How to scrape Reddit without the API

A real use case

A data analyst needs the top posts of the year from five finance subreddits, with the top 50 comments each, for a sentiment study. One run returns 500 posts and 25,000 comments.

Step by step

1. Add subreddits (r/name), post URLs or user URLs.
2. Pick sort and time range, for example top of the year.
3. Set posts per source and comments per post.
4. Run and export.

Input (paste into the JSON tab)

{
  "startUrls": [
    "r/personalfinance",
    "r/investing",
    "r/stocks",
    "r/financialindependence",
    "r/fatFIRE"
  ],
  "sort": "top",
  "time": "year",
  "maxPostsPerSource": 100,
  "maxCommentsPerPost": 50
}

What you get back

[
  {
    "dataType": "post",
    "title": "I paid off $80k in 3 years, here is what worked",
    "subreddit": "personalfinance",
    "score": 24100,
    "numComments": 1840,
    "createdAt": "2026-03-04T15:20:00Z"
  },
  {
    "dataType": "comment",
    "body": "The snowball method kept me going too.",
    "score": 2310,
    "depth": 0,
    "postId": "t3_abc123"
  }
]

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

Tips

• Use postedAfter and postedBefore for exact date windows.
• minScore drops low-quality posts.

What it costs

$1 per 1,000 posts and $0.50 per 1,000 comments. 500 posts plus 25,000 comments cost about $13.

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

FAQ

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