Collectors · Social & communities

Reddit scraper API in Python

Public Reddit posts by search query and/or subreddit, with score and comments. One POST from Python with the input, rows back as JSON with 23 fields, $0.0005 per delivered post. No proxies or parsers to maintain.

Get an API key See the collector

A Python requests snippet that posts { — A Python requests call to the reddit_posts collector returns one dict per post, at $0.0005 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_posts/run",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['QD_API_KEY']}"},
    json={
        "query": "proxy",
        "subreddit": "webscraping",
        "sort": "relevance",
        "time": "year",
        "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("title"), row.get("subreddit"), row.get("author"))

Python: one Reddit posts run (Ricerca in un subreddit), printing id, title, subreddit, 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 posts collector
Parameter	Type	Required	Meaning
`query`	string	no	Keywords to search. Omit to list a subreddit instead.
`subreddit`	string	no	Subreddit name, e.g. "webscraping" (with or without r/).
`sort`	string: `relevance`, `top`, `new`, `hot`, `rising`, `comments`	no (default relevance)	Search: relevance \| top \| new \| comments. Listing: hot \| new \| top \| rising.
`time`	string: `hour`, `day`, `week`, `month`, `year`, `all`	no (default all)	Restrict to a period (search and top listings).
`country`	string	no	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code — proxy exit geo and Google locale (gl). Omit for the default pool.
`max_results`	integer	no (default 25)	How many posts to deliver at most (1–250). You pay only for delivered posts.

Response fields

23 fields per post.

Fields of each row (post)
Field	Type	What it holds
`rank`	integer	1-based position across pages.
`id`	string, nullable	Reddit fullname/id of the post.
`title`	string, nullable	Post title.
`subreddit`	string, nullable	Subreddit (r/name).
`author`	string, nullable	Author username.
`score`	integer, nullable	Net upvotes.
`comments`	integer, nullable	Comment count.
`created_at`	string, nullable	Creation time (ISO 8601).
`permalink`	string, nullable	Post URL on reddit.com.
`url`	string, nullable	What the post links to (self-post = its permalink path).
`domain`	string, nullable	Target domain (self.<sub> for text posts).
`nsfw`	boolean	NSFW flag.
`flair`	string, nullable	Post flair when set.
`upvote_ratio`	number, nullable	Share of upvotes, 0–1 (listing rows).
`post_type`	string, nullable	text, link, image, multi_media, video, gif (listing rows).
`language`	string, nullable	Post language (listing rows).
`awards`	integer, nullable	Award count (listing rows).
`author_id`	string, nullable	Author id (t2_…).
`subreddit_id`	string, nullable	Subreddit id (t5_…).
`spoiler`	boolean	Marked as spoiler.
`text`	string, nullable	Post body as shown in the feed (listing rows, self posts).
`thumbnail`	string, nullable	Preview image URL.
`snippet`	string, nullable	Search rows: the passage Reddit matched the query on.

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_posts/run", headers=H,
                  json={**{"query":"proxy","subreddit":"webscraping","sort":"relevance","time":"year","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

$0.0005 per delivered post.

What Reddit posts rows cost at list price
Rows	Cost
1	$0.0005
1,000	$0.50
10,000	$5.00

Up to 250 posts per run; split larger jobs into several runs. The $2 free credit every month covers about 4,000 posts. 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 posts API?

Every account gets $2 of free usage each month, about 4,000 posts of this collector at $0.0005 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 250 posts 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. $0.0005 per delivered post, no subscription.

Get an API key Reddit scraper API