Reddit API alternatives that still work after the May 2026 shutdown
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The best Reddit API alternative in 2026 is a pay-per-result scraper that reads public pages, because Reddit closed self-serve API registration on November 11, 2025 and began returning 403 on anonymous .json requests in the last week of May 2026. For threads with comments, Datapika's Reddit actor is cheapest at $3 per 1,000 posts including every comment. For bare post listings, Automation Lab is cheapest at $1.15 per 1,000. For the largest install base, Trudax Reddit Scraper Lite has 40,034 users at $4 per 1,000. Pushshift remains closed to the public, and the official Data API needs manual approval.
What happened to the Reddit API in 2025 and 2026?
Reddit closed the free paths in two steps. On November 11, 2025 it published the Responsible Builder Policy on r/redditdev and closed self-service access to the public Data API the same day; every new OAuth client now files a manual application covering use case, subreddits, and request volume (FetchLayer, 2026; Redditapis, 2026). Developers report multi-week waits and generic rejections.
The second step landed in the last week of May 2026, when unauthenticated requests to any Reddit URL ending in .json began returning 403 Forbidden. FetchLayer dates the change to May 30; Crawlora reports the deprecation notice on May 28 and paraphrases Reddit's reasoning as stopping scraping without accountability and curbing agentic abuse. Either way, the last keyless way to read Reddit programmatically is gone.
The historical archive went earlier. Pushshift lost public access on May 2, 2023 and has been restricted to Reddit moderators since (Xpoz, 2026). Reddit's 2023 commercial terms price approved access at about $0.24 per 1,000 calls, sold in blocks of roughly 50 million calls for about $12,000, which Crawlora and FetchLayer describe as a yearly minimum and Prowlo as monthly.
- November 11, 2025: self-service OAuth app registration closed; every new Data API client needs manual approval (FetchLayer, 2026)
- May 28 to 30, 2026: anonymous .json endpoints switched from JSON to 403 Forbidden (Crawlora, 2026; FetchLayer, 2026)
- Since May 2, 2023: Pushshift restricted to Reddit moderators, no public API (Xpoz, 2026)
- Official Data API: 100 queries per minute free for approved non-commercial clients; about $0.24 per 1,000 calls commercially, sold in blocks of about 50 million calls (Prowlo, 2026)
Which Reddit API alternative is cheapest per 1,000 results?
The table below uses free-plan prices from the Apify Store API on August 29, 2026. Datapika charges $2 per 1,000 posts, $3 per 1,000 posts with full comment trees, $2 per 1,000 search results, and $3 per 1,000 single post fetches, plus $0.00005 per run. It holds a 4.9 rating from 8 reviews with 188 users, and 0 of its 1,434 runs in the last 30 days failed.
Trudax Reddit Scraper Lite leads on volume with 40,034 users, 7,088 in the last 30 days, a 4.57 rating from 39 reviews, and $4 per 1,000 results plus $0.02 per run ($3.40 on Gold); the apify/reddit-scraper URL redirects to it. Harshmaur costs $2 per 1,000 plus $0.02 per run, with 11,747 users and 4.48 from 39 reviews. Automation Lab is cheapest for posts alone at $1.15 per 1,000 posts, $0.575 per 1,000 comments and $0.003 per run, with 3,624 users and 4.8 from 6 reviews. Pratikdani is the outlier at $25 per 1,000 with 432 users and no reviews.
Trudax, Harshmaur, and Automation Lab bill every comment as its own result; Datapika bills a post with comments as one $0.003 event whatever the thread length.
- Cheapest bare post listings: Automation Lab at $1.15 per 1,000 posts (Apify Store, August 29, 2026)
- Cheapest threads with comments: Datapika at $3 per 1,000 posts, comment count not billed
- Most users: Trudax Reddit Scraper Lite, 40,034 total and 7,088 in the last 30 days
- Most expensive per row: Pratikdani Reddit Post Scraper at $25 per 1,000 on a free plan, $15 on Gold
- Only rows needing approval or login: the official Reddit Data API and Pushshift
What does 10,000 Reddit posts actually cost?
Take two real workloads. Workload A is 1,000 and 10,000 post listings from a subreddit feed with no comments. Workload B is 1,000 posts where each thread carries an average of 50 comments, typical for the hot tab of a mid-size subreddit.
Workload A, 1,000 posts: Automation Lab $1.15 including its $0.003 start fee, Datapika $2.00, Harshmaur $2.02 including its $0.02 start fee, Trudax Lite $4.02, Pratikdani $25.00. At 10,000 posts: Automation Lab $11.50, Datapika $20.00, Harshmaur $20.02, Trudax Lite $40.02, Pratikdani $250.00. Automation Lab wins outright; Datapika edges Harshmaur for second only by the start fee.
