How to find customers on Reddit without spamming (or getting banned)

Every day somebody on Reddit writes "can anyone recommend a tool for..." or "I'm stuck with this, willing to pay someone to fix it". If you sell that thing, this is the warmest lead you will ever get: they asked first.

The problem is finding those posts before 40 other people answer, and replying without looking like a spammer. Here is the approach that works for me.

Step 1: know what a buying post looks like

Most posts in your niche are not leads. Discussions, launches and memes are noise. Buying intent sounds like this:

• "looking for a tool / app / service that..."
• "any alternative to X?" (they are unhappy with a competitor)
• "willing to pay", "budget is", "hiring", "need someone to"
• "how do I fix..." followed by a very concrete broken thing
• "we tried X and it didn't work"

Write down 10 to 20 phrases like these for your product. They become your search queries.

Step 2: search the right places

Reddit search is decent if you sort by new. Try queries like:

"alternative to hubspot"
"looking for a crm"
"need help with supabase"

Then list the subreddits where your customers hang out. Not the big general ones: the small, specific ones where people describe their actual problems. For a dev service that might be r/Supabase, r/nextjs, r/SaaS, r/indiehackers, r/forhire.

Checking all of that by hand every day takes an hour. I built Reddit Scraper & AI Lead Finder to do it: you give it search queries, subreddits and a short description of what you sell, and it returns the posts with an intent score, the pain point and a draft reply. You can schedule it every few hours and only look at posts that scored 7 or higher.

Step 3: answer like a person, not a brand

This is where most people burn their account. Rules I follow:

• Help first. Give one concrete, useful tip for their exact problem. If your reply is useful without your product, you are doing it right.
• Keep it short. Two or three sentences. Nobody reads a wall of text from a stranger.
• No links in the first reply. Links from new accounts get filtered or downvoted.
• One soft offer at the end. Something like "I can help you set this up if you want, just message me." That is it.
• Sound like yourself. No "Great question!", no bullet points, no corporate tone.

A good reply looks like this:

sounds like your redirect URL in Supabase auth still points to localhost, check Authentication then URL configuration. i fix this kind of thing for people, message me if you want a hand

Step 4: move to DMs, then close

When someone replies "yes please" or sends a DM, the hard part is over. Ask one or two questions about their setup, give a fixed price, and offer to start today. Speed wins here: the person who answers within an hour usually gets the job.

How not to get banned

• Read each subreddit's rules. Some ban any self-promotion, respect that.
• Do not post the same reply twice. Reddit spots copy-paste fast.
• Keep the ratio healthy: most of your comments should be plain help with no offer at all.
• A few good replies a day beat fifty lazy ones.

What to expect

Most replies go nowhere, and that is fine. You are playing a numbers game with very warm leads: a handful of helpful replies a day, a few conversations a week, and every now and then someone who says "can you just do it for me". It costs half an hour a day, and the people you talk to came asking for help.