Best Reddit monitoring tools (2026): honest picks by job
A Reddit monitor watches for words and tells you when they show up. The best one depends on the job: a free email ping, a cheap listener across many communities, AI-scored mentions for a team, or a report. Here are the tools that do each, with prices checked on 28 September 2026. Founder CRM is not a live monitor. It appears once, for the part it does do.
Quick picks
Every price below links to the vendor page it came from, in the sections that follow. No ratings, because we did not run a lab test. Delivery speeds are the vendors' own descriptions.
F5Bot
Best for
A free email when a keyword appears on Reddit, Hacker News or Lobsters.
Price checked
Free plan. Paid from $9.99 a month.
Skip it if
You need other communities, or Slack on a free plan.
Syften
Best for
A founder-priced listener across Reddit and many other communities.
Price checked
From $29.95 a month. 14-day trial.
Skip it if
You need LinkedIn, or want it free.
Octolens
Best for
A team that wants AI-scored mentions in Slack, a CRM or an API.
Price checked
From $159 a month billed annually. 7-day trial.
Skip it if
You are pre-launch with few mentions.
Brand24
Best for
Reports, sentiment and mentions across many networks.
Price checked
From $199 a month billed annually. 14-day trial.
Skip it if
You wanted a quick alert, not a dashboard.
Reddit search
Best for
A small niche you are willing to check by hand.
Price checked
Free.
Skip it if
You will not open it every day.
Founder CRM
Best for
Not a monitor. A daily pass that finds threads and people, and a list of who you answered.
Price checked
Free. Optional AI uses your own key.
Skip it if
You need minute-level alerts, email or Slack.
Four questions before you pick
- How fast does it need to be? A support or reputation team may need minutes. A founder looking for first customers usually needs today. Where a vendor states a speed, check which plan it applies to.
- Only Reddit, or Reddit plus more? F5Bot covers Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters. Syften, Octolens and Brand24 go wider.
- Where should the alert land? Email is enough for one person. A team usually wants Slack, a webhook or an API.
- How noisy are your keywords? A unique brand name is easy. A common word or a broad problem phrase needs filtering, which is why several of these tools sell AI filters on their higher plans.
If you do not have keywords yet, start with phrases people use when they want a tool. A static list you can copy, which is not a live feed, is on the buyer-phrase page.
The tools, with the limits in the open
F5Bot: the free email ping
As of 28 September 2026, F5Bot says it monitors Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters and emails you within minutes when a keyword appears. The free plan is listed at $0 with keyword alerts, those three sites, email and basic filtering. Silver is $9.99 per month for 20 keywords. Gold is $49.99 per month for 200 keywords and lists RSS, AI filtering and Slack. "Within minutes" is their claim, not a delay we measured.
Pick it first if you are one person, Reddit and Hacker News are the whole map, and the budget is zero. Our note on pairing it with a people list is the F5Bot alternative page.
Syften: the founder-priced listener
As of 28 September 2026, Syften's homepage lists keyword monitoring for Reddit, Hacker News, X, Indie Hackers, GitHub, Product Hunt, forums, YouTube, Bluesky and Mastodon, with X and YouTube marked as paid add-ons. Its FAQ says it does not monitor LinkedIn. Entry is $29.95 per month, Standard is $49.95 per month with AI filtering, API access and Slack, and PRO is $119.95 per month with webhooks. There is a 14-day trial with no credit card.
Its Reddit page says alerts can go to email, Slack, RSS, an API or a webhook, with a target of under one minute for Reddit. That is their target, not a number we measured. Pick Syften when you want more than Reddit at a founder price. The long comparison is Syften alternatives for founders.
Octolens: AI-scored mentions for a team
As of 28 September 2026, Octolens pricing lists Pro at $159 per month billed annually for 15,000 mentions and 10 keywords, and Scale at $499 per month billed annually for 50,000 mentions and 40 keywords. Every plan includes Slack and email alerts, an API, webhooks and an MCP server, with unlimited seats. The table lists an hourly refresh on Pro and real-time on Scale. There is a 7-day trial.
Its Reddit monitoring page says it watches posts and comments, can follow whole subreddits, scores each mention for relevance, sentiment and intent, and should surface new Reddit mentions within 1 to 2 minutes. Pick Octolens when mentions already arrive daily and a team shares the feed. The full comparison is Octolens alternatives for founders.
Brand24: the report
As of 28 September 2026, Brand24's pricing page lists an Individual plan at $249 per month, or $199 per month billed annually, with 3 keywords, 2,000 mentions a month, 1 user and updates every 12 hours. Reddit is one of the listed sources. Higher plans cost more and list faster updates. There is a 14-day trial with no credit card.
Pick Brand24 when the thing you hand to someone is a report: where the brand was mentioned, how people felt about it, and how that changed. It is the wrong buy for a founder who wanted a quick alert.
