How to Get Karma on Reddit Fast: 11 Strategies

What Precisely is Reddit karma?

Karma represents a rating allocated to each user on Reddit. The website defines it as a “reflection of the significance of your contributions to the community.”

However, it’s essentially a reputation evaluation. Every account starts with 1 karma. You accumulate karma through upvotes and lose it through downvotes.

Formerly, you could also amass karma by receiving awards, which were once a feature on the platform.

Reddit karma is classified into four groups, which collectively determine your final karma total displayed on your profile.

1. Post karma
2. Comment karma
3. Awarder karma
4. Awardee karma

What exactly is post karma on Reddit?

Reddit post karma represents the sum of karma a user has accrued from upvotes on their posts.

Historically, post karma was also referred to as “Link” karma, although this term is now rarely used.

What is comment karma on Reddit?

Reddit comment karma is the total karma a user has earned from upvotes on their comments.

For new profiles, posting is restricted. Consequently, acquiring karma on Reddit as a novice user mainly involves commenting.

What is awarder karma on Reddit?

Until recently, Redditors could grant medals and awards to posts and comments.

Both the giver and receiver of the award would gain karma – awarder and awardee karma, respectively.

Reddit used to offer users complimentary awards to utilize. You could gradually enhance your karma by bestowing these free awards to fellow Redditors. No need for posting or commenting!

Unfortunately, Reddit abolished awards completely on September 12, 2023. Earning awarder or awardee karma is no longer feasible.

What is Reddit karma? It encompasses post, comment, awarder, and awardee karma.

Notice how the aggregate of a user’s post and comment karma differs from their total. This difference is attributed to awardee karma.

What Utility Does Reddit Karma Serve?

Redditors commonly dub karma as “virtual internet points.” And this label may be apt after all.

Karma only functions to indicate your level of activity and engagement on Reddit. Nonetheless, it does serve a purpose.

A certain threshold of karma is necessary for posting, and this requirement varies across subreddits. For the average Redditor, there’s little incentive to accumulate more karma once the subreddit requirements are met.

However, for creators, influencers, or marketers, higher karma renders you more dependable and credible. Consequently, you’ll experience greater positive interaction with your posts, comments, and advertisements.

How Much Karma is Required to Post on Reddit?

A significant challenge for new users is figuring out how to amass adequate karma for posting on Reddit.

You can post on your profile at any time. However, with a new account and 0 followers, your posts will go unnoticed.

Fortunately, many subreddits do not impose karma prerequisites. This is typically the norm for most smaller communities with fewer than 100k subscribers. Even some of the largest subreddits also fit into this category.

If you aim to post in a specific subreddit but lack sufficient karma?

Several subreddits limit posting privileges based on users’ karma.

The moderators of each community determine the undisclosed minimum requirement.

As a rough estimate, you may need up to 30 karma for specialized subreddits and 100 karma for larger ones.

You can peruse posters’ profiles in a subreddit to gauge the required karma. Alternatively, attempt posting, and inadequate karma will result in post removal.

A few communities demand even more karma. For instance, a minimum of 1000 karma is required to post on r/memes.

How is Reddit karma Computed?

Upvotes elevate your karma, while downvotes diminish it. However, not at a 1:1 ratio.

If you encounter a post with, let’s say, 40,000 upvotes, the poster’s Reddit post karma doesn’t ascend by 40,000 points. In reality, it’s substantially less – likely closer to 4,000 karma.

So, how is Reddit karma tabulated?

Reddit user u/Juliot gathered data and conducted calculations to ascertain how karma fluctuates based on the post’s point score (upvote minus downvote count), rise in status, and subreddit selection.

How does Reddit karma function? These graphs offer insights.

Here’s what you need to grasp:

• The karma calculation initially employs a 1:1 ratio. The initial upvotes your post garners each result in a 1-point increase in your Reddit post karma.
• Upvotes yield diminishing returns. Essentially, as your post garners more upvotes, each additional upvote contributes less karma.
• Post age plays a vital role. Upvotes received earlier in a post’s life span hold more weight. As the post ages, you earn fewer karma points for the same number of upvotes.
• The subreddit of posting also factors in. While the exact correlation remains unclear. Nevertheless, this aspect shouldn’t overly concern you.

The maximum karma attainable from a single post is around 8000 karma.

What Constitutes Negative Karma on Reddit?

If Redditors strongly disapprove of your content, you might witness a deluge of downvotes, adversely impacting your karma to slide into negative territory.

Preventing further deterioration necessitates deleting the contentious post or comment. Although this action doesn’t restore your karma, it halts further decline.

Having negative karma isn’t as dire as it seems. While you may lose posting privileges in most communities, commenting remains an option.

Let’s also address how to eliminate negative karma on Reddit. Regrettably, it’s a gradual process.

You forfeit entry to previously visited subreddits (owing to karma prerequisites) and must heavily rely on commenting where feasible to boost your Reddit comment karma and reach an overall neutral standing.

If you accumulate substantial negative karma, rectifying it demands considerable time and effort, to the extent where starting anew with a fresh account might be preferable.

