Key Takeaways
- Reddit stops taking new public API requests on October 31, ends RSS on November 13, and closes the public API for everyone left in March 2027
- After that, reading Reddit in bulk needs a commercial deal. Google already has one, reported at about $60 million a year
- GummySearch, a Reddit research tool with more than 135,000 users, couldn't get a license and closes for good on December 1
- Brands get Reddit Pro for free, but neither announcement says anything about researchers or small tools
- You can still read threads by hand when you're logged in. What goes away is the cheap way to collect thousands of comments
Edu here. On September 30 I published a post counting this quarter's new research tools, and near the end I guessed that maybe Reddit's data was too expensive to build on. That same day Reddit posted the dates for closing its free data access, so my guess got an answer a lot faster than I expected.
Almost every study on this site is built on Reddit comments, so of course I went through the announcement carefully (twice, to be honest). Here's what's changing, who still gets in, and what I think it means if you use Reddit to understand your customers.
Reddit stops accepting new public API requests on October 31, 2026, and ends RSS feeds on November 13, 2026. It closes its public API to all remaining apps and users in March 2027. After that, bulk access needs a commercial deal. Google already has one, reported at about $60 million a year.
What Reddit is closing, and when
The API and RSS are the two ways software can read Reddit without a person clicking through it. RSS is what news apps like Feedly use, and the API is what research tools and bots use. In August, Reddit said it wanted to make it "harder for bad actors to scrape Reddit", and on September 30 it gave the dates.
New requests for public API access stop on October 31, and RSS feeds stop working on November 13. Then on January 12 Reddit starts cutting off apps that haven't registered with it, and in March 2027 the public API closes for whoever is left.
Reddit says the reason is scraping, and in its own words RSS has become "a common surface for large-scale scraping and automated abuse". Moderators who use feeds for alerts can move to a Reddit app that sends them to Discord, but for everyone else the announcement has one line:
"If you use RSS for feeds outside of a community you moderate, there is no replacement."
Who still gets to read Reddit at scale
After March, reading Reddit in bulk needs a commercial deal with Reddit. So far, three kinds of reader come out of this very differently.
AI companies are already covered: Google signed in February 2024 for a reported $60 million a year (the number comes from press reports), and OpenAI signed in May 2024. But in July, the Wall Street Journal reported that Reddit is thinking about limiting Google's access as that deal comes up for renewal. One option is to charge Google by how much of the data it uses.
Brands get a free dashboard called Reddit Pro, and its Trends tool shows how often a keyword comes up and in which communities, with a feed of the matching posts. I think it's genuinely useful for finding where people talk. But you only see what Reddit puts on that screen. Reddit Pro is also built to get brands posting on Reddit, and in Reddit's own test, businesses using it created 12% more posts.
And the rest? For everyone in between, mostly social listening tools and academic researchers, nothing is stated. MediaNama went through both of Reddit's posts and pointed out that neither one says whether researchers will get any way in outside a commercial deal.
The strange part is how small the data money is. In the second quarter Reddit made $805 million, and $762 million of that came from ads. The line that includes data licensing was $43 million (up 24% in a year, so it's growing). So data is about 5% of the business, and it's the part Reddit is protecting hardest. I think part of the reason is the Google renewal, because a license sells for more when there's no other way in. I'm not sure that's the whole story though. Or maybe Reddit is just fed up with AI scrapers.
GummySearch already showed what happens to the middle
If you want to see where small tools end up, look at GummySearch, a Reddit audience research tool that more than 135,000 people used. It stopped taking new customers in November 2025, and on December 1 this year it closes for good and deletes its data. I wrote about what to use instead of GummySearch when it was announced.
Its founder, Fed, tried to get a proper commercial license from Reddit and couldn't reach an agreement. He chose to close instead of running without one, because otherwise you're "looking over your shoulder every day, wondering if tomorrow you get the axe."
Reddit is also suing companies that collect its content without paying. First it went after Anthropic in June 2025, and then in October 2025 it sued Perplexity along with three scraping companies, SerpApi, Oxylabs and AWMProxy. Reddit says they pulled its comments out of Google search results, and its chief legal officer, Ben Lee, put it like this:
"Scrapers bypass technological protections to steal data, then sell it to clients hungry for training material."
To be fair to Reddit
I don't think Reddit is the bad guy here, because the scraping problem is real. Reddit says it blocks 23 million spam views a day, and last month I wrote about how 13 words planted on Reddit can change an AI answer. A lot of today's bulk reading is done by AI companies and by people trying to game them, and very little of it is research.
Also, the people who wrote these comments never got paid by anyone, and that includes me. Every study on this site is built on their words, so I'm not in a great position to complain that Reddit wants a cut. Fair enough.
What this means for customer research
Here's the part that bothers me. Across the 25 studies on this site, I've analyzed about 120,000 comments. In the 15 studies where my files still record the subreddit for every comment, they came from at least 540 different communities (probably more, since the other ten aren't counted). That number moves a lot by topic: the email and SMS fatigue study pulled from 172 communities, and the subscription study from just 6.
