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Social Listening · Tutorial6 min read·Updated 2026-11-04

How to Build Real-Time Reddit Brand Mention & Keyword Alerts in Python

Monitor competitor mentions, buying-intent keywords, and product feedback across all subreddits or specific communities like r/saas and r/devops using incremental ?since= polling.

Get Free API Key (2,000 Free Credits) →Run Live Code Example ↓

$0.10 / 1K Posts · $0.10 / 1K Comments · $0.20 / 1K Lookups · No OAuth Needed

Instant Quickstart · Copy & Run in 30 Seconds

Incremental brand mention poller

Execute in Live Playground →
import requests

res = requests.get(
    "https://api.redditdataapi.io/v1/posts/search",
    params={"query": "supabase vs neon", "sort": "new", "time_filter": "day", "limit": 25},
    headers={"x-api-key": "rd_live_your_api_key"},
)
for post in res.json()["data"]["items"]:
    print(post["subreddit_name_prefixed"], post["title"], post["permalink"])

Key Engineering Takeaways (TL;DR)

  • ✓GET /v1/posts/search supports global keyword queries (?query=...) as well as subreddit-scoped searches (?subreddit=saas) sorted by new, relevance, top, or comments.
  • ✓Pass ?since=<unix_timestamp> to filter strictly for posts created after your last poll checkpoint.
  • ✓Because RedditDataAPI.io charges 0 Credits when a search returns 0 items, you can poll high-intent keywords every 60 seconds without wasting credits.

1. Incremental Keyword Polling with ?since=

Track your last seen created_utc timestamp and pass it as ?since= on subsequent polls.

Incremental brand mention poller

Fetch only brand-new posts matching your keyword.

curl "https://api.redditdataapi.io/v1/posts/search?query=supabase+vs+neon&sort=new&time_filter=day&limit=25" \
  -H "x-api-key: rd_live_your_api_key"

Interactive Engineering Workbench · GET /v1/posts/search

Verify real-time latency, pagination math & JSON schema

5,000 posts/day
10,000 comments/day
1,000 lookups/day
Our HTTP Calls/Day
1,100
Large page sizes
Legacy Provider Calls
1,400
30-item small pages
Official Research API
Exceeds 1K Cap
1,000 req/day limit
Estimated Monthly Pipeline Cost (30 Days)
$30.91/ mo with Business bonus ($51.00 base rate)
Daily consumption: 17,000 Credits ($1.70/day)
RedditDataAPI.io (with volume bonus):$30.91 / mo
Legacy Scrapers ($1.50 / 1K calls):$63.00 / mo
Failed / 404 request fee:$0.00 (0 Credits)
Start Free (2,000 Credits) →Full Rate Card

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does 24/7 brand mention polling cost?
Empty polls cost 0 Credits, and matching posts cost 1 Credit ($0.0001) per post (minimum 2 Credits per non-empty response).

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