Reddit Scraper for AI & Lead Generation: Posts, Comments, Subreddits & Users API

Reddit Scraper gives you posts, comments, subreddits and users from any subreddit or Reddit search query, without a Reddit API key and without login. You get structured JSON ready for LLM pipelines, AI training, sentiment analysis, lead generation, market research and brand monitoring.

No OAuth setup and no app registration, which since 2026 Reddit only grants for moderation use cases. Give it a list of subreddits or a search query and you get clean, normalized Reddit data in JSON, CSV or Excel.

Posts · Comments · Nested threads · Image galleries · Search any query · Pagination beyond 100 · Export to JSON/CSV/Excel

✨ What you get

• ✅ No Reddit API key needed. No app registration, no OAuth, no credentials to manage.
• ✅ No login. Public Reddit data, anonymously.
• ✅ Up to 500 posts per subreddit or query, past the usual 100-result ceiling.
• ✅ Post engagement metrics on every run: score, upvoteRatio, numComments, flair and awards always come back. Per-comment score, depth, created, isSubmitter and parentId are included by default on most runs. See Engagement metrics for exactly when.
• ✅ Nested comment threads, with each comment's parent so you can rebuild the discussion.
• ✅ Organic results only. Promoted and sponsored posts never arrive as results.
• ✅ Same results wherever the run executes. Text comes back in English and the posts and their order do not change with the run's location. Verified on September 2, 2026 against the same subreddit collected from Mexico and from the United States: identical posts, identical order.
• ✅ AI-ready JSON. Straight into an embedding pipeline, a RAG system or a sentiment model.
• ✅ Lead generation fields on every post. author, subreddit, url (the permalink to the thread), flair and created tell you who asked, where they asked, the exact thread to reply in and how recent the request is, so a prospect list comes straight out of the dataset.
• ✅ JSON, CSV, Excel (XLSX), or the Apify Dataset API.
• ✅ Unknown is never reported as zero. Anything Reddit does not publish comes back as null, never 0, so a filter or a sort on score cannot mistake a missing value for a real one.
• ✅ An incomplete run says so. If a run is cut short, every result it delivered carries isPartialResult: true, the run ends flagged rather than reported as a success, and the log names what is missing.

📊 Engagement metrics

Post score, upvoteRatio and numComments always come back. The per-comment numbers are included automatically whenever they are worth the extra wait. You do not have to set anything.

What you ask for	Post metrics	Comment metrics
Posts only (includeComments: false)	✅ always included	(no comments requested)
Posts plus up to 25 comments each	✅ always included	✅ included
Posts plus more than 25 comments each	✅ always included	not included, ask for them with useRichData: true
useRichData: true	✅ always included	✅ always included
useRichData: false	✅ always included	never included, the run finishes sooner

Post metrics (score, upvoteRatio, numComments, flair, awards, postLanguage and subredditWeeklyActiveUsers) come back on every run, whatever useRichData is set to.

When comment metrics are included, comments carry score, depth, created, isSubmitter and parentId, and you can ask for up to 1000 comments per post instead of 100.

When comment metrics are not included, you get every other field exactly as always, with those per-comment ones null.

Reliability. The metrics arrive on every run that includes them, per the table above. Between September 17 and September 18, 2026 they came back null on runs that should have carried them; that cause has been fixed and verified, and the metrics are arriving normally again.

null is the exception, not the normal path. If the metrics still cannot be collected on some run, you keep every post and comment you asked for, with those fields null and a line in the log saying so. It never costs you results you would otherwise have had, and comments that arrive without their metrics are never billed.

What this costs. From September 17, 2026, a comment that arrives with its metrics costs $0.70 per 1,000 comments. A comment that arrives without them is free, so the rows above that say "not included" cost exactly what they cost today. If a run starts with the metrics and loses them halfway, only the comments that actually carried them are billed, and the run log gives you the count both ways.

Some fields come back null either way, because Reddit does not publish them at all: subredditSubscribers, isNSFW, isSpoiler, isPinned, numCrossposts and controversiality.

📤 Output fields

Every Reddit post comes back with 29 normalized fields covering text, media, engagement, flairs, subreddit metadata and timestamps. When you ask for comments, each post also carries its comment thread as structured JSON.

