# Reddit API for agents: posts and comments, one token

How an AI agent gets Reddit posts, comments and subreddit search results through looot, what each call returns, and where the data stops.

## Summary

You want Reddit data in your agent. Posts that mention your product, the comments under a thread, what a subreddit says about a problem you sell against. The usual path is a Reddit API app, a client id, a secret, a rate limit table and a script to keep running. Then the agent still needs a way to call the script.

This post shows the shorter path. Your agent calls Reddit search, subreddit search and comment endpoints through the looot catalog, with one token and a price it can read before each call. It also covers what this setup returns, what it does not, and how to keep a Reddit scraper job inside a budget.

## What does a Reddit API call return through looot?

A call returns the public fields of a post or a comment as JSON: title, body text, author name, subreddit, score, comment count and the post URL. The catalog lists several providers for the same job, so your agent picks one by price and measured reliability.

The Reddit endpoints in the catalog cover these jobs:

| Job | What you send | What comes back |
|---|---|---|
| Search posts by keyword | A search phrase | Matching posts with title, subreddit, score and URL |
| Search inside one subreddit | A subreddit and a keyword | Posts and comments from that community |
| Read the comments of a post | The post URL | The comment tree with text and scores |
| Read a user's comments | A username | Recent comments by that account |

Each row is a separate endpoint, and an endpoint can have more than one provider behind it. Search for the job in plain words, not by provider name.

## How do I get Reddit data without a scraper?

Skip the scraper and let the agent run catalog calls. The agent finds the endpoint for the job, reads its input fields, checks the price and runs it. You write no parsing code because the response is already named fields.

The steps your agent takes:

1. Search the catalog for "reddit search posts" and "reddit post comments". Searching and inspecting are free.
2. Inspect the cheapest endpoint that fits. Inspecting shows the input schema, the price and the provider.
3. Run one call with a small limit and read the raw result.
4. Run the rest of the batch and save the rows.

If you have not connected looot yet, [the one-line setup](https://looot.ai/blog/set-up-looot-with-one-line) takes a minute. A new workspace starts at zero balance, so top up before the first run.

## What does a Reddit API call cost?

You pay per call, and the price depends on the provider the agent picks. The table below reads the cheapest priced endpoint for each job from the live catalog when this page loads, so it does not go stale.

Reddit price per call: live prices per call are read from the catalog when the page loads, see https://looot.ai/blog/reddit-api-for-agents.

- Search posts by keyword
- Post comments by URL

For a feel of volume, [what 1,000 lookups cost](https://looot.ai/blog/what-1000-lookups-cost) shows how to turn a per call price into a batch price. A single search call returns a page of posts, so a hundred keywords is a hundred calls, not ten thousand.

## Which Reddit jobs work well with an agent?

The jobs that work are the ones where the agent reads a lot of text and you want a short summary. Three are worth trying first.

- **Brand and product mentions.** Search your product name and its common misspellings, then ask the agent to group the posts by complaint or praise. The recipe page for [Reddit brand listening](https://looot.ai/recipes/reddit-brand-listening) lays out the steps.
- **Customer language.** Search a problem, not a product ("cold email bounce rate", "scraping blocked"), and have the agent pull the phrases people use. Those phrases make better headlines than your own guesses.
- **Thread research before you post.** Pull the comments of the three biggest threads on a topic and have the agent list the questions that stay unanswered.

Reddit text is opinion. Treat the output as raw research and read the source thread before you quote anything.

## Reddit scraper or Reddit API: which one is this?

It is an API in the sense that you get structured JSON back, and a scraper in the sense that the provider collects public pages for you. You do not run a scraper yourself, and you do not hold the upstream credentials. The provider handles access, and looot bills the call.

That has a trade-off. A provider can change or drop an endpoint, and the data lags the live site by whatever the provider's cache holds. If your job needs the exact current score of one post, check the post itself. For research over many posts, the lag rarely matters.

Keep to public data. Do not collect private messages, deleted content or anything behind a login, and read the platform's own terms before you build a product on top of the data. Providers differ in what they return, and the terms for the data are yours to follow.

## How do I keep a Reddit job inside a budget?

Set the limit before the first call, not after the bill. Tell the agent the maximum it may spend, ask it to show any price over one cent, and have it run one small call first. A search with a page limit of ten tells you the shape of the result for the price of one call.

Then scale in steps. Run ten keywords, read the output, fix the prompt, and only then run a hundred. Most wasted spend on social data comes from a prompt that was wrong for the first thousand calls.

Also ask the agent to save every result row with the endpoint, the provider and the cost. When a number looks odd later, you can trace it to the call that produced it.

## Run it: a prompt for your agent

Paste this into Claude Code, Cursor or any agent that can run shell commands.

## What it cannot do

- It does not post, vote or comment. The endpoints read public data only.
- It does not give you a live stream. Each call is a request you make by hand. Anything that needs a timer, such as a nightly rerun, needs scheduled runs, not available yet.
- It does not guarantee completeness. A search returns a page of results, not every post that ever matched.
- It does not return private subreddits, removed posts or user data the platform hides.
- The catalog publishes a measured success rate for some endpoints and not others. Check the endpoint page before you rely on one.

For a post that digs into Google data the same way, see [the Google Maps lead guide](https://looot.ai/blog/scrape-google-maps-for-leads-with-an-agent). To see every Reddit endpoint and its price, open [the public catalog](https://looot.ai/public-catalog).

Last checked 2026-10-03 against the live catalog. Author: Walid Boulanouar.

## Questions

### What is the Reddit API for agents?

It is a set of catalog endpoints that return Reddit posts, comments and subreddit search results as JSON. Your agent calls them through looot with one token and a price shown before each call, so you do not register a Reddit app of your own.

### Is there a Reddit scraper I can run with an agent?

Yes. The endpoints do the collecting, and your agent only sends the search phrase or the post URL. You do not run or host a scraper. You pay per call and the agent reads the structured result.

### How much does a Reddit API call cost?

It depends on the provider. The live price table on this page shows the cheapest endpoint for searching posts and for reading comments. Inspecting an endpoint in the catalog is free and shows the exact price before you run it.

### Can I search comments, not only posts?

Yes. There is an endpoint for searching inside a subreddit that returns posts and comments, one for the comments of a post URL and one for a user's comments. Which provider answers is shown in the catalog when you inspect the endpoint.

### Can the agent track Reddit threads over time?

Only by hand. Each run is a one-off call. Watching a thread or a keyword on a timer needs scheduled runs, which are not available yet, so ask the agent to rerun the search when you want an update.

### Does looot return private or deleted Reddit content?

No. The endpoints cover public posts and comments. Removed posts, private communities and messages are not part of what these providers return.

### Is it allowed to collect Reddit data?

That depends on the data, your use and the platform's terms. Collect public data only, read the terms before you build a product on it, and check with a lawyer if you plan to resell the data.

## For agents

### Reddit research

```text
Use looot to find what people on Reddit say about <your topic>.
1. Set up https://looot.ai/skill.md.
2. Search the catalog for "reddit search posts" and pick the cheapest endpoint that fits. Show me its price before you call it.
3. Run 5 searches with different phrasings of the topic, 25 posts each at most.
4. For the 10 posts with the most comments, fetch the comments with the post comments endpoint.
5. Group what you found into complaints, questions and praise, with the post URL for each quote.
6. Report the total cost and stop if it goes over 50 cents.
```