How to read Reddit after its free API access ends
Reddit has announced that public access to its Data API ends by March 2027, and commercial use already needs an agreement with Reddit. SocialToAI reads publicly visible Reddit posts, comments, accounts and trends for you, with no Reddit app to register: one MCP address for your AI client, or one key over HTTP, from 2 credits a call. Failed calls are free.
What Reddit has announced
Reddit offers official Data APIs under its Data API Terms. Using them for commercial purposes, for research beyond the rate limits, or for anything the terms do not expressly permit needs a separate agreement with Reddit, and deriving revenue from them needs Reddit's express written approval.
Source: Reddit's developer documentation, checked 2026-10-21.
On 2026-09-30 Reddit announced that public access to its Data API will end by March 2027. Developers who have not registered their apps with Reddit before 2027-01-12 lose API access, RSS feeds stop on 2026-11-13, and tools such as AI assistants will need a commercial agreement with Reddit for its data.
Source: TechCrunch's report of Reddit's announcement, 2026-09-30, read 2026-10-29. Rules change; the platform's own pages are the authority.
Your options
- Stay on Reddit's own API: register your app with Reddit before its deadline, and for commercial use agree terms with Reddit, as its Data API Terms require.
- Read what is publicly visible through SocialToAI: no Reddit app or account on your side; you pay per call in credits. The rest of this page shows how.
Reading Reddit with SocialToAI
| Call | What it returns | Price key | Credits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search | Find posts by keyword: text, author, comment count and publish time. | reddit.search | 2 |
| Trending | The posts trending now. | reddit.trending | 2 |
| Trending · trending topics | What is trending now: title, rank and heat. | reddit.trending:trends | 2 |
| Detail | One post by ID or link: text, author, comment count and publish time. | reddit.detail | 2 |
| Detail · the transcript of the video | One post by ID or link: full text and timed segments. | reddit.detail:transcript | 2 |
| Comments | The comments under one post: text, reply count and time. | reddit.comments | 2 |
| User Profile | One account: name, bio and post count. | reddit.user_profile | 2 |
| User Posts | The recent posts of one account. | reddit.user_posts | 2 |
| User active communities | Get the communities a Reddit user is active in by username. | reddit.user_subreddits | 2 |
| Community profile | Get a Reddit community by its name. | reddit.subreddit | 2 |
curl https://api.socialtoai.com/v1/search \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $SOCIALTOAI_KEY" \ -H "Idempotency-Key: $(uuidgen)" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{ "platform": "reddit", "query": "saturn rings" }'In your AI client
Add one MCP server to your AI client: https://mcp.socialtoai.com/mcp. Clients that sign in (Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Cursor, Codex) open a sign-in page: sign in with the code we email you and press Allow, no key to copy. Others send a key in a header. Each client's own steps are on the MCP page.
| Ask | Price key | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Search Reddit for posts about "saturn rings". | reddit.search | 2 |
| Read this Reddit post: t3_1nnrvkr | reddit.detail | 2 |
| Read the comments under this Reddit post: t3_1nnrvkr | reddit.comments | 2 |
| What is trending on Reddit right now? | reddit.trending | 2 |
What it costs
One reddit.search call costs 2 credits (≈ $0.004–$0.0067); a thousand cost 2,000 credits, $6.67 at the first pack and $4.00 at the largest. Failed calls are free, and every answer states what it charged. 100 free credits on sign-up, no card.
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