Post fields (29)

Field	Description
id	Reddit post ID (e.g. t3_1s6e3dp)
subreddit	Subreddit name (e.g. technology)
title	Post title
author	Reddit username of the post author
score	Net upvotes. ✅ with engagement metrics
upvoteRatio	Share of votes that were upvotes. ✅ with engagement metrics
numComments	Total comments on the post. ✅ with engagement metrics
url	Reddit permalink to the post
selftext	Post body for text posts (up to 5,000 chars)
thumbnail	Thumbnail preview URL
imageUrls	All image URLs from galleries and image posts
media	Video URL + duration, or image URL
created	Post creation time (ISO 8601)
edited	Last edit timestamp, or false
isVideo	Video post flag
isSelf	Text post (true) vs link post (false)
isGallery	Multi-image gallery post
domain	Source domain (e.g. youtube.com, self.technology)
linkUrl	External URL for link posts
flair	Post flair. ✅ with engagement metrics
awards	Awards on the post. ✅ with engagement metrics
postLanguage	Language Reddit assigns to the post. ✅ with engagement metrics
subredditWeeklyActiveUsers	Reddit's own community-size number. ✅ with engagement metrics. It is not a subscriber count and must not be read as one
isNSFW	⚠️ Always null. Reddit does not publish it
isSpoiler	⚠️ Always null. Reddit does not publish it
isPinned	⚠️ Always null. Reddit does not publish it
numCrossposts	⚠️ Always null. Reddit does not publish it
subredditSubscribers	⚠️ Always null. Reddit does not publish it (see the FAQ)
postType	Classification: text, link, video, image, gallery
scrapedAt	Scraping timestamp (ISO 8601)
comments	Array of comments (when you ask for them)

Comment fields (10)

Field	Description
id	Comment ID
author	Commenter Reddit username
body	Comment text (up to 2,000 chars)
score	Net upvotes on the comment. ✅ with engagement metrics
created	Comment time, ISO 8601. ✅ with engagement metrics
depth	Position in the thread, 0 for top level. ✅ with engagement metrics
isSubmitter	Whether the commenter is the post author. ✅ with engagement metrics
parentId	The comment this one replies to. ✅ with engagement metrics
controversiality	⚠️ Always null. Reddit does not publish it
replies	Number of direct replies

🎯 Use cases

1. AI & LLM training data

Reddit posts and comments are a gold mine for training conversational AI, instruction-tuning LLMs and building RAG systems. You get clean JSON that drops straight into your embedding pipeline. Use searchQuery to narrow it to your domain (medical, legal, finance).

2. Sentiment analysis & brand monitoring

Collect Reddit posts and comments mentioning your brand, product or competitors, feed them into VADER, RoBERTa or an LLM, and track sentiment over time. You get full discussion threads, not isolated quotes.

3. Lead generation

Find people asking for what your product solves, and reach them in the thread where they asked. Monitor the subreddits where buyers ask for recommendations (r/smallbusiness, r/sysadmin, r/marketing), or search all of Reddit with searchQuery: "best CRM for small business" and sort: top, timeFilter: month to catch the month's most visible requests.

Every post comes back with author, subreddit, url (the permalink), flair and created, which is everything a prospect list needs: who asked, where, the exact thread to reply in, and how recent the request is. Turn on comments and you also collect the people who replied asking the same thing, each with their own author. Export to CSV or Excel for a sales team that does not write code, or push the rows into your CRM with Apify Webhooks. An LLM can triage them first and keep only the posts that describe real buying intent.

4. Market research

Monitor entire subreddits (r/smallbusiness, r/saas, r/entrepreneur) for trending topics, pain points and recurring questions, segmented by engagement and recency.

5. Academic research

Reproducible, timestamped Reddit data for computational social science, public health monitoring and linguistic analysis, without the Reddit API's OAuth flow.

6. Content discovery & trend spotting

Surface emerging topics before they hit mainstream media. Sort by rising or top/day to catch conversations at the right moment.

7. Competitor intelligence

Pull discussions about competitor products to extract feature requests, complaints and comparison threads, ranked by the engagement they actually got. Hand the threads to an LLM to cluster the complaints into themes, and keep the author and permalink of the loudest ones: someone unhappy with a competitor is already a qualified lead.

🚀 How to use

Example 1. Hot posts from multiple subreddits

{
    "subreddits": ["technology", "programming", "webdev"],
    "maxPosts": 50,
    "sort": "hot"
}

maxPosts applies per subreddit, so this returns up to 150 Reddit posts across the 3 subreddits, with engagement metrics included.

Example 2. Search across all of Reddit (lead generation)

{
    "searchQuery": "best CRM for small business",
    "maxPosts": 100,
    "sort": "top",
    "timeFilter": "month"
}

The month's top posts matching your query, from anywhere on Reddit. This is the shape of a lead generation run: everyone who asked for a CRM this month, each row carrying the author who asked and the permalink to the thread you would reply in.

