Reddit API pricing, limits and access in 2026

Reddit API changes in 2026 and 2027

Reddit posted the schedule on r/redditdev on September 30, 2026. An August 5 post had already said it would “gradually start restricting all new requests” and move third-party apps to its Developer Platform.

New requests for public API access stop on October 31, 2026. RSS feeds go on November 13, which Reddit announced the same day on r/modnews. Registration for the migration bounty closes on November 30. From January 12, 2027 Reddit starts cutting off apps and users that haven’t registered or answered its outreach, and in March 2027 public access closes for everyone left.

Over 14,000 apps and bots have registered so far. In the comments, an admin added that partners with written agreements, accessibility apps and some mobile clients among them, will be exempt.

What to do now

Which deadline matters to you depends on where you stand today.

Registering an existing app

The registration page asks for the account details tied to your API app and has to be filled in from a personal Reddit account, so log in as the human who owns the app before you start. Apps registered by November 30, 2026 may be eligible for a $1,000 bounty. Reddit selects the apps under its program terms. They must have existed before March 25, 2026, offer essential utility or moderation features to communities with at least 1,000 weekly active users, and finish moving to the Developer Platform by December 31, 2026.

Getting a Reddit API key before October 31

The Responsible Builder Policy (updated June 5, 2026) is blunt about it. “You must request access and get explicit approval before accessing any Reddit data through our API.” You ask through the contact form linked from the Data API Wiki, once per use case, and the policy treats several requests for the same use case as a violation.

Reddit API access has no published approval time. Developers on r/redditdev describe waits of weeks, and some never hear back.

Apps are created at reddit.com/prefs/apps, and the OAuth documentation describes three kinds. A web app runs on a server you control and can keep a secret. An installed app runs on a device you don’t control, like a phone, so it can’t. A script app runs on your own hardware and reaches only your own account.

For reading public posts from a server, application-only OAuth is enough. Your app trades its client id and secret for a token, then sends every request to oauth.reddit.com with that token and a User-Agent in Reddit’s format.

curl -X POST https://www.reddit.com/api/v1/access_token \
  -u "$CLIENT_ID:$CLIENT_SECRET" \
  -A "web:com.example.listener:1.0 (by /u/your_username)" \
  -d "grant_type=client_credentials"

curl "https://oauth.reddit.com/search?q=%22your+product%22&sort=new&t=day&limit=100" \
  -H "Authorization: bearer $TOKEN" \
  -A "web:com.example.listener:1.0 (by /u/your_username)"

Before you send the request

Here’s the checklist I put together while preparing Rumoro’s request. Reddit approved it, and Rumoro’s Reddit access runs in production today.

• A privacy policy. The Developer Terms want it to say what data your app collects, how it uses, stores and shares it, and how users can ask for deletion.
• A User-Agent in Reddit’s format, with your Reddit username in it.
• A way to delete. Anything deleted on Reddit has to leave your storage too, and Reddit recommends routinely clearing stored content within 48 hours.
• One request that describes the use case in full, since repeat requests for the same one break the policy.

Reddit API rate limits

The Data API Wiki sets the free limit at 100 queries per minute per OAuth client id. It’s averaged over a 10-minute window, so short bursts are fine. Traffic without OAuth or login credentials is blocked, and the wiki warns that Reddit “can and will freely throttle or block unidentified Data API users”.

Three response headers tell you where you stand. X-Ratelimit-Used is roughly what you’ve spent in the current period, X-Ratelimit-Remaining roughly what’s left, and X-Ratelimit-Reset roughly how many seconds remain until it ends.

Reddit also wants to know who’s calling. The User-Agent has to follow <platform>:<app ID>:<version> (by /u/<username>). Default ones like Python/urllib are “drastically limited”, and the wiki asks you never to lie about yours.

What the Reddit API costs

On the free tier, an approved, non-commercial app that stays within 100 requests a minute pays nothing. Anything beyond that runs through a contract. The Data API Terms (revised July 20, 2026) require “a separate agreement with Reddit” for commercial purposes, for research beyond the rate limits, and for any use the terms don’t expressly allow.

The bar for commercial is low. The help article on accessing data counts “any use of our services by a business or on behalf of a business or as part of a monetized product or service”, and its examples include free features that lead to an upsell. Academic research is ruled out as well. Researchers go through Reddit for Researchers.

The figure you’ll see quoted, $0.24 per 1,000 calls, comes from a June 2023 announcement by Reddit’s CEO for apps that need higher limits. I couldn’t find it on any current Reddit page. Today the official line is that select developers who need broader access “may be charged fees”, so expect the number to come out of your contract talks.

