Reddit Archive Scraper - Posts & Comments ($0.75/1K)

Export archived Reddit posts and comments from public subreddits or user profiles without a Reddit API key, OAuth app, cookies, login, or proxy setup.

This Actor is built for historical Reddit backfills: research datasets, AI/RAG ingestion, SEO topic mining, brand monitoring inside known communities, user history exports, and scheduled incremental jobs. It uses the Arctic Shift Photon Reddit API, paginates by UTC timestamps, splits large date windows automatically, retries transient failures, and removes duplicates within each run.

Why use it

• Archive depth beyond Reddit listing limits: collect historical posts and comments instead of stopping at the usual recent listing window.
• Cheaper than broad Reddit scrapers: $0.75 per 1,000 posts or comments, with no proxy charge by default.
• No Reddit setup: no Reddit API key, no OAuth application, no cookies, no login.
• Fast HTTP collection: no browser runtime; requests go directly to the archive backend.
• Date-bounded exports: use UTC startDate and endDate for precise research windows or incremental monitoring.
• Posts and comments together: select posts, comments, or both in one run.
• Clean preview plus raw source data: simple fields for CSV/JSON/Excel plus the original archive row in rawData.
• Resumable jobs: checkpoints are saved to the key-value store for long or recurring backfills.

Best for

• Historical subreddit exports, such as every r/wallstreetbets post during a market event.
• Public Reddit user history exports for posts and comments.
• AI/RAG datasets where you need dated Reddit discussion text.
• SEO research from old questions, selftext, and discussion URLs.
• Brand or competitor monitoring inside known communities.
• Recurring jobs that pull only new rows since the last checkpoint.

Pricing

$0.75 per 1,000 Reddit posts or comments with Apify pay-per-event pricing.

One result is one post or one comment written to the default dataset. Failed requests, skipped empty windows, duplicate records, metadata calls, and dry runs do not produce billable result rows.

Volume	Actor charge
1,000 rows	$0.75
10,000 rows	$7.50
100,000 rows	$75.00
1,000,000 rows	$750.00

No Reddit API key, no login, and no proxy charge by default. Apify platform charges may still apply depending on your plan.

Comparison

Capability	This Actor	Broad live Reddit scrapers	PRAW / official API	Pushshift-style archives
Historical subreddit backfills	Strong	Limited by live listing depth	Usually limited	Varies
Public user post/comment history	Yes	Usually yes	Limited and API-gated	Varies
UTC date windows	Purpose-built	Basic or inconsistent	Requires custom code	Usually yes
No Reddit API key	Yes	Usually yes	No	Usually yes
No login/cookies	Yes	Usually yes	No OAuth required after setup, but app setup required	Usually yes
No proxy by default	Yes	Often no	Yes	Yes
Direct Reddit post URLs	No	Yes	Yes	Usually no
Global keyword search	No	Yes	Yes, with limits	Varies
Community/user metadata	Metadata saved separately	Usually first-class	Yes	Varies
Raw source payload	Yes, rawData	Usually no	Yes, if coded	Usually yes
Starting price	$0.75 / 1K rows	Often $1.20-$3.40+ / 1K rows	Free but engineering-heavy	Varies

Use a broad live scraper when you need arbitrary Reddit URLs, live search pages, subreddit metadata rows, or a single live post thread. Use this Actor when you need cheap, repeatable, date-bounded archive exports for known subreddits or users.

Input

Minimum input:

{
  "targets": ["r/Python"]
}

Quick test run:

{
  "targets": ["r/Python"],
  "datasets": ["posts"],
  "startDate": "2024-01-01",
  "endDate": "2024-01-01",
  "maxItemsPerKind": 1,
  "limit": "5"
}

Common backfill run:

{
  "targets": ["r/solotravel", "u/spez"],
  "datasets": ["posts", "comments"],
  "startDate": "2024-01-01",
  "endDate": "now",
  "maxItemsPerKind": 1000
}

Daily incremental monitoring:

{
  "targets": ["r/SaaS", "r/startups"],
  "datasets": ["posts", "comments"],
  "startDate": "2026-08-01",
  "endDate": "now",
  "resumeFromState": true,
  "maxItemsPerKind": 5000
}

startDate and endDate are interpreted as UTC. A YYYY-MM-DD end date is exclusive of the next UTC day, so "endDate": "2024-01-01" means before 2024-01-02T00:00:00Z.

