Reddit Scraper API: Posts & Comment Threads

Search Reddit by keyword, restrict results to the communities you care about, and optionally pull each post's comment thread with reply nesting preserved.

Built for market research, lead generation, competitor monitoring and content analysis.

---

What it does

• Keyword search across Reddit — 25 posts per page, with cursor-based paging
• Subreddit scoping — restrict to one or many communities
• Five sort orders — relevance, hot, top score, most recent, most commented
• Time filtering — hour through to all-time
• Comment threads — up to 300 comments per post, nested replies preserved, with depth and, where reported, the parent for every comment
• Honest empty results — a query that matches nothing returns nothing, rather than padding with irrelevant posts

What it does not do

Stated plainly so there are no surprises after you have paid for a run.

Not supported	Notes
Searching inside comments	Comments are retrieved per post, after that post has been found by a post search
Scraping a specific post by URL	Posts are reached through search only
User profiles or user history	Not available
Private, quarantined or deleted content	Returned as unavailable
Media file downloads	Image and video URLs are returned; files are not fetched
Live monitoring or streaming	Each run is a point-in-time snapshot. Use Apify Schedules for recurring runs

---

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
query	string	—	Keywords to search for. Optional if subreddits is set, but one of the two is required
subreddits	array	[]	Community names without the r/ prefix, e.g. ["startups", "SaaS"]. Empty searches all of Reddit
sort	enum	relevance	relevance, hot, top, new, comments
timeFilter	enum	all	hour, day, week, month, year, all. Applies only to top and comments sort orders — see Limits
maxPosts	integer	100	Upper bound on posts returned. Max 1000
includeComments	boolean	false	Retrieve comment threads. Charged separately
maxPostsToComment	integer	25	How many of the returned posts get their comments retrieved. Max 500
maxCommentsPerPost	integer	100	Comments per post, including nested replies. Max 300

Example input

{
  "query": "project management software",
  "subreddits": ["startups", "SaaS"],
  "sort": "relevance",
  "timeFilter": "all",
  "maxPosts": 100,
  "includeComments": true,
  "maxPostsToComment": 25,
  "maxCommentsPerPost": 100
}

---

Output

One record per post. Every record has the same shape — comment fields are always present, even when comments were not requested.

Field	Type	Description
id	string	Reddit fullname, including the type prefix, e.g. t3_1ps7lis
title	string	Post title
subreddit	string | null	Community name, without r/. null when the community is not returned with the post
subredditSubscribers	number | null	Community size at time of retrieval
author	string | null	Username. null when the account is deleted
score	number	Net upvotes
upvoteRatio	number | null	Proportion of votes that are upvotes, 0–1
numComments	number	Reddit's own comment count. Includes deleted comments, so it is usually higher than commentsRetrieved
postedAt	string	ISO 8601 UTC
selfText	string | null	Post body. null for link and media posts
postType	enum	text, link, image, video
thumbnailUrl	string | null	Preview image
isNsfw	boolean	Marked over-18
isSpoiler	boolean	Marked spoiler
url	string	The Reddit thread — use this to reach the discussion
contentUrl	string | null	The outbound link for link and media posts. null for text posts
comments	array	Comment objects, flattened in thread order. Empty unless requested
commentsRetrieved	number	How many comments this record contains
commentsRemaining	boolean	true if further comments exist that were not retrieved
commentsStatus	enum	retrieved, skipped_no_comments, skipped_limit, not_requested, unavailable

Comment object

Field	Type	Description
id	string	Comment fullname, e.g. t1_fl28mc9
author	string | null	Username, null when deleted
text	string	Comment body
score	number	Net upvotes
postedAt	string	ISO 8601 UTC
depth	number	0 is top level, 1 is a reply, 2 a reply to a reply, and so on
parentId	string | null	The post or comment this replies to. null when the source data does not include a parent reference
replyCount	number	Direct replies, including any not retrieved

Example output

{
  "id": "t3_1ps7lis",
  "title": "best project management software 2026 for small teams",
  "subreddit": "SaaS",
  "subredditSubscribers": 412883,
  "author": "Old_Mention_4851",
  "score": 17,
  "upvoteRatio": 0.89,
  "numComments": 52,
  "postedAt": "2025-12-21T14:20:48Z",
  "selfText": "i'm 29 and managing a small remote team at a startup...",
  "postType": "text",
  "thumbnailUrl": null,
  "isNsfw": false,
  "isSpoiler": false,
  "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/1ps7lis/best_project_management_software/",
  "contentUrl": null,
  "comments": [
    {
      "id": "t1_n2k4xqa",
      "author": "YamNo178",
      "text": "Linear is solid but for small teams I'd go with Notion first.",
      "score": 3,
      "postedAt": "2025-12-21T16:02:11Z",
      "depth": 0,
      "parentId": "t3_1ps7lis",
      "replyCount": 2
    }
  ],
  "commentsRetrieved": 22,
  "commentsRemaining": true,
  "commentsStatus": "retrieved"
}

---

Pricing

Charged per result, plus a small fixed fee when a run starts.

Event	Price
Run start	$0.005 per run
Post	$1.49 per 1,000 posts
Comment	$0.99 per 1,000 comments

Worked examples

Spot check — 100 posts, no comments 100 × $0.00149 + $0.005 = $0.154

Research pull — 100 posts with comments, with maxPostsToComment raised to 100 (≈50 comments each, ≈5,000 comments) 100 × $0.00149 + 5,000 × $0.00099 + $0.005 = $5.10

Bulk — 1,000 posts, no comments 1,000 × $0.00149 + $0.005 = $1.50

Set Maximum cost per run in the run options to cap spend. The Actor stops cleanly at that ceiling and returns everything collected and charged for up to that point.

---

Limits

Worth reading before your first run.

The time window is ignored on three of the five sort orders. Reddit applies it only to top and comments. Choose relevance, hot or new and any time window other than all is dropped — the run log tells you when this happens.

Large threads are not returned in full. A post with 13,000 comments returns roughly 100 by default, or up to 300 with maxCommentsPerPost raised. commentsRemaining tells you when more exist.

numComments will exceed commentsRetrieved. Reddit's counter includes deleted and moderator-removed comments that no longer render. A post reporting 52 comments may legitimately return 22.

Posts are retrieved in pages of 25. Setting maxPosts to 30 makes two page requests.

One post per record. Comments are nested inside their post rather than being separate records.

---

Tips

• Scope to subreddits for signal. An unscoped search for "project management" returns results from 17 unrelated communities. Naming two or three relevant subreddits removes almost all of that noise.
• Leave comments off for discovery. Find the posts first, then re-run with includeComments on a narrower maxPosts for the ones worth reading.
• Use top + a time window for research, new for recency. Do not combine new with a time window — it has no effect.
• url is the thread; contentUrl is the outbound link. For an image post, url is the Reddit discussion and contentUrl is the image itself.

---

Support

Report a problem through the Issues tab on this Actor's page. Issues are acknowledged within two business days.

When reporting, please include the run ID, the input you used, and what you expected.