Search Reddit comments by keyword

To search Reddit comments by keyword, call GET /v1/reddit/search/comments with a query. Each match comes back with the comment's text, author, score and time, plus the post it sits under: the post's title, URL, score, comment count and subreddit. It costs 10 credits a page. Reddit's search operators work in the query, so author:username lists one account's comments and subreddit:name terms keeps the search inside one community.

How do I write the query?

The query is the same text you would type in Reddit's search box, with three operators:

Add sort to choose the order: relevance, top or new.

Make the request

curl -G "https://api.insightsocial.app/v1/reddit/search/comments" \
  --data-urlencode "query=best project management software" \
  -H "x-api-key: $INSIGHTSOCIAL_API_KEY"

What comes back

A real response from 2026-10-14, shortened: one comment instead of 24, the text and post title shortened, long URLs and the cursor cut, and Reddit usernames replaced with placeholders.

{
  "success": true,
  "endpoint": "/v1/reddit/search/comments",
  "schema_version": "2",
  "data": {
    "items": [
      {
        "comment": {
          "id": "pfc2aq6",
          "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/comments/1x3l1fn/comment/pfc2aq6/",
          "parent_id": null,
          "post_id": "1x3l1fn",
          "text": "I look forward to people rediscovering software engineering methods from 20 years ago…",
          "author": { "id": "t2_…", "username": "example_user", "display_name": null, "avatar_url": "https://styles.redditmedia.com/…" },
          "engagement": { "likes": 174, "replies": null },
          "flags": { "pinned": null, "deleted": false },
          "published_at": "2026-10-11T22:18:34.073Z",
          "language": "en",
          "ext": {
            "post_title": "The people who doubted me now ask me to clean up their LLM mess…",
            "post_url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/comments/t3_1x3l1fn/",
            "subreddit": "BetterOffline",
            "subreddit_subscribers": 58872,
            "post_score": 523,
            "post_comment_count": 156,
            "post_author": "example_poster",
            "post_published_at": "2026-10-11T22:11:46.852Z"
          }
        }
      }
    ],
    "total": null,
    "truncated": null
  },
  "pagination": { "next_cursor": "v2c.yQV705tt…", "has_more": true, "page_size": 24 },
  "unavailable": ["items[].comment.engagement.replies"],
  "credits_used": 10
}

How do I get more than one page?

Send pagination.next_cursor back as cursor, with the same query and sort, and stop when pagination.has_more is false. Each page is 10 credits.

import os
import requests

BASE = "https://api.insightsocial.app/v1"
HEADERS = {"x-api-key": os.environ["INSIGHTSOCIAL_API_KEY"]}

params = {"query": "best project management software", "sort": "new"}
comments = []
for _ in range(10):
    body = requests.get(f"{BASE}/reddit/search/comments", params=params, headers=HEADERS, timeout=120).json()
    comments += [item["comment"] for item in body["data"]["items"]]
    if not body["pagination"]["has_more"]:
        break
    params["cursor"] = body["pagination"]["next_cursor"]

See Pagination for the full rules.

What are the limits?

• No thread position. parent_id is null on every row: you know which post a comment is under, not which comment it replied to. Use GET /v1/reddit/post/comments with the post's URL to see the whole thread.
• No reply counts. engagement.replies is null, which means unknown, not zero.
• Relevance is loose. Without quotes, matches share some of the words rather than the whole phrase: our test for "best project management software" also returned comments about software careers and game sales. Quote the phrase or add subreddit: to tighten it.
• No total. data.total is null, so you can't know the number of matches up front.

What can I build with it?

• Brand and competitor mentions. Many product recommendations live in replies, not post titles. Search your brand and competitors' names with sort=new every day to catch new mentions. The brand mention monitoring recipe shows the full loop.
• Customer research. Search a problem phrase ("switching from Jira", "too expensive for a small team") and read what people say, grouped by ext.subreddit.
• Account history. author:username lists what one account has said across Reddit, useful for checking a prospect or a reviewer.

Related

• GET /v1/reddit/search/comments reference: every parameter and field.
• GET /v1/reddit/search: search Reddit posts instead of comments.
• GET /v1/reddit/post/comments: every comment in one thread.
• Reddit endpoints: everything the API covers on Reddit.