Input fields

Field	Type	Default	Description
targets	string[]	Required	Reddit targets in r/name or u/name form.
datasets	string[]	["posts"] in schema prefill	Choose posts, comments, or both.
startDate	string	2024-01-01	UTC lower bound. Supports YYYY-MM-DD, ISO datetime, epoch seconds, epoch milliseconds, none, or all.
endDate	string	2024-01-01	UTC upper bound. Use now for current time.
maxItemsPerKind	integer	1	Optional cap for newly pushed rows per selected dataset and target.
maxPagesPerKind	integer	Empty	Optional cap for fetched non-empty API pages per selected dataset and target.
limit	string	5	Arctic Shift API limit parameter. Increase for large exports.
windowDays	number	1	Maximum time span per API request. Use 0 to disable windowing.
requestDelayMs	integer	0	Delay between successful non-empty page requests.
timeoutSeconds	number	60	HTTP timeout for each archive request.
retries	integer	3	Retries for transient HTTP or network failures.
skipMetadata	boolean	false	Skip subreddit/user metadata lookup.
dryRun	boolean	false	Build request URLs and summaries without fetching rows or charging result events.
resumeFromState	boolean	true	Continue from saved checkpoint records when present.
baseUrl	string	Arctic Shift API	Advanced override for the archive API base URL.

Output

Rows are pushed to the default dataset with a small Actor envelope and the original Arctic Shift row in rawData.

{
  "createdAt": "2023-11-14T22:13:20Z",
  "author": "AutoModerator",
  "title": "Monday Daily Thread: Project ideas!",
  "link_flair_text": "Daily Thread",
  "description": "Post selftext for posts, or comment body for comments.",
  "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/solotravel/comments/example/title/",
  "kind": "post",
  "redditId": "example",
  "rawData": {}
}

The default Output tab shows createdAt, author, title, link_flair_text, description, and url first. Use the Debug view or JSON export when you need the raw archive payload.

The key-value store receives:

• OUTPUT: final run summary
• METADATA-{target}: raw metadata response when metadata is enabled
• STATE-{target}-{posts|comments}: latest checkpoint for resumable runs

API examples

cURL

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/whoareyouanas~reddit-faster-actor/run-sync-get-dataset-items" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "targets": ["r/Python"],
    "datasets": ["posts", "comments"],
    "startDate": "2024-01-01",
    "endDate": "2024-02-01",
    "maxItemsPerKind": 1000
  }'

Python SDK

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")

run = client.actor("whoareyouanas/reddit-faster-actor").call(run_input={
    "targets": ["r/Python"],
    "datasets": ["posts", "comments"],
    "startDate": "2024-01-01",
    "endDate": "2024-02-01",
    "maxItemsPerKind": 1000,
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

Node.js SDK

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

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

const run = await client.actor('whoareyouanas/reddit-faster-actor').call({
    targets: ['r/Python'],
    datasets: ['posts', 'comments'],
    startDate: '2024-01-01',
    endDate: '2024-02-01',
    maxItemsPerKind: 1000,
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

n8n, Make, Zapier, and schedules

Use the Apify integration in n8n, Make, or Zapier and point it to actor whoareyouanas/reddit-faster-actor. For recurring monitoring, schedule a daily run with endDate: "now" and resumeFromState: true, then send new rows to Google Sheets, Airtable, Slack, S3, BigQuery, or an AI summarization step.

Data source and accuracy

Records are emitted from the Arctic Shift archive response with minimal reshaping. The Actor preserves the full source payload in rawData, so users can audit the original fields.

This is an archive-backed scraper, not an official Reddit API client. Very recent content and engagement metrics can lag behind live Reddit, and deleted, removed, private, banned, or unavailable content may be absent or redacted by the upstream source. The strongest truthful claim is high-fidelity archive export, not a blanket 100% accuracy guarantee.

FAQ

Does this require a Reddit API key?

No. The Actor uses Arctic Shift and does not require Reddit OAuth, app registration, cookies, or a logged-in Reddit account.

Can it scrape old Reddit posts?

Yes. This Actor is designed for historical exports with UTC date ranges and timestamp-based pagination.

Can it scrape comments?

Yes. Select comments in datasets to export comment rows. Select both posts and comments to collect both kinds in one run.

Can it scrape a full Reddit URL?

Not yet. Use r/name or u/name targets. Use a broad live Reddit scraper when you need arbitrary post URLs, live search pages, or direct thread scraping.

Can it scrape private subreddits?

No. It only exports data available through the public archive source.

Why did my run return fewer rows than expected?

The archive may not contain every deleted, removed, private, banned, or very recent item. Date windows, maxItemsPerKind, maxPagesPerKind, and upstream availability also affect row counts.

Is it affiliated with Reddit?

No. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Reddit.

Responsible use

This Actor extracts publicly available archived Reddit data. You are responsible for using the data in compliance with Reddit's terms, Arctic Shift availability and policies, and applicable privacy and data-protection laws.

Search keywords

reddit scraper, reddit api, reddit archive scraper, reddit historical scraper, reddit posts scraper, reddit comments scraper, subreddit scraper, reddit user history, Pushshift alternative, Arctic Shift

Local checks

python -m unittest discover -v
python -m json.tool .actor/input_schema.json >/tmp/reddit-faster-input-schema.json