I built my first Reddit bot three years ago.

It was a simple thing - automatically replied to posts in a niche subreddit with helpful information. Took maybe 2 hours to code. Ran for 6 months without issues. Got me genuinely useful karma and even helped some people.

Then Reddit changed everything.

The 2023 API pricing update threw a massive wrench into the bot ecosystem. Suddenly, what was free became expensive. Many bots that had been running for years just... stopped. The indie developers maintaining them couldn't justify the costs.

But here's the thing: building Reddit bots in 2025 is still possible. You just need to understand the new rules. And honestly? For personal projects and small-scale automation, it's still free.

Let me show you exactly how to do it.

Understanding Reddit's API in 2025

Before we write any code, let's talk about what changed and what still works.

The Free Tier Still Exists

Reddit's API changes killed third-party apps that needed millions of API calls. But for personal bots making 100 requests per minute or less? Still free.

The limits:

100 requests per minute for OAuth apps
10 requests per minute for non-OAuth (don't do this)
No limit on read vs write operations within that cap

For most bot projects, that's plenty. You're not building a commercial product - you're automating something for yourself.

What You Can Still Do for Free

Monitor subreddits for new posts
Reply to comments that match certain keywords
Send DMs (within Reddit's rate limits)
Download post data for research
Cross-post between subreddits you moderate
Track user activity (your own or with consent)

What Requires Paid Access

Commercial applications with high volume
Apps serving multiple users at scale
Anything resembling a third-party Reddit client
Real-time streaming at high frequency

For this guide, we're staying firmly in the free tier.

Step 1: Set Up Your Reddit Developer Account

First, you need API credentials. Here's how:

Create a dedicated Reddit account for your bot

Don't use your main account. If something goes wrong, you don't want your primary account banned.

Go to Reddit's app preferences

Navigate to reddit.com/prefs/apps while logged into your bot account.

Create a new application

Click "create app" or "create another app"

Fill out the form:

Name: Something descriptive like "MySubredditMonitorBot"
App type: Select "script" (this is for personal use)
Description: Brief description of what the bot does
About URL: Can be blank
Redirect URI: Use http://localhost:8080 (required but not used for script apps)

Save your credentials

After creating the app, you'll see:

client_id: The string under your app name
client_secret: The "secret" value

Write these down. You'll need them.

Step 2: Install PRAW

PRAW (Python Reddit API Wrapper) handles all the messy authentication and API stuff for you.

pip install praw

That's it. PRAW is maintained, updated for the 2023+ API changes, and handles rate limiting automatically.

Step 3: Basic Authentication

Create a new Python file called reddit_bot.py:

import praw

reddit = praw.Reddit(
    client_id="YOUR_CLIENT_ID",
    client_secret="YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET",
    user_agent="MyBot/1.0 by /u/YourBotUsername",
    username="YourBotUsername",
    password="YourBotPassword"
)

# Test the connection
print(f"Logged in as: {reddit.user.me()}")

Replace the placeholder values with your actual credentials.

Important: Never hardcode credentials in production code. Use environment variables:

import os
import praw

reddit = praw.Reddit(
    client_id=os.environ["REDDIT_CLIENT_ID"],
    client_secret=os.environ["REDDIT_CLIENT_SECRET"],
    user_agent=os.environ["REDDIT_USER_AGENT"],
    username=os.environ["REDDIT_USERNAME"],
    password=os.environ["REDDIT_PASSWORD"]
)

Step 4: Monitoring a Subreddit

Here's a simple bot that monitors new posts in a subreddit:

import praw
import time

reddit = praw.Reddit(
    # ... your credentials
)

subreddit = reddit.subreddit("test")  # Use r/test for testing

print(f"Monitoring r/{subreddit.display_name}...")

# Stream new submissions
for submission in subreddit.stream.submissions(skip_existing=True):
    print(f"New post: {submission.title}")
    print(f"Author: {submission.author}")
    print(f"URL: {submission.url}")
    print("---")

The stream.submissions() function continuously watches for new posts. The skip_existing=True parameter means it won't process posts that were already there when the bot started.

