Reddit Self-Promotion Rules: The 9:1 Rule and What Still Applies
Every founder who tries Reddit runs into the same question: am I allowed to mention my own product? The short answer is yes, sometimes, and the rules that decide it are mostly set by each subreddit, not by Reddit.
The 9:1 rule, and what happened to it
For years Reddit's self-promotion guideline said that no more than one in ten of your posts and comments should promote your own content. People called it the 9:1 rule or the 10% rule.
In May 2017 Reddit's admins announced in r/modnews that they would stop enforcing the one-in-ten rule across the whole site. Subreddits were told they could keep enforcing it themselves, and many still do. So the 9:1 rule is no longer a Reddit rule, but it is still a rule in plenty of subreddits, and still a sensible habit everywhere.
What applies when you mention your product
Three layers decide whether a promotional post or comment survives:
- Reddit's site-wide rules. No spam, no vote manipulation, no fake accounts or ban evasion. These apply everywhere.
- The subreddit's own rules. This is where self-promotion is allowed, limited or banned. Read the sidebar, the rules page and any wiki.
- Automatic filters. Reddit's spam filter and each subreddit's AutoModerator remove content before a person sees it, often for account age, karma or links. See what "removed by Reddit's filters" means.
How subreddits handle self-promotion
Most subreddits fall into one of these groups:
- No self-promotion at all. Any mention of your own product is removed.
- Only in a weekly thread. Promotion and feedback requests go in a pinned thread. r/SaaS, for example, sends feedback requests to its weekly feedback thread.
- Allowed when it's relevant. You can mention your product if it genuinely answers someone's question. r/SaaS allows this too, and bans people who overdo it.
- A ratio. The old 9:1 or 10% rule, enforced by that subreddit's moderators.
- Disclosure required. You can mention it, but you have to say you made it or work there.
The subreddit analyzer shows a subreddit's rules and how it treats promotion, and the subreddit link finder shows where links actually survive.
Habits that keep your account in good standing
- Mostly help, sometimes mention. Nine helpful comments for every one that mentions your product is still a good rule of thumb, even where it isn't enforced.
- Mention your product only when it answers the question. A recommendation in a thread asking for exactly what you sell is welcome. The same line in an unrelated thread is spam.
- Comment more than you post. Comments on existing threads reach people who are already asking, and they're filtered far less than new posts.
- Don't post the same thing in many subreddits. Write for each community, or pick the one that fits best.
- Skip link shorteners. They're one of the most common spam signals.
- Follow the disclosure rule where there is one. If a subreddit asks you to say you made the product, say so.
Check before you post
Two free checks save most removals: run the Reddit account health check to see whether your account is likely to be filtered, and read the subreddit's rules before you post. If a post disappears anyway, the removed post checker tells you who removed it and what to do.
RedSeed follows each subreddit's rules for you: it learns them before anything is posted, comments only where your product fits, and posts from accounts with real history in each community.