Alternatives to manually searching Reddit for customers
Short answer: if you only need to know when someone says your brand name, a free keyword alert like F5Bot is enough. If you want people on Reddit who are asking for a tool like yours, with a reply ready to send, use an intent digest like First10, which has a free weekly plan. Big social listening suites such as Brand24 or Octolens suit teams with a marketing budget, not a solo founder looking for the first 10 users.
Get your free weekly digest See a sample
Why manual Reddit searching stops working
Searching Reddit by hand works on day one. You type "is there a tool" plus your problem, sort by New and reply to a few posts. By week two it slips: it takes 30 to 60 minutes a day, the best posts are gone within 48 hours, and you still have to check X separately. Our guide to finding people asking for your product on Reddit shows the manual method if you want to keep doing it yourself.
The options, compared
Prices are the cheapest paid plan shown on each tool's official pricing page when we checked in October 2026. They change, so confirm on the tool's site.
| Option | Where it looks | Reply drafts | Price | Best at |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manual Reddit search | Reddit (X separately) | No | Free, costs your time | Full control, slow, easy to skip on busy days |
| F5Bot | Reddit, Hacker News, Lobsters | No | Free alerts; paid plans from $9.99 | Emails every keyword mention, no ranking |
| Syften | Reddit and other communities; X as an add-on | No | From $29.95/month; X adds $40/month | Fast keyword monitoring with filters |
| Subreddit Signals | Yes | From $29/month | Reddit-only lead finding with comment help | |
| Octolens | Reddit, X, LinkedIn and more | No | From $159/month billed annually | AI relevance scoring, aimed at larger teams |
| Brand24 | X, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, news and more | No | From $199/month billed yearly | Full brand monitoring and analytics |
| First10 | Reddit on every plan; X coming soon | Yes, for every post | Free weekly; Solo $19/month; Pro $49/month | Ranks posts by buying intent, one short email a day, never auto-posts |
Keyword alerts: F5Bot and Syften
Keyword alerts email you whenever a word appears. They are great for tracking your brand or a competitor's name. For finding buyers they are noisy, because most posts that mention "invoice app" are not people looking for one. You end up reading everything to find the two posts that matter.
Social listening suites: Brand24 and Octolens
These cover many networks and add sentiment, reach and team features. They are built for companies managing a brand, and priced that way. Before launch traction, most of what they measure is noise.
Reddit lead tools
Tools like Subreddit Signals focus on Reddit and help you write comments. If all your buyers are on Reddit they are a solid choice. If your buyers also ask on X, you need a second tool. GummySearch, once the popular pick here, shut down in November 2025.
Intent digests: First10
First10 searches Reddit (X coming soon) for posts where someone is asking for a tool like yours, complaining about the problem you solve, or looking for an alternative to a competitor. It ranks them by buying intent and sends one email with the best posts and a short, honest reply draft for each. You review and post every reply yourself; First10 never auto-posts. The free plan covers Reddit weekly; Solo ($19/month) and Pro ($49/month) add a daily digest, and X is coming soon.
Questions founders ask
What is the cheapest way to find customers on Reddit?
Manual Reddit search is free: search for the problem your product solves with phrases like "is there a tool" or "alternative to", sort by New and limit to the past week. It costs time, usually 30 to 60 minutes a day. First10 has a free plan that emails you the top 5 matching Reddit posts each week with reply drafts.
Is F5Bot good for finding customers?
F5Bot is a simple keyword alert for Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters. It emails you every mention of a keyword, which works for brand names but gets noisy for problem phrases. It does not cover X or write replies.
What replaced GummySearch?
GummySearch shut down on November 30, 2025. Founders who used it for Reddit audience research now use keyword alert tools such as Syften or F5Bot, Reddit lead tools such as Subreddit Signals, or intent digests such as First10 (Reddit today, X coming soon).
Which tools find posts on both Reddit and X?
Syften (X is a paid add-on), Octolens and Brand24 cover both. First10 searches Reddit today, with X coming soon. It is built for early-stage founders: it ranks posts by how clearly the person is asking for a tool like yours and drafts a reply for each one, from $19 a month.
Will these tools post replies for me?
Some do, such as ReplyGuy, which auto-replies. First10 never posts for you: you read each post, edit the draft and reply yourself, which keeps your accounts safe from spam filters and subreddit bans.
Also useful: three X searches that find people asking for your tool and how to get your first users for an AI app.