Workload B is 51,000 stored items on a per-result actor. Trudax Lite: 51,000 x $0.004 + $0.02 = $204.02. Harshmaur: 51,000 x $0.002 + $0.02 = $102.02. Automation Lab: 1,000 x $0.00115 + 50,000 x $0.000575 + $0.003 = $29.90. Datapika: 1,000 x $0.003 = $3.00. The official API would need roughly 1,000 comment-tree calls at about $0.24 per 1,000, so $0.24 metered, but only after approval and a block purchase guides put near $12,000. Residential proxy bandwidth, billed by Apify at $8 per GB, adds a few cents per 1,000 rows to every actor and is left out above.
- 1,000 posts, no comments: Automation Lab $1.15, Datapika $2.00, Harshmaur $2.02, Trudax Lite $4.02, Pratikdani $25.00
- 10,000 posts, no comments: Automation Lab $11.50, Datapika $20.00, Harshmaur $20.02, Trudax Lite $40.02, Pratikdani $250.00
- 1,000 posts with 50 comments each: Datapika $3.00, Automation Lab $29.90, Harshmaur $102.02, Trudax Lite $204.02
- Official Data API for the same 1,000 threads: about $0.24 metered, plus approval and a reported $12,000 block minimum
- All figures use free-plan Apify prices as of August 29, 2026 and exclude proxy bandwidth
What data does each Reddit scraper return?
Every Apify actor here returns the core post record: ID, permalink, subreddit, author, title, body, media URLs, score, comment count, and timestamp. Differences show up in scope and extras. Datapika covers six actions in one input schema: subreddit feeds sorted by hot, new, top, rising, or controversial with time filters; keyword search for posts or comments across Reddit or inside one subreddit; subreddit discovery by topic with mention counts; single post fetch with the full comment tree; and Reddit AI Answers, which returns a markdown answer with follow-up questions and source post IDs and appears in no other row.
Trudax Lite adds user profiles and community metadata and accepts Reddit search URLs as input. Harshmaur bundles optional AI analysis at $0.0005 per analyzed item and custom labels at $0.0001 each. Automation Lab splits posts and comments into separate events, so you pull comments only when needed. Pratikdani returns posts only.
The official Data API returns the richest object, including account-scoped vote and moderation fields, but only for approved clients at 100 queries per minute on the free tier. No live row reaches Pushshift's full-text history back to 2005; Datapika's archive fallback recovers some deleted content on a best-effort basis only.
- Shared post fields: post_id, permalink, subreddit, author, title, body, media, score, num_comments, timestamp
- Datapika only: Reddit AI Answers as markdown with follow_ups and source lists, $10 per 1,000 queries
- Datapika comment trees: parent_id on every comment so nested threads can be rebuilt
- Harshmaur only: in-run AI analysis at $0.0005 per item and custom labels at $0.0001
- Trudax Lite only: user profile and community metadata rows
Which Reddit API alternative should you choose?
Choose Datapika when you need whole threads, AI-agent access, or several Reddit tasks in one tool. The $3 per 1,000 posts-with-comments rate is the lowest in the table by roughly 10x for 50-comment threads, the actor is on the Apify MCP server so Claude or GPT agents can call it as a tool, and Reddit AI Answers is only available here. Its 188 users are the smallest install base of the paid rows, so weigh that against the price.
Choose Automation Lab when you want the cheapest bare post listings and can accept a 6-review track record. Choose Harshmaur when in-run sentiment labels matter more than a slightly higher per-comment bill. Choose Trudax Reddit Scraper Lite when a 40,034-user history and a 4.57 rating outweigh paying double per result. Skip Pratikdani at $25 per 1,000; it is the most expensive row.
Apply for the official Data API only if you need account-scoped fields or a contractual SLA and can wait through a manual review with no guaranteed outcome. Skip Pushshift unless you moderate a subreddit; for history, use community dumps such as Arctic Shift offline and a live scraper for anything newer.
