Almost every guide to Reddit self-promotion cites the same number: the 9:1 rule, one promotional post for every nine that are not. We opened the posted rules of 13 subreddits founders and marketers actually target, on September 10, 2026, and counted how many state that ratio.
One.
Quick answer: there is no site-wide self-promotion ratio that subreddits enforce. Reddit's own guidance is old and advisory; what removes your post is the individual community's rule, and those rules disagree with each other. Of the 13 communities below, one cites the 9:1 ratio, two have no self-promotion rule at all, and one bans an entire category of product regardless of how you post it.
Key takeaways
The 9:1 rule is not the rule. It appears in one of the 13 subreddits we checked. Reddit’s own self-promotion wiki page, still the top Google result, was last meaningfully updated years ago and reads as guidance, not enforcement.
The real limits are specific and unrelated to each other. One mention per 60 days, 100 karma before posting, one post if it carries a flair, or only inside a monthly stickied thread. Knowing one community tells you nothing about the next.
Some rules target what you built, not how you post. r/SaaS bans promotion of tools made for promotional outreach or lead detection outright — a permanent ban and a URL blacklist, however carefully you write the post.
Two of the largest are wide open. r/SideProject posts no rules at all, and none of r/EntrepreneurRideAlong’s three rules mentions promotion. The risk is not evenly spread.
Disclosure: Prowlo is our product. It reads these rules for you as part of community research. The table below is the same public data anyone can check, and every row links to the source.
Does Reddit have a 9:1 self-promotion rule?
Not as an enforced site-wide rule. The number comes from a moderator post on r/modnews from 2014 and Reddit's self-promotion wiki page, which describe a rough norm — for every self-promotional post, roughly nine that are not. Both still rank at the top of Google for this question, which is why every guide repeats them.
What actually removes your post is the subreddit's own rule, applied by its own moderators and automod. Those rules are published at reddit.com/r/<name>/about/rules, they change, and they do not agree with each other.
Of the 13 communities below, exactly one — r/webdev — tells you to refer to the 9:1 rule. We searched the full text of all 92 published rules across the 13 communities: the ratio appears once, and a karma threshold appears once. The other twelve communities either set their own limit, restrict promotion to a single thread, ban it outright, or say nothing at all.
What each subreddit actually enforces
The rule most founders never see coming
r/SaaS is the community most SaaS founders try first, and its promotion rule is the strictest specific limit in the set: one mention or three links every 60 days, affiliation disclosed at the start or end of the post, and secondary accounts promoting the same product counted against the same allowance. Exceeding it is described as leading to a ban and the URL being blacklisted.
There is a second rule that matters more, and it is not about frequency at all. r/SaaS bans promotion, launch announcements, feedback requests, and user acquisition for SaaS products built for advertising, promotional outreach, lead or opportunity detection, or ad and content generation — explicitly including tools that generate, suggest, schedule or coordinate posts, comments, DMs or replies on Reddit or elsewhere. The stated penalty is a permanent ban plus blacklisting of the tool name and URL.
Prowlo is a Reddit intelligence tool. Under that rule we do not get to post about ourselves in r/SaaS at all, no matter how much value the post adds or how carefully the ratio is observed. If you are building anything in the marketing, outreach or lead-gen category, the same applies to you — and it is the rule least likely to appear in a listicle written by someone selling you a Reddit tool.
Do subreddits require karma before you can post?
Some do, and the threshold is set per community rather than by Reddit. r/GrowthHacking requires at least 100 community karma, earned by engaging in that community, before you share a blog post, product, podcast or video. Smaller communities set their own numbers — r/ecommerce_growth's description asks for 10 comment karma before posting at all.
This is the requirement that most often surprises people, because it is invisible until a post disappears. Account age gates work the same way. Neither shows up in the interface before you hit submit; both are in the rules, and automod applies them silently.
Which subreddits let you promote freely?
Two of the thirteen, and they are not small. r/SideProject has 823,956 members and publishes no rules whatsoever — sharing what you built is the entire premise. r/EntrepreneurRideAlong has 724,582 members and three rules, none about promotion.
This is worth stating plainly because the ambient advice is that Reddit hates self-promotion everywhere. It does not. The risk is concentrated: the communities with the biggest audiences of buyers tend to have the strictest rules, and the communities built for sharing your work tend to have almost none. The mistake is treating them as one place with one culture.
How to check before you post
Read the actual rules, not a guide: Open
reddit.com/r/<name>/about/rules. It takes ten seconds and it is the only source that matches what automod enforces.Look for a number: A karma threshold, an account age, a links-per-period cap. If the community published one, it is enforced mechanically and you will not get a warning.
Look for the designated thread: Several communities that ban promotion in posts allow it in a stickied weekly or monthly thread. That thread is usually the only sanctioned route in.
Check whether your category is banned: Frequency rules are about behaviour; category rules are about what you built. If you are in marketing, outreach or lead gen, read for that specifically.
Or have it read for you: Prowlo’s community research reads the rules of every community it recommends and quotes them back with the karma and flair requirements attached.
Related reading
- How to track keywords on Reddit without getting banned
- Why your Reddit comment was removed
- Reddit marketing in 2026: the complete guide
- The hidden risk of Reddit marketing in 2026
FAQ
What is the 9:1 rule on Reddit? It is an old guideline, not an enforced site-wide limit: for every self-promotional post, roughly nine posts or comments that are not. It comes from Reddit's self-promotion wiki and a 2014 moderator post. Of 13 founder and marketing subreddits checked in September 2026, only r/webdev points readers at it.
How much karma do you need to post on Reddit? Reddit sets no global minimum; each subreddit does. r/GrowthHacking requires at least 100 community karma before you share a product or link. Others require a few comment karma, an account age, or nothing at all. The requirement is published in the community's rules and enforced by automod without warning.
Can you promote your product on Reddit at all? Yes, in communities that allow it and in the way they allow it. r/SideProject publishes no rules; r/SaaS allows one mention or three links per 60 days with disclosure; r/startups allows it only inside a stickied monthly thread; r/Entrepreneur and r/smallbusiness ban it. Read the specific community's rules first.
Why did my Reddit post get removed instantly? Almost always automod applying a rule you did not meet — a karma threshold, an account-age minimum, a missing flair, a shortened or affiliate link, or a category the community bans. Instant removal points at a mechanical rule rather than a human moderator decision.
Do alt accounts get around self-promotion limits? No. r/SaaS states that secondary accounts promoting the same product count toward the same limit, and Reddit treats ban evasion as a site-wide violation. Using a second account to promote the same product is one of the faster routes to a permanent ban and a blacklisted domain.
Where can I find a subreddit's self-promotion rules? At reddit.com/r/<name>/about/rules, which lists every community rule with its full text. That page is what moderators and automod work from, so it is more reliable than any summary — including this one, since communities change their rules without notice.
Want the rules checked for you? Prowlo's community research reads the subreddits where your buyers actually are and reports each one's promo policy, karma requirements and posting windows, with the rule text quoted. Start your free 14-day trial →