Example 3. Posts with nested comments

{
    "subreddits": ["AskReddit"],
    "maxPosts": 25,
    "sort": "top",
    "timeFilter": "week",
    "includeComments": true,
    "maxCommentsPerPost": 20
}

25 top posts from r/AskReddit this week, each with up to 20 nested comments, engagement metrics included on both the posts and the comments.

Example 4. Full comment threads (AI and RAG pipelines)

{
    "subreddits": ["AskReddit"],
    "maxPosts": 10,
    "includeComments": true,
    "maxCommentsPerPost": 500,
    "useRichData": true
}

Up to 500 comments per post, with every comment's score and position in the thread. This is the richest shape for an AI pipeline: whole discussions instead of isolated quotes, with parentId and depth to rebuild each thread before you chunk and embed it.

Example 5. From Python (AI and LLM datasets)

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")

run_input = {
    "subreddits": ["MachineLearning", "LocalLLaMA"],
    "maxPosts": 200,
    "sort": "top",
    "timeFilter": "week",
    "includeComments": True,
    "maxCommentsPerPost": 25,
}

run = client.actor("makework36/reddit-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["title"], "·", item["score"], "·", item["created"])

Example 6. From Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>' });

const run = await client.actor('makework36/reddit-scraper').call({
    searchQuery: 'apify reddit scraper',
    maxPosts: 50,
    sort: 'top',
    timeFilter: 'all',
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(`Got ${items.length} Reddit posts`);

Example 7. From cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/makework36~reddit-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "subreddits": ["news"],
    "maxPosts": 10,
    "sort": "new"
  }'

📥 Input

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
subreddits	array	[]	Subreddit names, no r/ prefix
searchQuery	string	(none)	Search Reddit globally for this term
maxPosts	integer	50	Max posts per subreddit (1-500)
sort	string	hot	hot, new, top, rising
timeFilter	string	day	Time range for top: hour, day, week, month, year, all
includeComments	boolean	false	Return comments for each post
maxCommentsPerPost	integer	100	Comments per post. Up to 1000 with engagement metrics on, up to 100 without
useRichData	boolean	automatic	Leave it alone for the automatic behaviour in the table above. Controls comment metrics only, post metrics always arrive. true for comment metrics on every run, false to skip them
proxyConfiguration	object	(optional)	Optional. Leave it empty and the Actor uses its own, at no proxy cost to you

About proxyConfiguration

You do not need to set it. Everything above works out of the box, at no proxy cost to you.

Set it only if you would rather the run left through an exit IP you control, for example to keep your traffic isolated or to satisfy an internal policy. Yours then takes precedence, and the run log states which one was used. If you do supply your own, it has to be a residential or ISP proxy, and the log tells you plainly when it is not, rather than quietly returning null fields.

📋 Output example

Each item in the dataset is one Reddit post. When includeComments: true, each post carries a comments array.

Real output from a run on September 2, 2026 (subreddits: ["Drizzy"], sort: "top", timeFilter: "day", includeComments: true):

{
    "id": "t3_1w4ne7e",
    "subreddit": "Drizzy",
    "title": "Combination.",
    "author": "Viola-Intermediate",
    "score": 245,
    "upvoteRatio": 0.9919678714859438,
    "numComments": 14,
    "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/Drizzy/comments/1w4ne7e/combination/",
    "postLanguage": "en",
    "subredditWeeklyActiveUsers": 292024,
    "subredditSubscribers": null,
    "postType": "image",
    "totalCommentsScraped": 13,
    "comments": [
        {
            "id": "t1_p78xz7j",
            "author": "Snoo-10056",
            "body": "siri, what's the definition of aura?",
            "score": 36,
            "created": "2026-09-01T20:20:02.512000+0000",
            "depth": 0,
            "isSubmitter": false,
            "parentId": null,
            "replies": 1
        },
        {
            "id": "t1_p79g9jh",
            "author": "xnjr1x",
            "body": "🗣\"something you can't fake.\"",
            "score": 14,
            "created": "2026-09-01T21:49:32.861000+0000",
            "depth": 1,
            "isSubmitter": false,
            "parentId": "t1_p78xz7j",
            "replies": 0
        }
    ]
}