- Whole threads, MCP agents, or Reddit AI Answers: Datapika, $3 per 1,000 threads
- Cheapest post-only feeds: Automation Lab, $1.15 per 1,000 posts
- Sentiment tagging inside the scrape: Harshmaur, $2 per 1,000 plus $0.0005 per analyzed item
- Largest user base and longest track record: Trudax Lite, 40,034 users since before the shutdown
- Contract and SLA requirements: official Reddit Data API, if your application is approved
| Tool | Price per 1,000 | Rating (reviews) | Users | Pricing model | No API key or login | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Official Reddit Data API | About $0.24 per 1,000 calls (commercial, 2023 terms); free non-commercial tier at 100 QPM | n/a | Approved clients only | Metered per call, sold in blocks of about 50 million calls, reported $12,000 minimum | No, approval required since Nov 11, 2025 | Account-scoped data with a contract |
| Datapika Reddit Scraper (openclawai) | $2 posts, $3 posts with full comments, $2 search results, $10 AI Answers, plus $0.00005 per run | 4.9 (8) | 188 | Pay per result, comments not billed | Yes | Threads with comments, MCP agents, Reddit AI Answers |
| Trudax Reddit Scraper Lite (apify/reddit-scraper redirects here) | $4 per 1,000 results ($3.40 on Gold) plus $0.02 per run | 4.57 (39) | 40,034 | Pay per result, each comment billed | Yes | Largest install base, user and community data |
| Harshmaur Reddit Scraper | $2 per 1,000 results ($1.50 on Gold) plus $0.02 per run | 4.48 (39) | 11,747 | Pay per result, optional AI analysis $0.0005 per item | Yes | Sentiment labels inside the run |
| Automation Lab Reddit Scraper | $1.15 per 1,000 posts, $0.575 per 1,000 comments, $0.003 per run | 4.8 (6) | 3,624 | Pay per result, posts and comments billed separately | Yes | Cheapest bare post listings |
| Trudax Reddit Scraper (full) | $45 per month rental plus platform usage | 2.57 | 14,252 | Monthly rental plus usage, 140 users in the last 30 days | Yes | Legacy rental users only |
| Pratikdani Reddit Post Scraper | $25 per 1,000 results ($15 on Gold) plus $0.002 per run | No reviews | 432 | Pay per result, posts only | Yes | Not recommended on price; posts only |
| Pushshift | Not available | n/a | Reddit moderators only | Closed to the public since May 2, 2023 | No, moderator verification | Historical research if you moderate a subreddit |
How to do it
- 1.Open the Datapika Reddit actor at https://apify.com/openclawai/reddit-scraper, or add it to an agent with https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,openclawai/reddit-scraper. No Reddit account, OAuth app, or API key is needed.
- 2.Map your old API calls to actions: a subreddit listing becomes scrape_subreddit, a search query becomes search_posts or search_comments, a comments endpoint becomes fetch_post with a permalink, and switch includeComments on when you want full threads at $3 per 1,000.
- 3.Run with limit set to 50 to confirm the fields you need, then raise it toward the 500 cap; keep the default residential proxy group for anything beyond a test.
- 4.Export the dataset as JSON or CSV, or read it through the Apify dataset API, and schedule the saved input to replace the polling loop that used to hit the .json endpoints.
Questions, answered
Is the Reddit API completely shut down in 2026?
Not completely, but the self-serve path is closed. Since November 11, 2025 every new OAuth client must apply under the Responsible Builder Policy and wait for manual approval, and since the last week of May 2026 anonymous .json requests return 403 Forbidden (FetchLayer, 2026; Crawlora, 2026). Existing approved apps keep working at 100 queries per minute on the free non-commercial tier. For anyone without an approved app, a public-page scraper is the only working route.
What is the best Pushshift alternative in 2026?
There is no live replacement for Pushshift's full-text history. Pushshift itself has been restricted to Reddit moderators since May 2, 2023 (Xpoz, 2026), and community archives such as Arctic Shift are offline dumps with search limited to one subreddit or user at a time; sources disagree on how current they are. For anything recent, use a live scraper: Datapika's search_comments action finds public comments by phrase at $2 per 1,000 results, and its archive fallback recovers some deleted posts on a best-effort basis.
How much does the official Reddit Data API cost compared with a scraper?
Reddit's 2023 terms price commercial access at about $0.24 per 1,000 calls, cheaper per call than any scraper, but it is sold in blocks of about 50 million calls for roughly $12,000 and guides report rare approvals (Crawlora, 2026; Prowlo, 2026). A scraper bills per row with no contract: 10,000 posts cost $20.00 on Datapika, $20.02 on Harshmaur, and $40.02 on Trudax Lite as of August 29, 2026. Below a few million calls a month, the scraper is cheaper in practice.
Is it legal to scrape Reddit without the API?
Scrapers in this comparison read only pages Reddit serves to anonymous visitors and do not bypass logins or access private subreddits. That keeps them outside the computer-access questions raised by authenticated scraping, but it does not remove your obligations under Reddit's user agreement, copyright in user posts, and privacy laws such as GDPR when you store usernames. Check the rules for your jurisdiction and purpose, and avoid republishing personal data at scale.
Why does Datapika charge $3 per 1,000 threads when others charge $2 per 1,000 results?
Because the unit is different. Trudax, Harshmaur, and Automation Lab count every comment as a result, so a 1,000-thread run with 50 comments each stores 51,000 items and costs $204.02, $102.02, or $29.90 respectively. Datapika bills the post with its complete comment tree as one $0.003 event, so the same run costs $3.00 (Apify Store prices, August 29, 2026). For post-only feeds Datapika is $2 per 1,000, the same as Harshmaur and above Automation Lab.
Can an AI agent use a Reddit API alternative through MCP?
Yes. Datapika's Reddit actor is exposed on the Apify MCP server at https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,openclawai/reddit-scraper, so a Claude, GPT, or custom agent can read the input schema and price, then call scrape_subreddit, search_posts, or reddit_answers as tools and read the dataset back. Billing stays per result, so an agent pulling 300 search results spends $0.60. Trudax and Harshmaur are also callable through Apify's generic MCP tools, but neither offers the Reddit AI Answers action.