Remember, circumventing a ban by utilizing another account to access a community from which you were banned runs afoul of Reddit’s regulations.

Approaches to Quickly Obtain Reddit Karma

Users with substantial karma:

• Demonstrate sustained engagement on Reddit and generally possess lengthier tenures.
• Interact more actively with their communities.
• Share content that’s informative and captivating.

Adopting similar practices will eventually propel you forward. Nevertheless, here are 11 more targeted strategies to expedite your karma growth.

1. Concentrate on the Appropriate Subreddits

The most rewarding subreddits for accruing karma are those closely aligned with your expertise and passions. Your contributions will inherently hold greater value to these communities, thereby garnering more upvotes.

If you possess a recent account, join numerous smaller, specialized communities. They generally have lenient rules and few or no karma prerequisites. Youcan publish earlier and will have a simpler time engaging with other participants.

Don’t overlook more well-liked communities, however. You won’t be able to publish in many of them until your account has some age and karma, but you can still provide input.

Popular subreddits like r/funny, r/aww, and r/askreddit are excellent places to go searching for karma.

2. Ensure to review the guidelines

Familiarize yourself with subreddit regulations before publishing and commenting. Violating a regulation will typically result in downvotes from irritated Redditors and repercussions from the mod team.

Also, go through this resource on Reddiquette. These are informal regulations that apply to the entire site.

3. Seek out new and ascending posts

Pondering on how to acquire karma on Reddit without publishing?

On the front page of any subreddit, you’ll observe the option to sort your feed. It’s configured to “hot” by default.

Posts on the hot page typically already have numerous highly upvoted comments. New comments on hot posts usually end up at the bottom of the comments section, unlikely to be seen.

You can work this system by responding to the most upvoted comment. If it doesn’t have many replies, yours will be displayed almost on top of the page. But there’s a better approach.

Filter by “rising” to see posts that are presently experiencing an increasing amount of engagement. You should also use your rationale here to speculate which posts will perform well.

How to get karma on Reddit fast – comment on rising posts.

The comments sections of rising posts are gold mines for accumulating more karma.

If the post becomes widespread, your comment will naturally attract a lot of eyes. Leaving witty and humorous comments under rising posts is arguably the quickest way to acquire karma on Reddit.

Drafting a comment necessitates relatively little effort. But – with some luck – a single comment can boost your Reddit comment karma by several hundred points.

4. Publish pertinent and captivating content

You can amass a lot of karma with comments alone, so publishing isn’t crucial. Nonetheless, if you’re a content creator and you do have original content to share

• Do it in the correct communities. Choose the most active communities that are pertinent to your niche.
• Employ original, high-quality content that provides value to your spectators, whether as information or entertainment.
• Do it in a manner that engages users and fosters discussion. Put some consideration into the post title or caption you will use. Queries make particularly great captions because they encourage comments.

And don’t halt there – keep the discussion alive in the comments section. Replying to the top comments is a straightforward way to extract a generous amount of extra karma from each post.

5. Steer clear of reposts

Prior to creating a post, scan the hot and top pages to ensure similar content hasn’t been posted recently and – worse yet – isn’t ranking on the front page of the subreddit.

How do you get negative karma on Reddit? By not following the rules.

If you’re creating a post to ask a question, check whether that question has already been addressed in the community’s About page or FAQ section.

This may seem exaggerated, but Redditors dislike it when they repeatedly encounter questions already discussed in the FAQs.

Conversely, you can leverage this to your advantage.

Examine the most upvoted posts in a subreddit. Form a very similar one or in the case of image posts, you can many times replicate them directly.

If individuals don’t catch on, they upvote the previously well-received post again and you gain a nice karma boost.

6. Be cautious where you endorse yourself

Reddit can bring you remarkable outcomes with promotion efforts, but you need to be cautious where and how you do it. Redditors exhibit an exceptionally hostile attitude towards advertisements and promotions. So, if you’re too direct, you’ll get downvoted, reported, and scrolled past.

Getting karma on Reddit involves choosing where you promote yourself carefully.

Some communities allow self-promotion, but most don’t – familiarize yourself with the rules to know where it’s acceptable to promote yourself.

7. Promote yourself indirectly

You should still engage in the subreddits that disallow promotion because that’s where you’ll receive most of your quality traffic from.

It shouldn’t be surprising that subreddits that officially allow promotion tend to end up as bot farms.

Post valuable and engaging content like you generally would, but keep your promotional details on your profile page.

In your post or comments, subtly allude to your business, offer, product, or service – in a manner that makes it appear like you’re only mentioning it to validate the information you’re presenting.

Inquisitive Redditors will investigate you themselves and follow your links.

8. Publish at the appropriate times

Desiring to draw more visibility with your posts? Posting at the correct times increases your average viewership.

Typically, the best time to post to Reddit is 6 to 8 am US Central. The best days to post are Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

Nevertheless, this is only true when most of your target traffic is US-based. If you’re promoting to a different audience, utilize our Subreddit Analysis to discover the best time to post for specific subreddits.