Step 5: Replying to Posts (Carefully!)

Here's where things get risky. Automated replies can get you banned fast if you're not careful.

import praw
import time

reddit = praw.Reddit(
    # ... your credentials
)

subreddit = reddit.subreddit("test")
keywords = ["help", "question", "newbie"]

for submission in subreddit.stream.submissions(skip_existing=True):
    title_lower = submission.title.lower()
    
    # Check if any keyword is in the title
    if any(keyword in title_lower for keyword in keywords):
        print(f"Found matching post: {submission.title}")
        
        # Add a delay to be polite
        time.sleep(10)
        
        try:
            submission.reply("This is an automated response. [Your helpful message here]")
            print("Replied successfully!")
        except Exception as e:
            print(f"Error replying: {e}")
        
        # Rate limit ourselves
        time.sleep(60)  # Wait 1 minute between replies

DON'T Get Banned

Seriously. Reddit bans bots that:

Reply too frequently
Leave generic/spammy comments
Operate in subreddits that don't allow bots
Fail to disclose they're automated

Best practices:

Always identify as a bot in your messages
Add delays between actions (I use 60+ seconds)
Check subreddit rules before operating there
Start small - test in r/test first
Monitor for errors - if you're getting 403s, stop immediately

Step 6: Searching Reddit

One of the most useful bot functions is searching across subreddits:

import praw

reddit = praw.Reddit(
    # ... your credentials
)

# Search a specific subreddit
for submission in reddit.subreddit("Python").search("API tutorial", limit=10):
    print(f"Title: {submission.title}")
    print(f"Score: {submission.score}")
    print(f"Link: https://reddit.com{submission.permalink}")
    print("---")

# Search multiple subreddits
subreddits = ["Python", "learnpython", "programming"]
for sub_name in subreddits:
    print(f"\nSearching r/{sub_name}...")
    subreddit = reddit.subreddit(sub_name)
    for submission in subreddit.search("beginner project", limit=5):
        print(f"  - {submission.title}")

This is insanely powerful for research. But doing it manually for dozens of subreddits gets tedious fast.

For more serious Reddit research across multiple subreddits with advanced filters, I actually use Wappkit Reddit because it handles batch searching with a UI. But for simple automation, PRAW gets the job done.

Step 7: Downloading Post Data

Want to build a dataset? Here's how to export posts to JSON:

import praw
import json
from datetime import datetime

reddit = praw.Reddit(
    # ... your credentials
)

def scrape_subreddit(subreddit_name, limit=100):
    subreddit = reddit.subreddit(subreddit_name)
    posts = []
    
    for submission in subreddit.hot(limit=limit):
        post_data = {
            "title": submission.title,
            "score": submission.score,
            "url": submission.url,
            "created_utc": submission.created_utc,
            "num_comments": submission.num_comments,
            "author": str(submission.author),
            "selftext": submission.selftext[:500] if submission.selftext else None,
            "permalink": f"https://reddit.com{submission.permalink}"
        }
        posts.append(post_data)
    
    return posts

# Scrape and save
data = scrape_subreddit("programming", limit=50)

with open("reddit_data.json", "w") as f:
    json.dump(data, f, indent=2)

print(f"Saved {len(data)} posts to reddit_data.json")

Step 8: Handling Comments

Comments are structured as trees. Here's how to navigate them:

import praw

reddit = praw.Reddit(
    # ... your credentials
)

# Get a specific post
submission = reddit.submission(id="post_id_here")

# Replace "MoreComments" objects with actual comments
submission.comments.replace_more(limit=0)

# Iterate through all comments
for comment in submission.comments.list():
    print(f"Author: {comment.author}")
    print(f"Score: {comment.score}")
    print(f"Body: {comment.body[:200]}...")
    print("---")

The replace_more(limit=0) line is important - it tells PRAW to skip the "load more comments" links. Without it, you'll hit errors on long threads.

