Collectors · Social & communities

Reddit comments API in Python

The comment tree of any public Reddit post — author, score, depth, timestamps. One POST from Python with post, rows back as JSON with 19 fields, $0.002 per delivered comment. No proxies or parsers to maintain.

Get an API key See the collector

A Python requests snippet that posts post and sort to the reddit_comments collector, a line-drawn page titled Reddit comments, and a white card with the fields author, body, score, created_at and stickied, at $0.002 per comment ($2.00 per 1,000). — A Python requests call to the reddit_comments collector returns one dict per comment, at $0.002 each.

First call

Install, call, read the rows.

pip install requests

The only dependency.

import os, requests

r = requests.post(
    "https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/reddit_comments/run",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['QD_API_KEY']}"},
    json={
        "post": "https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/92dd8/test_post_please_ignore/",
        "sort": "top",
        "max_results": 50,
    },
    timeout=120,
)
r.raise_for_status()
run = r.json()["payload"]
print(run["count"], "rows,", run["cost"]["usd"], "USD")
for row in run["results"]:
    print(row.get("id"), row.get("parent_id"), row.get("depth"), row.get("author"))

Python: one Reddit comments run (Top comments), printing id, parent_id, depth, author

The key comes from an environment variable, never from the code. The run answers in the same request when it finishes in time; payload.results holds the rows and payload.cost what they cost.

Request parameters

What the collector takes.

Input of the Reddit comments collector
Parameter	Type	Required	Meaning
`post`	string	yes	Post URL or id, e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/92dd8/… or 92dd8.
`sort`	string: `top`, `new`, `controversial`, `old`, `qa`	no (default top)	Comment order (default top).
`country`	string	no	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code — proxy exit geo. Omit for the default pool.
`max_results`	integer	no (default 50)	How many comments to deliver at most (1–200). You pay only for delivered comments.

Response fields

19 fields per comment.

Fields of each row (comment)
Field	Type	What it holds
`rank`	integer	1-based position in thread order for the chosen sort.
`id`	string, nullable	Comment fullname (t1_…).
`parent_id`	string, nullable	Parent comment fullname; null for top-level comments.
`depth`	integer	0 for top-level, +1 per nesting level.
`author`	string, nullable	Comment author.
`body`	string, nullable	Comment text (markdown rendered to plain text).
`score`	integer, nullable	Net upvotes as shown.
`created_at`	string, nullable	Comment timestamp (ISO 8601).
`edited`	boolean	True when the comment was edited.
`permalink`	string, nullable	Direct link to the comment.
`is_submitter`	boolean	True when the author is the post's OP.
`is_moderator`	boolean	True when the author is a subreddit moderator.
`stickied`	boolean	True for pinned comments.
`collapsed`	boolean	True when Reddit collapses the comment by default.
`author_id`	string, nullable	Author id (t2_…) when stated.
`awards`	integer, nullable	Award count when stated.
`post_id`	string, nullable	Id of the post the comment belongs to (t3_…).
`post_title`	string, nullable	Title of the post.
`subreddit`	string, nullable	Subreddit of the post (r/…).

Add ?format=csv to the runs endpoint to get the same rows as CSV.

Long runs

Run in the background, then poll.

A run that needs more time can go to the background: send "async": true, get 202 with the run id, and poll the runs endpoint until the status is done. Reading a run is free.

import os, time, requests

H = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['QD_API_KEY']}"}
r = requests.post("https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/reddit_comments/run", headers=H,
                  json={**{"post":"https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/92dd8/test_post_please_ignore/","sort":"top","max_results":50}, "async": True}, timeout=30)
run_id = r.json()["payload"]["run_id"]
while True:
    run = requests.get(f"https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/runs/{run_id}", headers=H, timeout=30).json()["payload"]
    if run["status"] in ("done", "failed"):
        break
    time.sleep(5)
print(run["status"], run["count"])

Python: background run and polling

Errors

What can come back, and what is billed.

Collector run errors
Status	Meaning	Billed
`400`	The input does not match the collector (`payload.errors`)	No
`401`	Missing or wrong API key	No
`402`	Balance and free credit do not cover the run: top up	No
`422`	The input can never resolve; retrying the same input cannot help	No
`424`	The run failed at the source (blocked, timed out, layout changed); safe to retry	No
`429`	Rate limit or a per-account brake; wait for `Retry-After`	No

Only delivered rows are billed: a run that delivers nothing costs nothing.

Price

$0.002 per delivered comment.

What Reddit comments rows cost at list price
Rows	Cost
1	$0.002
1,000	$2.00
10,000	$20.00

Up to 200 comments per run; split larger jobs into several runs. The $2 free credit every month covers about 1,000 comments. No subscription; paid tiers lower the unit price. All collector prices: collector pricing.

Before you run it

Questions developers ask

Is there a free Reddit comments API?

Every account gets $2 of free usage each month, about 1,000 comments of this collector at $0.002 each, with no card.

Do I have to handle proxies, retries or blocks?

No. The collector runs on our network and handles them; a run blocked at the source returns 424 and is not billed.

How many rows can one run return?

Up to 200 comments per run (the max_results input, where the collector has one).

Can an AI agent run it?

Yes: the MCP server exposes it as the run_collector tool, with the same input and price. See the MCP server.

Run it on the free credit.

Create an API key, export it as QD_API_KEY and run the example. $0.002 per delivered comment, no subscription.

Get an API key Reddit comments API