Reddit API — Read Operations

Use the Reddit API to search subreddits, read posts, read comments, and discover relevant communities. All requests require OAuth2 authentication and go to https://oauth.reddit.com.

Authentication

1. Go to https://www.reddit.com/prefs/apps
2. Click "create another app..." at the bottom
3. Select "script" type for personal/server-side use
4. Set redirect URI to http://localhost:8080 (unused for script apps)
5. Note your Client ID (under the app name) and Client Secret

Get an access token:

curl -X POST https://www.reddit.com/api/v1/access_token \
  -u "CLIENT_ID:CLIENT_SECRET" \
  -d "grant_type=password&username=REDDIT_USERNAME&password=REDDIT_PASSWORD" \
  -A "YourApp/1.0 by YourRedditUsername"

Response: {"access_token": "TOKEN", "token_type": "bearer", "expires_in": 86400, ...}

All subsequent requests use: Authorization: Bearer TOKEN and go to https://oauth.reddit.com.

Rate Limits

• Free tier: 100 requests/minute with OAuth
• Always include a descriptive User-Agent header: YourApp/1.0 by YourRedditUsername
• Free tier is restricted to non-commercial use

Key Read Endpoints

Search for subreddits by topic

GET https://oauth.reddit.com/subreddits/search?q=QUERY&limit=25&sort=relevance

Returns subreddit objects with display_name, subscribers, public_description, active_user_count.

Get subreddit info

GET https://oauth.reddit.com/r/SUBREDDIT/about

Returns subscriber count, rules, description, and whether the subreddit allows link/text posts.

Get hot/new/top posts from a subreddit

GET https://oauth.reddit.com/r/SUBREDDIT/hot?limit=25
GET https://oauth.reddit.com/r/SUBREDDIT/new?limit=25
GET https://oauth.reddit.com/r/SUBREDDIT/top?t=week&limit=25

t parameter for /top: hour, day, week, month, year, all.

Search posts within a subreddit

GET https://oauth.reddit.com/r/SUBREDDIT/search?q=QUERY&restrict_sr=true&sort=relevance&t=month&limit=25

restrict_sr=true limits search to the specified subreddit.

Get comments on a post

GET https://oauth.reddit.com/r/SUBREDDIT/comments/POST_ID?limit=100&sort=top

Sort options: confidence, top, new, controversial, old, qa.

Search all of Reddit

GET https://oauth.reddit.com/search?q=QUERY&type=link&sort=relevance&t=month&limit=25

type: link (posts), sr (subreddits), user (users).

Response Format

All responses are JSON. Posts are in data.children[] with each child having data.title, data.selftext, data.url, data.score, data.num_comments, data.author, data.created_utc, data.subreddit.

Error Handling

• 401 Unauthorized: Token expired. Re-authenticate.
• 403 Forbidden: Subreddit is private or you lack permissions.
• 429 Too Many Requests: Rate limited. Back off and retry after Retry-After header seconds.
• 503 Service Unavailable: Reddit is overloaded. Retry with exponential backoff.

Python (PRAW) Alternative

import praw

reddit = praw.Reddit(
    client_id="CLIENT_ID",
    client_secret="CLIENT_SECRET",
    user_agent="YourApp/1.0 by YourRedditUsername",
    username="REDDIT_USERNAME",
    password="REDDIT_PASSWORD"
)

# Search subreddits
for sr in reddit.subreddits.search("saas marketing", limit=10):
    print(sr.display_name, sr.subscribers)

# Get hot posts
for post in reddit.subreddit("startups").hot(limit=10):
    print(post.title, post.score, post.num_comments)

# Search within a subreddit
for post in reddit.subreddit("SaaS").search("pricing strategy", time_filter="month"):
    print(post.title, post.url)

n8n Alternative

Use the built-in Reddit node in n8n:

• Get Post: Retrieve a specific post by ID
• Get All Posts: Retrieve posts from a subreddit (hot, new, top, rising)
• Search: Search posts across Reddit or within a subreddit
• Get Profile: Get a user's profile information

Configure credentials in n8n with your Reddit OAuth2 app credentials.