Reddit search: free, if you do the checking
Reddit's own search, sorted by new, costs nothing. Save a few searches for the problem you solve and the communities you already read, and open them each morning. You will miss what you do not look up, and nothing will tell you when a thread appears. For a small niche and a tight budget, that trade is often right. Keep your account healthy while you do it: Reddit's own help articles are collected on the account-health checklist.
Not monitors, but often confused with them
Scrapers and sending tools show up in the same searches. PhantomBuster, for example, lists Reddit automations that export posts, comments and search results, and it runs scheduled jobs in the cloud. That is extraction, not an alert. See the PhantomBuster alternative page for that split. Tools that send Reddit DMs or write public replies are compared on Founder CRM vs Redreach and Founder CRM vs SubHunt.
Where Founder CRM fits, and where it does not
Founder CRM is a free Chrome extension, not a Reddit monitor. You describe who you are looking for. A flow opens Reddit, X or Product Hunt in your own Chrome, signed in as you, and keeps the threads and people that match. Save the flow and it can run on weekdays or every day at a time you pick. New finds land in the side panel, and the extension icon shows how many are waiting.
That is a pass once a day, in your browser. It is not a monitor:
- It only runs while Chrome is open on your computer.
- It does not send email, Slack, RSS or webhook alerts.
- It does not watch every subreddit continuously or promise a delivery time.
- It does not score sentiment or build mention reports.
- It does not post, comment or DM. You write every reply.
AI that finds and screens threads uses your own key from xAI, OpenAI, Anthropic or Google. A list you type yourself needs no key. The part Founder CRM is actually for comes after the find: who you answered, in which thread, what you said, and when to look again. The category page is Reddit CRM for founders, the policies are on safety and no auto-DM. It is free on the Chrome Web Store: add it to Chrome.
A setup that works for many founders: F5Bot or Syften sends the ping, you decide the thread is worth it, and Founder CRM keeps the person and the follow-up.
If you came here from GummySearch
GummySearch was Reddit research, not a keyword monitor, and it has closed. As of 28 September 2026, its closing note says new signups closed on 30 November 2025, and its final chapter says it shuts down entirely, with user data deleted, on 1 December 2026. The tools above cover alerts, not community research. The full answer, by job, is GummySearch shut down: what founders use now. For the follow-up habit, read how to track outreach after GummySearch.
After the alert
A monitor gets you to the thread. What happens next decides whether it was worth paying for. Reply like a person, and keep a record so Friday is a follow-up and not a guess.
How to answer a thread like a person.
The fields worth keeping after you reply.
Free, local, and you write every message.
Your browser, a human pace, and no auto-DM.
Head-to-heads with tools that draft or send for you.
Sources checked on 28 September 2026
- F5Bot: sites covered, free plan, Silver $9.99, Gold $49.99, delivery wording.
- Syften homepage: communities, LinkedIn exclusion, Entry $29.95, Standard $49.95, PRO $119.95, trial.
- Syften Reddit monitoring: delivery channels and the under-one-minute target.
- Octolens pricing: Pro $159 and Scale $499 billed annually, quotas, refresh, seats, trial.
- Octolens Reddit monitoring: posts and comments, subreddits, scoring, 1 to 2 minute target.
- Octolens for founders: never replies on your behalf.
- Brand24 pricing: Individual $249 per month or $199 billed annually, limits, 12-hour updates, trial.
- GummySearch closing note and final chapter: signups closed 30 November 2025, full shutdown 1 December 2026.
Questions founders ask
- What is the best free Reddit monitoring tool?
- For a free email alert, F5Bot has a $0 plan covering Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters. Reddit search sorted by new is also free if you check it yourself.
- What is the best Reddit monitoring tool for a startup founder?
- If you want alerts, start with F5Bot for free or Syften from $29.95 a month for more communities. Move to Octolens when mentions arrive daily and a team shares them. Add a people list, such as Founder CRM, for the threads you actually answer.
- Does Founder CRM monitor Reddit?
- No. It is not a live monitor and it does not send email or Slack alerts. A saved flow can run once on weekdays or daily in your own Chrome, while Chrome is open, and add the threads and people it finds to your list.
- Which Reddit monitor is fastest?
- We did not measure delivery times. Syften states a target of under one minute for Reddit, Octolens says 1 to 2 minutes on its Reddit page, and F5Bot says within minutes. Check which plan each speed applies to.
- Is GummySearch a Reddit monitoring tool?
- GummySearch was a Reddit research tool, and it has closed. Its closing note says new signups closed on 30 November 2025, and its final chapter says it shuts down entirely on 1 December 2026.
- Will Founder CRM reply on Reddit for me?
- No. Founder CRM does not post, comment or DM. You write every reply. Among the monitors, Octolens states on its founders page that it will never reply on your behalf.
Install Founder CRM
Pick a monitor for the ping. Install Founder CRM if you also want a list of the people you decided to answer, and a daily pass that runs in your own Chrome. You write every reply.