A gallery post

{
    "id": "t3_1s6gkmj",
    "subreddit": "pics",
    "title": "About 100,000 attended the No Kings protest in St. Paul, Minnesota",
    "author": "katotooo",
    "score": 48213,
    "upvoteRatio": 0.94,
    "numComments": 1204,
    "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1s6gkmj/about_100000_attended_the_no_kings_protest/",
    "selftext": null,
    "thumbnail": "https://preview.redd.it/oy94fh2hnvrg1.jpg?width=140&height=93",
    "imageUrls": [
        "https://preview.redd.it/oy94fh2hnvrg1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg",
        "https://preview.redd.it/9pmbe5aqnvrg1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg"
    ],
    "media": null,
    "created": "2026-03-29T00:21:20.000Z",
    "edited": false,
    "isVideo": false,
    "isSelf": false,
    "isGallery": true,
    "domain": "reddit.com",
    "linkUrl": "https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1s6gkmj",
    "postType": "gallery",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-03-29T08:05:31.904Z"
}

A video post

{
    "id": "t3_ghi789",
    "subreddit": "nextfuckinglevel",
    "title": "Robot parkour demo from Boston Dynamics",
    "score": 31877,
    "upvoteRatio": 0.97,
    "media": {"videoUrl": "https://v.redd.it/....mp4", "duration": 47},
    "postType": "video"
}

⚡ Performance

What a run costs

$1.50 per 1,000 posts. A result is one Reddit post, with its comment thread attached.

$0.70 per 1,000 comments that carry engagement metrics, from September 17, 2026. A comment is billed only when it arrives with its score, depth, created, isSubmitter and parentId filled in. Comments that arrive without those fields cost nothing, today and after that date. Most Reddit scrapers bill every comment as a full result at around $3 per 1,000, so this stays about 4x cheaper.

No Reddit API subscription, no proxy add-ons, no hidden fees.

Scenario	Posts	Comments with metrics	Cost	Typical runtime
1,000 posts, no comments	$1.50	none	$1.50	~5-10 min
3 subreddits × 50 posts, no comments	$0.23	none	$0.23	~1-2 min
500 posts + 100 comments each (default)	$0.75	none	$0.75	~20-35 min
1,000 posts + 25 comments each (default)	$1.50	25,000	$19.00	~15-25 min
500 posts + 100 comments each, useRichData: true	$0.75	50,000	$35.75	~20-35 min

The third row is not a mistake: above 25 comments per post the metrics are off unless you ask for them, so those 50,000 comments arrive free. The table in Engagement metrics says exactly which runs include the metrics and which do not.

Run timeout

A run has a time budget, and the work is sequential: 100 posts with their comment threads need about 357 seconds of actual work. The old default of 300 seconds left about 297 usable seconds, so those runs were cut short and you got a partial dataset.

Since September 18, 2026 the default timeout is 1200 seconds (20 minutes). A 100 post run with comments now finishes inside the default, and nothing has to be configured to get that.

For the larger scenarios in the table above (500 to 1,000 posts with their comments, 20 to 35 minutes of runtime), raise the timeout in the run options before you start. A run that still runs out of time never reports success: every item carries isPartialResult: true, the posts missing their comments carry commentsIncomplete: true, and the log names what is missing.

Tips to spend less:

• Set includeComments: false when you only need the posts.
• Set useRichData: false when you want the comment text but not the per-comment metrics. The comments still arrive; they just cost nothing.
• Use a tight timeFilter (day or week) instead of all.
• Ask for the number of comments you will actually read. 10-25 per post captures most of the signal.
• Store the post IDs you already have and skip them on the next run.
• Schedule hourly instead of polling every few minutes. Reddit's new listing does not change fast enough to justify it.

❓ FAQ

Does this need a Reddit API key? No. No API key, no OAuth, no login, no app registration.

Do I get upvote counts? Yes, on every run, without setting anything. Post score and upvoteRatio always come back. Per-comment scores are the part that depends on useRichData, see Engagement metrics for exactly when.

Why is subredditSubscribers null? Because the number Reddit publishes there is not the subscriber count. Measured on September 2, 2026: 292,024 for r/Drizzy, which is plausible, and 3,599,935 for r/explainlikeimfive, a subreddit with more than 20 million subscribers. Calling it a subscriber count would be wrong, so you get it as subredditWeeklyActiveUsers instead, with no claim about what else it might mean.

How is this different from the official Reddit API? The Reddit API caps you at 60 requests a minute and 10 posts per listing page, and requires OAuth. Here there are no such limits, search and comment threads come out of the box, and you get JSON, CSV or Excel.

What does maxPosts mean? Per subreddit, not global. 3 subreddits × 50 maxPosts = up to 150 posts.

How deep do comments go? Up to 3 levels: top level (depth 0), replies (depth 1), replies to replies (depth 2). Every comment carries its parentId so you can rebuild the thread.

How many comments can I get per post? Up to 1000 when engagement metrics are on, up to 100 when they are not.

Can I scrape NSFW subreddits? Yes, but results may include adult content.

