How to market on r/startup
Can you promote on r/startup?
Yes, within limits. Promotion is off-limits except in the cases the rules spell out. What the rules say:
“No Solicitations, except for business services.”
“No solicitation, except for business services meant to help startups.”
Rule 2: No spam. No Solicitations, except for business services.
The rules
As the moderators wrote them, shortened where they run long.
- Posts must be relevant
- No spam. No Solicitations, except for business services.No spam meant to drive traffic off-site. No solicitation, except for business services meant to help startups. All solicitations must be approved and verified , by a mod, that service is legitimate.
- Self posts only (Enforced)
Full text on Reddit: r/startup rules.
What people asked this week
75 of the last 188 posts on r/startup (the past 4 days) asked a question or for a recommendation. Here are 12, starting with people asking for a tool, a service or someone to hire.
- Hiring managers and engineers: what do Tier-2/3 college freshers in India lack the most? Building a regional-language job-readiness program, need…r/startup · 23 Oct
- What do you wish existing delivery apps did better? Would you use a new alternative?r/startup · 22 Oct
- Based in Lisbon, selling to the US. Which is the best LLC service for international founders?r/startup · 21 Oct
- Can anyone please recommend reliable, reasonably priced, good communicator App developer?r/startup · 20 Oct
- How do you find & validate SaaS ideas, get your first users, and how long until your first paying customer?r/startup · 24 Oct
- Is anyone tracking whether their SaaS gets cited in ChatGPT or Perplexity answers?r/startup · 23 Oct
- Has an office in your city? That tells you almost nothing about whether an investor will fund you therer/startup · 23 Oct
- Why did you cancel your last SaaS tool? I’d love to hear your storyr/startup · 23 Oct
- How will you interpret this?r/startup · 23 Oct
- What's actually stopping you from starting your business?r/startup · 23 Oct
- What’s the hardest part about choosing a digital product to create?r/startup · 23 Oct
- What do you think makes an online shopping experience worth it?r/startup · 23 Oct
How to show up here without getting banned
- Help first, mention later. Answer questions on r/startup for a while before you bring up your own product, and when you do, say you made it.
- Answer questions. 40% of recent posts on r/startup ask a question or for a recommendation. A useful answer is the safest way to get noticed.
- Read the sidebar and pinned posts. Moderators often add rules there, and rules change. Check r/startup's before your first post.
- Build a history first. Comment helpfully on r/startup for a few weeks before you post. Accounts that only ever promote get filtered.
More on how this works across Reddit: Reddit's self-promotion rules, explained and the full Reddit marketing playbook.
Related communities
- How to market on r/indiehackers: bootstrapped makers building profitable products on their own.
- How to market on r/SideProject: makers sharing side projects and asking for feedback.
- How to market on r/microsaas: solo builders running small, niche SaaS products.
- How to market on r/SaaSMarketing: SaaS founders and marketers comparing growth tactics.
- How to market on r/nocode: people building apps, sites and automations without writing code.
Questions
Can I post my startup on r/startup?+
Only within limits. Promotion is off-limits except in the cases the rules spell out. Rule 2 says: “No Solicitations, except for business services.”
How active is r/startup?+
r/startup has about 183k members and averaged 49 new posts a day over the last four weeks. Of its latest 188 posts, 75 asked a question or for a recommendation.
Does r/startup allow links?+
The rules don't ban links, but a link to your own product still counts as self-promotion, so the self-promotion rules apply.
What do people ask about on r/startup?+
Recent examples: “Hiring managers and engineers: what do Tier-2/3 college freshers in India lack the most?…”, “What do you wish existing delivery apps did better? Would you use a new alternative?” and “Based in Lisbon, selling to the US. Which is the best LLC service for international…”. The full list of this week's questions is on this page and refreshes daily.