Reddit bot rules for AI agents (2026): API approval, Responsible Builder Policy, App label, rate limits

Overview

Founders, marketers and developers now give an AI agent Reddit work: find the threads about their product, read them, draft or post replies. Reddit changed its rules for this in 2026, in several places at once. This page puts each rule in one place, with the page where Reddit says it, and what it means for an agent that uses your account.

Why it's hard

Reddit's rules for automation are spread over several pages, and three of them changed in 2026:

• API approval. The Responsible Builder Policy says you must request access and get explicit approval before you access any Reddit data through the API. Reddit stops accepting new requests after October 31, 2026.
• The API close dates. API access starts to close for apps that are not registered on January 12, 2027, and public API access closes in March 2027. RSS feeds stop on November 13, 2026 (the dates and their sources).
• The App label. An account "operating through software or scripts, rather than direct control by a human" is an app, and Reddit labels it: "Developer Platform App" or "App" (Apps on Reddit and how to get a label for your app). Apps must register to get the label, must not circumvent it, and must use a separate account: "no mixed use accounts".

The other rules did not change, and they apply to every tool:

• Rate limits. 100 queries per minute per OAuth client id, averaged over 10 minutes; 2,000 chat messages per day per recipient and 3,000 per day in total. Traffic without OAuth is blocked (Reddit Data API Wiki).
• Spam and manipulation. Apps must not post identical or substantially similar content across subreddits, must not manipulate votes or karma, and must get a user's explicit consent before a private message.
• Data use. No selling or licensing Reddit data, and no training of AI models on it, without express written approval.
• Enforcement. Reddit can revoke access tokens and suspend the app, the account and associated accounts.

On top of these, each subreddit has its own rules, and a reply that breaks one is removed.

How Reduck does it

Reduck gives your agent Reddit scripts that run in your own Chrome, through the Reduck extension, where you are signed in to Reddit. Nothing goes through the Reddit API, so there is no app to get approved, no API rate limit to plan for, and nothing that stops on January 12 or in March 2027.

What does not change is the rest: the Reddit Rules, the spam rules and each subreddit's rules apply to your account, whatever acts on it. So the agent works the way the rules expect:

• It reads the subreddit's rules first. get_subreddit_info returns every rule of a subreddit, title and body, so the draft follows them.
• You approve every post. The agent finds threads with search_subreddit, reads them in full with get_thread, and shows you its drafts. It posts with post_comment only the replies you approve, under your account, at your pace.
• No duplicate comment. post_comment checks whether the same comment by your account is already on the post, and confirms the new comment is visible on the page.

If you want a bot that posts on its own, with no person reviewing, that is what the Responsible Builder Policy calls an app: register it with Reddit and give it its own account.

How to start

1. Create a free account at reduck.ai.
2. Install the Reduck extension in Chrome and pair it.
3. Connect Reduck to your agent: docs.reduck.ai.
4. Ask: "Read the rules of r/SaaS, find this week's threads there about CRMs, and draft a reply for the best two that follows those rules. Show me the drafts before you post anything."

Reddit's rules, by way of access

Reduck is weaker where an app is the right tool: data in bulk, Reddit data inside a product you sell, or a bot that runs with nobody reviewing it. For those, ask Reddit for access.