Is this legal? Collecting public Reddit data for research, journalism and business intelligence is generally allowed under fair-use principles. Consult your legal team for your case and review Reddit's User Agreement.

Can I use this for lead generation? Yes. Every post carries author, subreddit, url (the permalink) and created, so you can filter for people asking for what you sell and answer them in the thread where they asked. Export the list as CSV or Excel for a sales team, or push it into your CRM with Apify Webhooks. Reddit is a public forum, so reply in the thread and follow each subreddit's self-promotion rules.

Can I feed this into an LLM or a RAG pipeline? Yes, that is what the output is shaped for. You get normalized JSON, 29 fields per post and 10 per comment, with the thread structure preserved through parentId and depth, so you can embed whole discussions instead of isolated quotes. The text stops where the author's text stops, with no boilerplate footer to strip before chunking.

Can I schedule recurring runs? Yes. Use Apify's Scheduler hourly, daily or weekly, and Apify Webhooks to push new data into your own database.

📊 Comparison

Feature	This Reddit Scraper	Official Reddit API	Reddit PRAW library	Generic web scrapers
Reddit API key required	❌ No	✅ Yes (OAuth)	✅ Yes (OAuth)	❌ No
Rate limit	None	60 req/min	60 req/min	Varies
Comment threads	✅ Nested up to depth 3	✅ Full tree	✅ Full tree	❌ Usually not
Upvotes and engagement	✅ Yes	✅ Yes	✅ Yes	❌ Usually not
Search across Reddit	✅ Yes	✅ Yes	✅ Yes	❌ Manual
Multiple subreddits per run	✅ Yes	❌ One at a time	❌ One at a time	❌ Manual
Export to JSON / CSV / Excel	✅ All three	❌ JSON only	❌ Python objects	Varies
Maintenance burden	Apify handles it	You handle OAuth + retries	You handle OAuth + retries	You handle everything
Setup time	<1 minute	30-60 minutes	15 minutes	Hours or days

Use this when:

• You need Reddit data now, without setting up OAuth.
• You want structured JSON without writing parsers.
• You are feeding Reddit data into an AI or LLM pipeline.
• You are prospecting for leads and need the author, the subreddit and the permalink behind every post.
• You need several subreddits in one run.
• You need CSV or Excel for people who do not write code.

Use the official Reddit API instead when:

• You are building a bot that posts, votes or messages.
• You need real-time events.
• You are fine with 60 requests a minute and an OAuth setup.

📝 Changelog

• 3.1.18 (September 18, 2026)
  • The default run timeout is now 1200 seconds, raised from 300. A run of 100 posts with their comment threads needs about 357 seconds of sequential work, which did not fit in the old default, so those runs were cut short and delivered a partial dataset. They now finish inside the default, with nothing to configure. See Performance.
  • Fixed: engagement metrics arrive reliably again. Between September 17 and September 18, 2026, score, upvoteRatio and numComments came back null on runs that should have carried them. The cause is fixed and verified. The automatic ceiling of 25 comments per post is unchanged: above it, ask for the metrics with useRichData: true.
• 3.1 (September 2, 2026)
  • Engagement metrics now come included on most runs. score, upvoteRatio, numComments, flair, awards and the per-comment numbers arrive without setting anything, whenever you ask for posts only or for up to 25 comments per post. Above that, ask for them with useRichData: true. Set useRichData: false to skip them and finish sooner. See Engagement metrics.
  • Up to 1000 comments per post when engagement metrics are on, instead of 100.
  • Fixed: post and comment text no longer ends with a trailing footer. Earlier versions appended a fixed boilerplate string and a stray   to the end of every selftext and every comment body. Text now stops where the author's text stops.
  • Fixed: a run that ran out of time no longer reports success. Results that were cut short carry isPartialResult: true and the posts still missing their comments carry commentsIncomplete: true, so a truncated dataset cannot be mistaken for a complete one.
  • Fixed: runs use the timeout you set. Before 3.1, a longer run was cut at 10 minutes whatever timeout was configured. See 3.1.18 for the current default.
  • Fixed: a comment fetch that failed is no longer indistinguishable from a post with no comments. Those posts now carry commentsFetchFailed: true.
  • Added: promoted posts are excluded, so sponsored content never arrives as a result.
  • Added: subredditWeeklyActiveUsers, reported under its own name rather than as a subscriber count, because it is not one.
• 3.0 (September 1, 2026) Rebuilt after Reddit changed what it publishes. Affected fields became null rather than 0.
• 1.0 Initial public release. 29 post fields, 10 comment fields, search and subreddit modes, nested comment threads, JSON/CSV/Excel export.