId and a rank just like a real one, so filtering on those keeps it.

Code	What it means
NO_RESULTS	Reddit's search found no community for this term
NOT_FOUND	With exactNameOnly on, no community with exactly this name came back
NO_NEW_RESULTS	Everything this term found was already delivered for an earlier term in the same run
PARTIAL_RESULTS	Reddit stopped answering partway through this term. What came before was delivered
SEARCH_UNAVAILABLE	Reddit did not answer this term. Nothing was charged for it, so run it again later
UNEXPECTED_ANSWER	Reddit answered with results for a different search, so that page was not delivered
TIME_LIMIT	The run reached its timeout before this term was read
COST_LIMIT	The maximum cost set for the run does not cover a single community
BAD_INPUT	The input could not be used. details says what to change
UNEXPECTED_ERROR	Something broke on our side. Please report it

▶️ How to run it

1. Open Reddit Communities Scraper and click Try for free.
2. Type your topics or community names into Search terms, one per line.
3. Set Communities per search term. 50 is a good first look, 250 is the most.
4. Optional: switch on Exact names only to look up names you already have, or Include adult (18+) communities.
5. Click Start, then download the dataset as JSON, CSV or Excel, or read it from the API.

💰 How much does it cost?

$0.93 per 1,000 communities. Flat on every Apify plan, no volume tiers.

You pay per community delivered. The example row and every note row are free, a community that two of your terms both found is charged once, and a term that finds nothing adds nothing to the bill. The number of terms times maxCommunitiesPerQuery is the most a run can deliver, so it is also the most it can charge for.

💡 What people use it for

• Finding every place a niche talks, from the big subreddit down to the small regional ones, before deciding where to post or what to read.
• Building the list of subreddits to watch. Run this first, then hand the names to a post or comment scraper.
• Turning a spreadsheet of community names into ids, titles, descriptions and creation dates with exactNameOnly.
• Spotting young communities in a topic by sorting the rows on createdAt.

🚧 What it does not do

• No member counts, online counts or adult flags. Reddit's public community search does not publish them, and the rows do not guess.
• Reddit decides what matches. You get what its subreddit search returns for the term, in its order. A community that never uses your word in its name, title or description may not show up.
• About 250 communities per term at most. That is where Reddit's own search stops, even for a word as broad as music (243 in a test run). Narrow terms run out after a few dozen.
• No posts, rules, moderators or wiki pages. This lists communities. For what gets posted in them, use the scraper linked below.
• Only what a visitor who is not signed in can see. Communities Reddit keeps out of its public search are not found.
• No memory between runs. The same terms tomorrow return, and charge for, the same communities again.

🧭 Which Reddit scraper do you need?

If you want	Use
Subreddits about a topic, or details for names you already have	This one
Everything posted in a subreddit or by one user	Reddit Scraper
Posts matching a keyword	Reddit Search Scraper
Reddit videos as one MP4 with the sound	Reddit Video Scraper
Post text cleaned up for narration	Reddit Text Cleaner

❓ Questions people ask

Do I need a Reddit account or an API key? No. There is nothing to sign in to and nothing to paste.

Why is there no member count? Reddit's public community search does not include one, and the rows never make one up. If member counts are the point of your job, this is the wrong tool for that part of it.

Can I check a list of subreddit names I already have? Yes. Put the names in Search terms and switch on Exact names only. Each name gives one row, or a free NOT_FOUND note when Reddit's search does not return it.

Are adult communities included? Only if you switch on Include adult (18+) communities. They are then mixed into the results, and because the search does not mark them, every row says nsfw: null.

Why did a term return fewer communities than I asked for? Reddit had no more for it. Its search stops at about 250 for any term, and narrow topics stop after a few dozen: GardeningUK gave 28 and home espresso 43 in a test run.

Is scraping Reddit legal? This reads public community listings only, never private messages or accounts. A row can still name a person, the community's creator, and GDPR and similar laws cover that, so have a reason for keeping it. Apify's write-up on the legality of web scraping is a sensible starting point, and we are not lawyers.

🆘 If something breaks

Open the Issues tab on the actor page. Send the search terms you used and the run ID, and the log fills in the rest.