Scrape Reddit for Business Ideas

What does Scrape Reddit for Business Ideas do?

Scrape Reddit for Business Ideas takes a research topic, discovers relevant Reddit communities and discussions automatically, and collects real complaints, unmet needs, recommendations, and requests for alternatives. It returns structured Reddit posts and can turn the evidence into a concise product-market-fit report with recurring pain points, Micro-SaaS ideas, MVP features, risks, and validation steps.

Run it manually, through the Apify API, on a schedule, or from integrations such as Make, Zapier, and MCP. Apify provides proxy rotation, storage, monitoring, and downloadable datasets.

Why use Scrape Reddit for Business Ideas?

• Discover problems people already discuss instead of brainstorming in a vacuum.
• Find repeated complaints and purchase intent inside a focused niche.
• Save the raw evidence behind each recommendation.
• Produce a research brief suitable for founders, product managers, marketers, and AI agents.
• Repeat the same research on a schedule to detect new opportunities.

How to scrape Reddit pain points

1. Enter a topic such as landscape design software, AI tools for accountants, or home renovation planning.
2. Optionally add intent phrases such as frustrated, alternative, or wish there was, separated by commas or new lines.
3. Optionally limit the research to one known subreddit. Leave this empty for automatic community discovery.
4. Choose the date range, sorting, and maximum number of posts.
5. Leave Generate AI report enabled for a Gemini report, or disable it to collect only raw posts.
6. Start the Actor and open the Output tab.

The Actor tries the authenticated Reddit API when the owner has configured it. Otherwise, it uses multiple public fallbacks, including www.reddit.com, old.reddit.com, and Reddit RSS. If every source is blocked, the run fails clearly instead of reporting a false success or charging for an AI report.

Input

{
  "topic": "AI bookkeeping tools for small businesses",
  "keywords": "frustrated, alternative, recommend, wish there was",
  "maxPosts": 30,
  "sort": "relevance",
  "timeRange": "year",
  "enableAi": true,
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true }
}

topic is the main input. The Actor searches Reddit globally, identifies the communities attached to matching threads, and reports them in RUN_SUMMARY.discoveredSubreddits. subreddit is an optional advanced filter that accepts a name, r/name, or a full Reddit community URL. maxPosts is capped at 100 to keep the cost predictable.

Output

The Reddit posts dataset contains one row per unique post. The AI analysis report is saved as Markdown in the default key-value store under OUTPUT; machine-readable diagnostics are stored under RUN_SUMMARY.

{
  "type": "reddit_post",
  "title": "I wish there was a simpler invoicing tool",
  "subreddit": "r/smallbusiness",
  "score": 84,
  "comments": 31,
  "permalink": "https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/comments/example/",
  "matchedKeywords": ["wish there was"],
  "source": "oauth-json"
}

You can download the dataset in various formats such as JSON, HTML, CSV, or Excel.

How much does it cost to research Reddit?

Pricing is pay per event. A report event is charged only after Gemini successfully creates a non-empty report. Raw dataset rows and Actor starts may be priced separately as shown in the Pricing tab. Failed or blocked crawls do not generate a report charge. Use maxPosts and Apify's maximum-charge setting to cap spending.

Tips and advanced options

• Use 3–6 intent-rich phrases rather than dozens of broad words.
• Use a clear market or workflow as the topic; add the optional subreddit filter only when you already know the best community.
• Use top for established problems and new for emerging ones.
• For the most reliable collection, configure REDDIT_ACCESS_TOKEN in Actor environment variables. GEMINI_API_KEY is required only for AI reports.
• The current default AI model is Gemini 3.8 Flash and can be overridden by the owner with GEMINI_MODEL.

FAQ, limitations, and support

Reddit can rate-limit or block public endpoints, so public fallback availability is best effort. The Actor reports source-level diagnostics and fails when all sources are unavailable. It analyzes posts, not full comment threads. Respect Reddit's terms, applicable laws, privacy, and the rights of content authors.

For bugs or feature requests, use the Issues tab on this Actor page. Custom research formats, additional sources, or comment analysis can be added as a tailored solution.