The Best Unofficial Reddit API for Trends & Comments (No API Key Limits)

In 2023, Reddit changed its API pricing, effectively killing thousands of third-party apps like Apollo. The new price? $0.24 per 1,000 requests.

For a hobbyist or a startup, that is expensive. For an AI company training on millions of comments, it is prohibitive.

But Reddit remains the "front page of the internet." It is the best source for:

• Unfiltered Reviews: "Is [Product X] worth it? reddit"
• Stock Sentiment: r/wallstreetbets, r/investing
• Trend Spotting: r/technology, r/futurology

If you need Reddit data but can't afford the enterprise API, you need an alternative.

In this guide, we'll show you how to use SociaVault's Unofficial Reddit API to extract posts, comments, and search results at a fraction of the cost. Looking for a comprehensive social media scraper? SociaVault covers Reddit and 25+ other platforms.

Evaluating Reddit data options? See our complete Reddit API alternatives comparison.

Official API vs. SociaVault

Feature	Official Reddit API	SociaVault (Unofficial)
Cost	$0.24 / 1k reqs	Pay-as-you-go (Cheaper)
Rate Limits	100 reqs/min (Free tier)	Scalable (No hard limit)
Access	OAuth Required	API Key Only
Data	Structured JSON	Structured JSON
Comments	Limited depth	Full nested threads
Search	Standard	Advanced filtering

Step 1: Scraping a Subreddit

Let's say you want to monitor r/SaaS for new trends.

import requests

API_KEY = "YOUR_SOCIAVAULT_API_KEY"
SUBREDDIT = "SaaS"
SORT = "new" # hot, new, top, rising

url = f"https://api.sociavault.com/v1/scrape/reddit/subreddit"
params = {
    "subreddit": SUBREDDIT,
    "sort": SORT,
    "limit": 25
}
headers = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {API_KEY}"}

response = requests.get(url, params=params, headers=headers)
data = response.json()

for post in data['data']['posts']:
    print(f"Title: {post['title']}")
    print(f"Score: {post['score']}")
    print(f"Comments: {post['num_comments']}")
    print(f"URL: {post['url']}\n")

Use Case: Build a "Keyword Alert" system. If a new post in r/SaaS contains "marketing", send me a Slack notification.

Step 2: Extracting Comments (The Goldmine)

The real value of Reddit is in the comments. This is where people discuss why they like or hate a product.

SociaVault extracts the nested comment tree structure.

POST_ID = "18abcde" # ID from the previous step

url = "https://api.sociavault.com/v1/scrape/reddit/comments"
params = {"postId": POST_ID}

response = requests.get(url, params=params, headers=headers)
comments = response.json()['data']['comments']

def print_comments(comment_list, depth=0):
    for comment in comment_list:
        indent = "  " * depth
        print(f"{indent}- {comment['author']}: {comment['body'][:50]}...")
        
        if 'replies' in comment:
            print_comments(comment['replies'], depth + 1)

print_comments(comments)

Use Case: Sentiment Analysis. Download all comments from a "Competitor vs You" thread and feed them into an LLM to summarize the pros and cons.

Step 3: Search & Social Listening

You don't always know which subreddit to look in. You just want to find mentions of "Notion" across all of Reddit.

QUERY = "Notion alternative"
url = "https://api.sociavault.com/v1/scrape/reddit/search"
params = {
    "query": QUERY,
    "sort": "relevance",
    "time": "month" # hour, day, week, month, year, all
}

response = requests.get(url, params=params, headers=headers)
results = response.json()['data']['posts']

print(f"Found {len(results)} discussions about '{QUERY}'")

Use Case: Lead Generation. Find people asking for alternatives to your competitor, and DM them (manually!) or reply with helpful advice.

Handling Rate Limits

Reddit is aggressive against scrapers. If you try to scrape reddit.com/r/all with BeautifulSoup, you will get a 429 error instantly.

SociaVault handles the IP rotation and headers for you. However, we recommend:

1. Cache Data: Don't re-scrape the same post every minute.
2. Respect limit: Don't ask for 1,000 posts in one go. Page through them.
3. Use time filters: Only scrape "new" content to save credits.

Conclusion

Reddit data is essential for understanding what the internet actually thinks. The official API pricing made it hard for small developers to access this data.

SociaVault restores that access. Whether you are building a stock sentiment bot, a brand monitoring tool, or just researching a niche, our Reddit API gives you the raw data you need without the enterprise price tag.

Start scraping Reddit: Get your API Key

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