What you can’t do with the data

Training AI models on it needs Reddit’s permission under the Developer Terms, plus the permission of whoever holds the rights to the content. Selling the data or earning from it needs express written approval, and anything your approved use doesn’t need has to be deleted right away (Data API Terms §3.2).

Deletion is the rule I spent the most time on while working through Rumoro’s Reddit integration. When a post is deleted on Reddit, your copy goes too, and when an account is deleted, so does every identifier tied to it. Keeping it, even anonymised, breaks the terms.

The Responsible Builder Policy also forbids inferring sensitive traits such as health, politics or sexual orientation, and re-identifying users. Mature content has been limited in the Data API since July 2023, and the Public Content Policy bars licensees from showing sexually explicit content. If your access ends, the terms ask you to delete what you stored, including “any data or models that were derived from” it.

Showing Reddit content in your product

Approval covers reading the data. Showing it to your own users comes with more rules in the Developer Terms. Each post needs a link back to Reddit, the author’s username and a clear note that it comes from Reddit, and the brand guidelines ask you to credit the community it was posted in. When a post is deleted, edited or removed on Reddit, your copy has to be deleted or updated as soon as possible. The data also stays in your app, because sharing it with third parties isn’t allowed.

Two more are easy to miss. The help article on accessing data rules out any ads in an app or website that shows Reddit content, pre-roll and post-roll included. And “Reddit” can’t appear in your app’s name or promotion without written consent, apart from the “[name] for Reddit” form the Data API Terms allow.

The Reddit search API

Keyword search runs on GET /search, or /r/{subreddit}/search for one community. It finds posts, and with type also subreddits and users. The API documentation lists these parameters.

Polling search within the limit

The free limit comes to about 1,000 requests per 10-minute window. Searching 20 keywords every 5 minutes uses 4 a minute, far inside it.

The Reddit collector I built for Rumoro asks for the newest posts with sort=new and limit=100 and remembers the ids it has already seen, so each run keeps only what’s new. The example below does the same and adds two habits worth having. It pages on with after, set to the listing’s own after value, when all 100 results are new. And it pauses when X-Ratelimit-Remaining hits zero, for as long as X-Ratelimit-Reset says, which beats guessing a delay.

type Listing = { data: { after: string | null; children: { data: { id: string; title: string } }[] } };

const UA = "web:com.example.listener:1.0 (by /u/your_username)";
const seen = new Set<string>();

// token comes from the client_credentials call above and lasts one hour.
async function newPosts(query: string, token: string) {
  const url = new URL("https://oauth.reddit.com/search");
  url.search = new URLSearchParams({ q: query, sort: "new", t: "day", limit: "100" }).toString();
  const res = await fetch(url, { headers: { Authorization: "bearer " + token, "User-Agent": UA } });

  // When the window is spent, wait as long as Reddit says.
  if (Number(res.headers.get("x-ratelimit-remaining")) < 1) {
    await new Promise((done) => setTimeout(done, Number(res.headers.get("x-ratelimit-reset")) * 1000));
  }

  const { data }: Listing = await res.json();
  const posts = data.children.map((child) => child.data).filter((post) => !seen.has(post.id));
  posts.forEach((post) => seen.add(post.id));
  return { posts, after: data.after }; // page on with after= when all 100 were new
}

An application-only token lasts one hour, so request a new one shortly before it runs out.

What the API won’t give you

Comments are the biggest gap. /search finds posts, subreddits and users, and no documented endpoint searches comments. Private and quarantined communities are out too, since the Public Content Policy licenses public content only. And the API is no research archive. Academic work goes through Reddit for Researchers.

Reddit API alternatives after March 2027

Here’s where each remaining route stands.

• The Developer Platform (Devvit). The supported way to build apps that run inside Reddit. Python isn’t on its roadmap, an admin wrote. Its migration program may pay $1,000 to selected existing apps that move by December 31, 2026.
• A written agreement. Reddit says partners with one will be exempt, and the Public Content Policy names “companies that help brands monitor trends associated with their brands” among the businesses it licenses data to.
• Pushshift. Only for verified moderators, for moderation, with Reddit’s approval.
• RSS. It ends on November 13, 2026, and there’s no replacement for feeds outside communities you moderate.

Scraping services keep advertising Reddit data, but none of them can give you Reddit’s licence, and the terms above apply to whatever you store. If your product needs Reddit after March 2027, I’d start the conversation about an agreement now.

If what you need is to know when Reddit posts mention your brand, competitors or topics, rather than the data itself, Reddit monitoring covers that without building on the API. Already using a keyword bot like F5Bot? Here’s how F5Bot and Rumoro compare. Moving off GummySearch before 1 December? Here’s how it compares.