The Reddit Search API is a REST endpoint that returns Reddit results as clean JSON. One GET request with a bearer token searches posts by keyword, and sibling endpoints search comments, users, communities, and media. You can scope any query to a subreddit and order by relevance, new, or top, so you fetch exactly the results you need.
The Reddit Search API
Search posts, comments, users, communities, and media over one REST endpoint. Filter by subreddit, sort by relevance, and get clean JSON back, from $0.002 per call.
Written by Emma, developer relations at RedditAPI. We bill every search request at $0.002 per call (source: our published pricing), with no rate-limit tier to buy up and no query cap to plan around.
What is the Reddit Search API?
The Reddit Search API is a REST endpoint that returns Reddit results as clean JSON. One GET request with a bearer token searches posts by keyword, and sibling endpoints search comments, users, communities, and media. Scope any query to a subreddit and order by relevance, new, or top, so you fetch exactly the results you need, with proxy rotation and anti-block handled for you.
Five things you can search
Each surface is its own endpoint, so you search the object you actually care about instead of filtering a firehose.
Posts
GET /api/reddit/searchSearch post titles and bodies by keyword across all of Reddit, or scope the query to one subreddit.Comments
GET /api/reddit/search/commentsSearch comment bodies to find where a topic is actually discussed, not just where it is titled.Users
GET /api/reddit/search/usersResolve and look up Reddit users by name to pull profile and history context.Communities
GET /api/reddit/search/communitiesDiscover subreddits by keyword to find the right communities for a topic before you pull posts.Media
GET /api/reddit/search/mediaSearch media-bearing posts when the image or video is the object you care about.Why a managed search endpoint
Reddit deprecated the free .json endpoint, so rolling your own search now means proxies, retries, and parsing. A managed endpoint hands that back to you as one clean call.
One endpoint, clean JSON
No HTML parsing and no deprecated .json endpoint to nurse. A single GET returns structured results with titles, authors, scores, and permalinks.
Filter and sort at the source
Scope by subreddit and order by relevance, new, or top in the request, so you fetch only the results you need instead of paging and filtering client-side.
Anti-block handled for you
Proxy rotation, retries, and backoff run on our side, so search returns results instead of 403s, even at volume.
Built for retrieval
The response shape drops straight into a RAG pipeline or an agent tool, so search becomes the retrieval step that grounds a model in live Reddit context.
Query parameters
One required parameter and three optional ones. That is the whole surface for a post search.
qRequiredThe search query string.subredditOptionalScope the search to a single subreddit by name.sortOptionalOrder results by relevance, new, or top.limitOptionalHow many results to return per call. Defaults to 25.Your first search call
Pass your key as a bearer token and read the JSON. Same shape in cURL and JavaScript.
cURL
# Search posts for a keyword, scoped to one subreddit
curl "https://api.redditapis.com/api/reddit/search?q=vector+database&subreddit=MachineLearning&sort=top&limit=25" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"JavaScript
const url = new URL("https://api.redditapis.com/api/reddit/search");
url.searchParams.set("q", "vector database");
url.searchParams.set("subreddit", "MachineLearning");
url.searchParams.set("sort", "top");
url.searchParams.set("limit", "25");
const res = await fetch(url, {
headers: { Authorization: "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" },
});
const { posts } = await res.json();
// posts[].title, .author, .score, .permalink, .selftext ...Want the step-by-step version? The Reddit Search API tutorial walks through pagination, sorting, and comment search in detail.
Searching to scrape, or to ground an agent?
Search is one endpoint in a bigger toolkit. Where you go next depends on what you are building:
- Reddit Scraper API , pull posts and comments at scale
- Reddit API for AI agents , search as the retrieval layer
- Reddit MCP server , search as an MCP tool
- Get a Reddit API key , the token this endpoint needs
Frequently asked questions
Call GET /api/reddit/search with a q parameter and your key as a bearer token. Add subreddit to scope the query, sort to order the results, and limit to cap the count. The response is structured JSON with titles, authors, scores, and permalinks, so there is no HTML to parse and no OAuth flow to complete.
Yes. GET /api/reddit/search/comments searches comment bodies, which is where a topic is often discussed even when it is not in a post title. There are also endpoints for users, communities, and media, so you can search the right surface for the question you are answering.
Yes. Every search call accepts an optional subreddit to scope the query, a sort of relevance, new, or top, and a limit to cap results per call. Filtering and ordering happen at the source, so you fetch only the results you want instead of paging and filtering client-side.
Search calls are reads, billed at $0.002 per request with no subscription or minimum. Every new account starts with $0.50 in free credits, which covers 250 search calls before you spend anything. Top up from $10 whenever you want, and credits never expire.
Yes. The JSON response drops straight into a retrieval step: search returns the live posts and comments, and you chunk, embed, and feed them to the model. That makes search the grounding layer for an agent, which is why it pairs with the MCP server and the AI-agent integration paths.
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Search Reddit in one call.
$0.50 in free credits, no card required. Sign up, copy your bearer token, and run your first search against any subreddit right now.