Two kinds of Reddit monitoring
"Reddit monitoring tool" covers two different jobs, and picking the wrong one wastes money either way.
Mention monitoring
Brand and keyword alerts
Tell me whenever a word appears anywhere on Reddit: my brand, a competitor, a product category. Output is an alert. Good for support, PR and competitive awareness. Tools: F5Bot (free), Syften, Brand24, Octolens.
Opportunity monitoring
Fit-scored threads
Watch the specific communities where my customers ask questions, and show me the new threads worth answering, ranked. Output is a scored list with a draft reply. Good for founders doing their own marketing. Tools: ThauRed, RedShip, Subreddit Signals.
ThauRed is the second kind. It doesn't crawl all of Reddit for a string, and it won't email you when someone mentions your brand in a subreddit you're not watching. It reads a chosen set of subreddits on a cadence and tells you which of the new posts are worth your time. If you need both jobs done, F5Bot plus ThauRed costs $19 a month in total.
How ThauRed monitors Reddit
- 01
One watchlist per product
Each project space has its own subreddit list, its own product description and its own scoring. Marketing two products means two watchlists, kept apart.
- 02
Subreddits chosen from a catalog
The catalog maps each community's rules, culture and tolerance for self-promotion, so you're monitoring places where a reply is welcome rather than places where it will be removed.
- 03
Scans run in a Chrome extension
A lightweight extension reads your subreddits for new posts on the cadence you set and hands them to the scorer. It only reads. It never writes to Reddit.
- 04
Every new post is scored
Relevance to your product and the poster's intent, with a short note on why it fits. Old threads aren't resurfaced; the point is to catch conversations while they're live.
- 05
A draft is waiting
For each opportunity there's a reply drafted in your voice and tuned to the subreddit's tone. You read it, edit it, and post it yourself, or skip it and the scorer learns.
What you get for each thread
- A fit score combining relevance and intent, so the list is ranked, not chronological.
- The reason: which part of your pitch or audience the post matches.
- The subreddit's rules as they apply to product mentions, from the catalog.
- A draft reply in your voice, helpful first, promotional only where it belongs.
- A record once you've replied, tracked per project so you can see which communities produce conversations.
What you don't get, on purpose: an auto-post button, a DM tool, or a queue that replies while you sleep. See how the full lead-generation loop works.
Reddit monitoring tools compared
| Tool | Watches | Alerts | Scores by fit | Drafts replies | Posts for you | Free tier | Entry price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ThauRed | Your chosen subreddits, new posts | In-app opportunity list | Yes | Yes | No | Yes, 2 scans | $19/mo |
| F5Bot | All of Reddit (posts and comments), Hacker News, Lobsters | Email; Slack/Discord on Gold | No | No | No | Yes, 5 keywords | $0; $9.99/mo |
| Syften | Reddit plus 15+ communities | Email, Slack, webhooks | AI filter on Standard+ | No | No | No, 14-day trial | $29.95/mo |
| RedShip | Keywords across Reddit | In-app | Yes | Yes | No | No, $12 pass | $29/mo billed yearly |
| Brand24 | Reddit plus every major network | Email, app, reports | Sentiment, not fit | No | No | No, 14-day trial | $199/mo billed annually |
| Octolens | Reddit plus X, LinkedIn, GitHub, YouTube and more | Slack, API | AI filtering | No | No | No, 7-day trial | $159/mo |
Vendor pricing pages, checked September 4, 2026. F5Bot's free plan is the right answer for pure mention alerts on a small product; the rest of the row is why you'd pay for something else. Full breakdown on the GummySearch alternatives page.
When you should use a keyword-alert tool instead
- You mainly want to know when your brand or a competitor is mentioned, wherever on Reddit that happens.
- You need comments monitored, not just posts. ThauRed scores new posts; F5Bot and Syften watch comments too.
- You need coverage beyond Reddit: Hacker News, X, YouTube, forums.
- You want alerts pushed to Slack or a webhook rather than a list you open.
In all four cases F5Bot or Syften is the better product, and ThauRed is the wrong purchase. In the case where you want to act on threads rather than be told about words, it's the other way round.
Set up monitoring in ten minutes
- 01
Sign up and describe your product
Pitch, audience, pain points, reply tone. Two minutes.
- 02
Install the extension
The dashboard walks you through it. It's the scanner; without it nothing is read.
- 03
Pick five to ten subreddits
From the catalog, with each community's rules visible. Fewer, better-chosen communities beat a long list.
- 04
Run the first scan
Your first scored opportunities appear within minutes. Free includes two scans, enough to judge whether your subreddits have the threads you hope they do.
- 05
Go Pro for continuous monitoring
Pro removes the scan limit so the extension keeps watching on its cadence across every project.
Start free. Two scans, no card.
What it costs
Free: two scans across your Personal space and first project, no card. Pro: $19 a month or $190 a year for unlimited scans across all projects, with a 7-day trial. Same numbers as the pricing section and checkout, as of September 4, 2026.