Reddit Scraper API - Posts, Comments, Search & Monitoring

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Extract public Reddit posts, subreddit listings, global search results, self-post text, engagement, media, and nested comments through Reddit's anonymous read-only OAuth API. No browser, Reddit login, cookies, user-supplied API key, or proxy.

Why this Actor

• Low-cost anonymous OAuth — structured JSON at 256 MB, with no stealth-browser startup fee or residential transfer.
• 100 posts per page — paginate automatically to 1,000 posts per query.
• Three query modes in one field — global search, subreddit listings, and search within a subreddit.
• Full public post bodies — self-post text, media, flair, awards, crossposts, and moderation flags arrive in the structured response.
• Comments included in the post price — embed up to 100 top or nested comments without paying per comment row.
• Persistent new-post monitoring — the first run creates a baseline; later complete runs return only unseen post IDs.
• Zero unchanged result charges — a scheduled monitor with no new posts writes no dataset rows.
• No duplicate billing — overlapping queries, URLs, and subreddit pages are deduplicated by Reddit post ID across the run.

Query patterns

Input	Behavior
AI agents	Search all public Reddit posts
r/programming	Browse a public subreddit using the selected sort
r/programming: Python 3.14	Search within one subreddit
startUrls	Paginate an existing Reddit listing/search page or fetch a post URL
postUrls	Fetch exact public posts and optionally their comments

Basic subreddit run

{
  "queries": ["r/programming", "r/python"],
  "sort": "new",
  "maxResults": 100
}

Global and subreddit-specific research

{
  "queries": [
    "AI coding agents",
    "r/SaaS: customer support automation"
  ],
  "sort": "relevance",
  "timeFilter": "month",
  "maxResults": 250,
  "minScore": 5
}

Scheduled new-post monitoring

{
  "queries": ["r/devops: alternative to", "r/sysadmin: recommend"],
  "sort": "new",
  "skipPinnedPosts": true,
  "maxResults": 50,
  "includeComments": true,
  "maxCommentsPerPost": 20,
  "monitorMode": "new-posts",
  "monitorStoreName": "infrastructure-buyer-signals"
}

Save that input as an Apify Task and attach a Schedule. The first successful run emits the current baseline with changeType: "baseline". Later successful runs using the same monitor name emit only unseen IDs with changeType: "new_post". The Actor commits state after publishing rows, providing at-least-once delivery. It refuses to advance state if any configured target is incomplete.

Use one monitorStoreName per independent watch and do not overlap runs that share it. Changing a query, sort, filter, or result depth changes the cohort; use a new monitor name. newerThan remains available for one-off timestamp-filtered exports but is not needed for persistent monitoring.

Post and comment extraction

{
  "postUrls": [
    "https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/POST_ID/example/"
  ],
  "includeComments": true,
  "maxCommentsPerPost": 50,
  "maxCommentDepth": 3
}

Output fields

Every post row includes:

• identity: id, title, url, permalink, sourceQuery
• author/community: author, subreddit, flair
• content: selftext, post_hint, domain, mediaUrl, thumbnail, gallery_images
• engagement: score, upvoteRatio, numComments, gildingCount
• flags: isNSFW, is_spoiler, is_stickied, is_self, is_video, is_crosspost, is_locked, is_archived
• timestamps: created, scrapedAt
• monitoring: changeType, firstSeenAt when monitorMode is new-posts
• optional comments: topComments[] with id, parentId, author, body, score, depth, created, and permalink

Example result

{
  "id": "1uxtv30",
  "title": "New Python type checker",
  "author": "TheSeriousTrader",
  "subreddit": "Python",
  "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/1uxtv30/new_python_type_checker/",
  "permalink": "https://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/1uxtv30/new_python_type_checker/",
  "selftext": "Was checking out some Python type checkers...",
  "score": 42,
  "upvoteRatio": 0.88,
  "numComments": 16,
  "created": "2026-07-16T05:39:00+00:00",
  "flair": "Discussion",
  "is_self": true,
  "topComments": []
}

Live pricing

You pay only for unique post rows written to the dataset. Empty searches, duplicates, failed requests, and comments embedded inside a post row do not create additional result charges.

Apify tier	Price per 1,000 posts
FREE	$1.00
BRONZE	$0.80
SILVER	$0.60
GOLD	$0.40

There is no browser-start or proxy fee. The Pricing tab is the authoritative live price.

Reliability and responsible use

• The Actor collects public Reddit content only. Private, banned, quarantined, removed, or login-only content is unavailable.
• Requests are globally rate-limited with bounded retries for 429, authorization refreshes, timeouts, and transient network failures.
• Persistent monitors keep at most 50,000 post identities. The oldest identities can eventually age out of extremely high-volume watches.
• Monitoring visits every configured target but buffers at most 2,000 current post observations before diffing. With large watchlists, the Actor lowers maxResults evenly per listing; split broader cohorts into separate Tasks.
• Monitoring state updates only after every configured target completes. A failed page or deadline guard fails closed instead of corrupting the baseline.
• Reddit scores and comment counts can change between requests and may be hidden for very new posts.
• Comment-enabled listing runs are capped at 100 posts total across all queries; exact postUrls reuse their detail response and remain separate.
• Comments come from Reddit's initial public comment tree; hidden “load more comments” branches are not expanded.
• Search relevance and geographic availability are controlled by Reddit.

Workflows and guides

• Scrape Reddit for community research
• Monitor subreddits for B2B buyer signals
• Track Reddit discourse on product launches

Pairs well with Twitter/X Scraper, Google News Scraper, and YouTube Scraper for cross-channel listening.

Last verified: 2026-07