9. Utilize Social Rise to schedule your posts

Rising early in the morning solely to make a Reddit post perhaps doesn’t sound too exhilarating to you. Don’t worry; we have you covered.

Social Rise schedules your Reddit posts with a few clicks. Then they are uploaded automatically at their set times.

It’s a colossal time-saver if you’re looking to market or promote on Reddit! You also receive data-driven analytics to track and enhance the performance of your posts. So not only does it do most of the work for you, but you also achieve better results!

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10. Evade disputes

Regrettably, many subreddits are full echo chambers. Engaging in arguments and debates is risky. You can be mass downvoted on the slightest of controversies – even if you’re technically in the right.

It’s advisable to steer clear of arguments completely. If it appears that one might arise, simply do not respond. If you feel like you’re being attacked, inform the moderators.and empower them to manage it.

11. Avoid karma plantations

There’s a method known as karma farming on Reddit.

If you look for ways to acquire free karma on Reddit, you’ll come across numerous suggestions advising you to explore free karma subreddits on the platform, such as r/FreeKarma4You. Users trade upvotes exclusively to boost each other’s karma.

Engaging in a karma farm will result in you getting shadowbanned.

Even if you dodge the shadowban, you’ll give your profile the appearance of a bot account to anyone who examines your post history. Several subreddits automatically bar users who have previously engaged in such subreddits.

It goes without saying, evade karma farms at all costs. They present a substantial danger and produce very little free karma initially.

Is it possible to purchase karma on Reddit?

You can, but not directly from Reddit. External websites vend upvotes, leading to an increase in your karma as well. Keep in mind this is prohibited and could lead to your account being banned.

Some users also purchase Reddit accounts with karma. These are typically content creators and promoters who are unwilling to wait to fulfill karma requirements with their own accounts. Instead, they prefer to start posting immediately.

Trading accounts is also against Reddit’s user agreement. The accounts that are traded often end up banned shortly after the transaction.

If you decide to proceed with purchasing an account, you should also be mindful that moderators are catching on. Some subreddits mandate you to possess your complete post history and will ban dubious accounts that have amassed thousands of karma without any posts.

The default username assigned by Reddit can also reveal that the account was purchased. However, it is not sufficient proof on its own, as many authentic users have them too.

Can Reddit karma boost my exposure?

Posts are ranked on the hot page (where they enjoy maximum exposure) based on the number of upvotes they receive – and how quickly.

A post that garners numerous upvotes in its initial few hours is likely to feature on the hot page.

The Reddit algorithm will not prioritize your posts for a slot on the hot page solely because you hold higher karma compared to other posters.

That being said, karma can have a marginal, indirect impact.

Having higher karma indicates that Redditors appreciate your contributions more. It positively influences their perception of your posts and increases the likelihood of them concurring with you.

In a somewhat circuitous manner, having more karma might result in receiving more upvotes. This, in turn, aids your posts in reaching the hot page and being viewed by a larger audience.

FAQs about gaining karma on Reddit

What are points referred to as on Reddit?

Points on Reddit are termed karma. Karma is determined by the quantity of upvotes and downvotes you receive. It essentially indicates how esteemed, useful, and well-liked your contributions are perceived by other Redditors.

Is Reddit karma valuable?

You require a specific amount of karma to post on certain subreddits. A high karma count also signifies to other Redditors that you have been an engaged and beneficial member of the community, hence, they are more likely to consider your contributions favorably.

Why do I possess 1 karma on Reddit?

All accounts commence with 1 karma by default. Your karma remains at 1 until you initiate a new post or leave a comment on an existing post. It will then fluctuate based on the number of upvotes and downvotes you receive.

So what does 1 karma signify on Reddit? You probably own a new account or haven’t posted or commented as yet.

How can you access karma breakdown on Reddit?

Enter “old.reddit.com/user/your_username” in your browser’s address bar. You will be directed to your profile on old Reddit. The option to view your karma breakdown by subreddit is situated on the right side of the page.

Conclusion: Strategies for Swiftly Earning Karma on Reddit

To sum up your learning:

• What constitutes Reddit karma? It’s a merit-based reputation system denoting the quality of your contributions to the Reddit community.
• How is Reddit karma earned? You accumulate karma when upvoted, and lose it when downvoted. And not necessarily at a 1:1 ratio.
• How can you attain negative karma on Reddit? If you amass adequate downvotes, your karma can venture into negative territory.
• Ways to acquire post karma on Reddit: Publish original, top-notch, and worthwhile content in relevant subreddits. Employ Social Rise for scheduling your posts at optimal times.
• Ways to amass comment karma on Reddit: Craft clever comments on trending posts in popular subreddits. Steer clear of engaging in quarrels in the comments.
• Post karma vs. comment karma: It is essential to initially build up your comment karma before accessing major subreddits for posting.
• What constitutes a commendable Reddit karma score? Merely around a thousand or so is sufficient to unlock the posting privilege for most, if not all, subreddits.