# Reddit Ads

5 Hacker News commenters recommended Reddit Ads and 16 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Some advertisers get good results on simple campaigns, but many report wasted budget on clicks that never convert, so results depend heavily on audience.

## Why people recommend it

- Works well for some advertisers (3 comments): "running one simple ad on Reddit with amazingly good metrics" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47907307)) "I found Reddit ads insanely effective." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46425836)) "I have found reddit ads to be useful." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46425627))

## What people warn about

- Little or no conversions (5 comments): "Reddit ads had the worst performance among all platforms I tried, literally zero conversion." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46429241)) "I run a large marketing agency and Reddit is terrible for advertising across most verticals." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46438241)) "it blew all the budget almost instantly on phantom clicks, with absolutely zero conversions" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49672059))
- Phantom or suspicious clicks (4 comments): "it blew all the budget almost instantly on phantom clicks, with absolutely zero conversions" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49672059)) "only ~38 new wishes, the other hundreds of clicks was for nowhere." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49672044)) "Because it's an obvious scam, just like buying ads on Reddit." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49671815))
- Expensive for the traffic (3 comments): "reddit is very expensive because they have a very high mobile traffic population, and the ads can't be blocked" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46193842)) "I would be wary on spending much on Reddit ads without carefully measuring the results" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46426414)) "makes you feel like they run their own ads to jack up the price" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46360075))
- Broken product and account problems (2 comments): "we were not able to extensively test this, because of account issues and didn't generate results as expected from the start" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49475397)) "you are faced with a severely broken product: broken buttons, obviously wrong metrics, and other glaring bugs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49667825))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Google Ads](https://hackerapproved.com/p/google-ads.md): 25 recommend
- [Meta Ads](https://hackerapproved.com/p/meta-ads.md): 14 recommend
- [Instagram ads](https://hackerapproved.com/p/instagram-ads.md): 12 recommend
- [Google AdSense](https://hackerapproved.com/p/google-adsense.md): 11 recommend
- [Facebook Ads](https://hackerapproved.com/p/facebook-ads.md): 7 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://www.business.reddit.com/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Reddit Ads", https://hackerapproved.com/p/reddit-ads/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).