How to Find Customer Pain Points on Reddit

Short answer

Search Reddit with the Reddit Scraper for phrases like “alternative to” or “I hate”, filter posts with includeKeywords, and turn on aiTagging. Each post gets tags for pain point, request and intent, so you can count them.

A real use case

A founder building an invoicing tool searches “invoicing software” and “freelance invoice” over the past year, keeps posts with “hate”, “alternative” or “wish”, and finds that late-payment reminders are the top complaint. That becomes the landing page headline.

Step by step

Search the words customers use, not your marketing words.
Add must-contain keywords like hate, wish, alternative.
Turn on AI tags.
Run, then count tags in a pivot table.

Input (paste into the JSON tab)

{
  "searchTerms": [
    "invoicing software",
    "freelance invoice"
  ],
  "searchSort": "relevance",
  "time": "year",
  "maxPostsPerSource": 200,
  "includeKeywords": [
    "hate",
    "alternative",
    "wish",
    "frustrating"
  ],
  "maxCommentsPerPost": 20,
  "aiTagging": true
}

What you get back

{
  "dataType": "post",
  "title": "Any invoicing tool that chases late payments for me?",
  "subreddit": "freelance",
  "score": 412,
  "numComments": 96,
  "aiTags": {
    "painPoint": "late payments",
    "intent": "looking for tool"
  }
}

Trimmed example. Names and numbers are illustrative; your run returns real data with more fields.

Tips

Read the top comments, not just posts. Fixes people recommend are your competitors.
Quote real phrases in your ads; they match how buyers search.

What it costs

$1 per 1,000 posts and $0.50 per 1,000 comments, plus the AI tag add-on (see the listing).

Plus a small per-run start fee. Apify's free plan includes monthly credit, enough to test. Check the listing for current pricing.

FAQ

Which subreddits should I search?

Search all of Reddit first, then look at the subreddit column to see where your buyers talk.

Reddit Scraper Posts, comments, searches and users. No login. $1 / 1,000 posts.
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How to find customer pain points on Reddit