Common Bot Projects (And How to Build Them)

Keyword Alert Bot

Notifies you when specific keywords appear in a subreddit:

import praw
import smtplib
from email.mime.text import MIMEText

reddit = praw.Reddit(
    # ... your credentials
)

keywords = ["job opening", "hiring", "looking for developer"]
subreddit = reddit.subreddit("forhire+remotejobs+jobs")

for submission in subreddit.stream.submissions(skip_existing=True):
    text = f"{submission.title} {submission.selftext}".lower()
    
    for keyword in keywords:
        if keyword in text:
            print(f"ALERT: Found '{keyword}' in: {submission.title}")
            # Add email notification logic here
            break

Flair Statistics Bot

Tracks which post flairs are most popular:

import praw
from collections import Counter

reddit = praw.Reddit(
    # ... your credentials
)

subreddit = reddit.subreddit("Python")
flair_counts = Counter()

for submission in subreddit.hot(limit=500):
    if submission.link_flair_text:
        flair_counts[submission.link_flair_text] += 1

print("Top 10 post flairs:")
for flair, count in flair_counts.most_common(10):
    print(f"  {flair}: {count}")

Cross-Post Bot

Automatically cross-posts between subreddits you moderate:

import praw

reddit = praw.Reddit(
    # ... your credentials
)

source = reddit.subreddit("your_source_sub")
target = reddit.subreddit("your_target_sub")

for submission in source.stream.submissions(skip_existing=True):
    if submission.score > 100:  # Only cross-post popular content
        try:
            submission.crosspost(target)
            print(f"Cross-posted: {submission.title}")
        except Exception as e:
            print(f"Error: {e}")

Warning: Only do this for subreddits you moderate. Automated cross-posting to random subreddits WILL get you banned.

Avoiding Common Mistakes

After 3 years of running bots, here's what I've learned the hard way:

1. Rate Limits Are Your Friend

Don't try to speed up your bot by removing delays. Reddit WILL notice. PRAW handles most rate limiting automatically, but add your own delays for write operations.

2. Handle Errors Gracefully

Reddit goes down. API calls fail. Accounts get suspended. Your bot should handle all of this:

import time
from prawcore.exceptions import ServerError, ResponseException

while True:
    try:
        # Your bot logic here
        pass
    except ServerError:
        print("Reddit servers are down. Waiting 5 minutes...")
        time.sleep(300)
    except ResponseException as e:
        print(f"API error: {e}. Waiting 1 minute...")
        time.sleep(60)
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"Unknown error: {e}")
        time.sleep(60)

3. Log Everything

When something goes wrong, you need to know what the bot was doing:

import logging

logging.basicConfig(
    level=logging.INFO,
    format='%(asctime)s - %(levelname)s - %(message)s',
    handlers=[
        logging.FileHandler("bot.log"),
        logging.StreamHandler()
    ]
)

logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)

# Use logger.info(), logger.error(), etc.
logger.info("Bot started")
logger.error(f"Failed to reply: {error}")

4. Test in r/test First

The subreddit r/test exists specifically for testing bots. Use it before deploying anywhere else.

5. Read Subreddit Rules

Some subreddits explicitly ban bots. Others require permission. Check before you deploy.

Running 24/7: Deployment Options

For a bot that needs to run continuously:

Option 1: Raspberry Pi Cheap, runs forever, sits in a corner. Perfect for personal bots.

Option 2: DigitalOcean/AWS/etc $5/month droplets are enough for most bots. More reliable than home hardware.

Option 3: GitHub Actions Can run bots on a schedule (not continuous) for free. Good for periodic tasks.

Option 4: Heroku Free Tier Was great, now limited. Still works for some use cases.

My recommendation? Start with your local machine. When you're confident the bot works, move to a cheap VPS.

Final Thoughts

Reddit bots are still one of the most useful automation projects you can build. The API changes made commercial applications harder, but personal projects are basically unaffected.

Start simple. Build something that solves a real problem for you. Test thoroughly. And always, always be respectful of the communities you're operating in.

The best bots are invisible - they make Reddit better without anyone noticing they're there.

Happy coding.

How to Build a Reddit Bot in 2025: The Complete Python Guide (With API Changes)