Reddit's Data API is free for non-commercial use, at about 100 queries per minute for each OAuth client. Commercial use needs a contract with Reddit, and the rate most often reported since the 2023 pricing change is $0.24 per 1,000 calls. Since late 2025, new apps also need Reddit's approval before they get credentials at all.
This post covers what each tier allows, what a real workload costs, and when reading Reddit's public pages through a pay-per-call API is the simpler route.
Reddit API pricing at a glance
| Tier | Who it's for | Price | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Personal projects, research, moderators | Free | ~100 queries a minute per app |
| Commercial | Products and businesses | Negotiated; ~$0.24 per 1,000 calls | Set in the contract |
| Enterprise / AI | Large data licensing | Custom contracts | Custom |
Reddit doesn't publish a public rate card. The commercial figure comes from Reddit's 2023 announcement and the contracts reported since; treat it as a starting point for a conversation with Reddit, not a price you can sign up for.
The free tier
The free tier is for non-commercial use. Its rules:
- OAuth on every call. You register an app, get a client id and secret, and send a bearer token.
- About 100 queries a minute per OAuth client id, averaged over a 10-minute window.
- A descriptive User-Agent, or requests are throttled hard.
- No commercial use. If the data feeds a product you sell, you're expected to move to a commercial agreement.
That's plenty for a bot that watches one subreddit. It isn't enough for a product that reads thousands of threads an hour, and the non-commercial rule rules out most business use regardless of volume.
Commercial access
Commercial access is a contract with Reddit. The price that has been cited since the 2023 change is $0.24 per 1,000 API calls, with reported minimum commitments in the thousands of dollars a month. Approval isn't automatic: Reddit reviews what you're building, and reserves the right to change its rates.
Getting API access in 2026
Self-service app registration was closed in late 2025. New developers now request access and wait for Reddit to approve it, which reportedly takes a few weeks. Plan for that wait before you build anything that depends on the official API.
What a real workload costs
At the reported commercial rate:
| Workload | Calls a month | Cost at $0.24 / 1,000 |
|---|---|---|
| 50 subreddits, new posts every 10 minutes | ~216,000 | ~$52 |
| 1,000 threads a day, with their comments | ~60,000 | ~$14 |
| 1 million calls | 1,000,000 | $240 |
The per-call price is rarely the problem. The minimum commitment, the approval process and the contract are.
The alternative: Reddit's public pages as JSON
Social Parse reads Reddit the way a logged-out visitor does, and answers in JSON. There's no OAuth app to register and no approval to wait for: sign up, create a key, and call it.
- Posts: a subreddit's posts by hot, new, top or rising, a single post and its comments.
- Search: all of Reddit, inside a subreddit, or subreddits by topic.
- Video: a post's transcript.
Set your key and base URL:
export API_KEY="your-api-key"
export API_URL="https://api.socialparse.dev"Then fetch this week's top posts in r/webdev:
curl -H "x-api-key: $API_KEY" "$API_URL/v1/reddit/subreddits/posts?subreddit=webdev&sort=top&time=week"Each successful call costs one credit, a page of results is one call, and errors cost nothing. New accounts get 100 free credits; more come in packs that never expire. See pricing.
Which should you choose?
Choose Reddit's official API when you need to act as a user: post, vote, moderate, or read a user's private data with their permission. Only OAuth can do that.
Choose Social Parse when you only need to read what's public (posts, comments, subreddits, search) and want to start today, pay per call, and use the same JSON shape for every other platform too.
FAQ
Is the Reddit API free?
For non-commercial use, yes, at about 100 queries a minute per OAuth client. Commercial use needs a paid agreement with Reddit.
What does one Reddit API call cost?
The commonly reported commercial rate is $0.24 per 1,000 calls. Reddit sets the actual price in each contract.
What happened to Pushshift?
Since 2023, Pushshift's archive is available only to Reddit moderators, for moderation. It's no longer a general source of Reddit data.
Can I read private or quarantined subreddits?
Not with Social Parse: it reads only what a logged-out visitor can see. Content behind a login answers
403 LOGIN_REQUIRED.
How do I start?
Follow the quickstart: create a key and make your first call in a couple of minutes. To search Reddit, see the Reddit search API guide.