A typical study uses somewhere between 3,000 and 8,000 comments, while an AI company wants basically everything, all the time. A brand that wants to know why people quit melatonin needs a few thousand comments from the right threads, studied carefully, once. But the new rules only have two sizes. You either sign a commercial deal built for AI companies, or you click through threads one at a time in a browser.
And the second option still works. When you're logged in you can read any thread you want, at least for now (the old Reddit layout is the one that now needs a recent login). What goes away is the cheap way to collect thousands of comments in one go, and for a lot of research that's exactly the size you need.
What I can't tell you yet is whether Reddit will ever sell something in between, like a license for people who need 5,000 comments, not 5 billion. That would fix most of this, but nothing in either announcement suggests one is coming. Nothing rules it out either, so I guess we'll know more by March.
Your customers already explained themselves. Nobody wrote it down.
Insightios goes through the conversations where your customers talk when no brand is asking, on Reddit, YouTube and other communities. We find what comes up again and again. Then we send you the objections, phrases and reasons to buy, ranked by how often they appear, with the real quotes. Flat fee, fixed delivery date.
Frequently asked questions
When does Reddit's public API shut down?
Reddit stops accepting new public API requests on October 31, 2026. It starts cutting off apps and users that haven't registered on January 12, 2027, and closes the public API for everyone left in March 2027. After that, reading Reddit in bulk needs a commercial agreement with Reddit.
Will Reddit RSS feeds still work after November 13, 2026?
No. Reddit stops supporting RSS feeds on November 13, 2026. Moderators can move their alerts to Reddit's Discord Relay app, but for anyone using RSS outside a community they moderate, Reddit says there is no replacement.
Can I still use Reddit for customer research after the API shutdown?
Yes, but mostly by hand. If you're logged in, you can still read any thread in a browser, and Reddit Pro's free Trends tool shows which communities talk about a keyword. What goes away is the cheap way for software to collect thousands of comments at once.
Why did GummySearch shut down?
GummySearch depended on Reddit's API and couldn't reach a commercial agreement with Reddit. It stopped taking new customers on November 30, 2025, and closes completely on December 1, 2026. More than 135,000 people used it.
How much do AI companies pay Reddit for data?
Google's deal, signed in February 2024, is reported at about $60 million a year, and OpenAI signed its own deal in May 2024. Reddit's other revenue, which includes data licensing, was $43 million in the second quarter of 2026, up 24% from a year earlier.
What to do with this
Start with your tools. If you pay for a social listening tool that includes Reddit, email them this week and ask what their plan is for January 12. A clear answer is good news, and a vague one tells you something too.
No tool? Then set up Reddit Pro. It costs nothing, and Trends is a quick way to find which communities talk about your category (I haven't tested how complete it is), even if you then read the threads yourself. Also, don't put all your listening on one platform. YouTube comments and Amazon reviews carry a lot of the same language, and I explain how to combine research platforms in another post.
All in all, Reddit isn't closing the conversations, just the cheap way of collecting them. If your tools have already told you what happens to them in January, I'd like to hear what they said.
Sources
- Hutchinson, A. (2026). Reddit ends support for RSS feeds. Social Media Today, September 30, 2026. Source for Reddit's quoted statements on RSS, the November 13 date and the moderator migration. Link Retrieved October 7, 2026.
- Reddit. (2026). Continuing our infrastructure updates, r/modnews, September 30, 2026. The original announcement, quoted via Social Media Today and Decrypt. Link Retrieved October 7, 2026.
- Lanz, J. A. (2026). Reddit is killing RSS feeds and public API access to fight AI scrapers. Decrypt, October 1, 2026. Source for the October 31, January 12 and March 2027 deadlines and the August announcement quote. Link Retrieved October 7, 2026.
- MediaNama. (2026). Reddit to shut RSS feeds, close public API as AI bots scrape its data, October 1, 2026. Source for the open question on academic access. Link Retrieved October 7, 2026.
- Reddit, Inc. (2026). Reddit reports second quarter 2026 results, July 30, 2026. Form 8-K, exhibit 99.1. Source for $805M revenue, $762M ad revenue and $43M other revenue. Link Retrieved October 7, 2026.
- WinBuzzer. (2026). Reddit weighs tighter Google AI data access in deal renewal talks, July 23, 2026. Summarizes the Wall Street Journal report of July 22, 2026, and the February 2024, $60M-a-year deal. Link Retrieved October 7, 2026.
- Wiggers, K. (2025). Reddit intros new trends tools for businesses and an AMA ad format. TechCrunch, January 7, 2025. Source for Reddit Pro Trends and the 12% figure. Link Retrieved October 7, 2026.
- GummySearch. The final chapter. Source for the licensing quote, the 135,000 users and the shutdown dates. Link Retrieved October 7, 2026.
- Associated Press. (2025). Reddit sues AI company over alleged industrial-scale scraping of its users' comments. PBS NewsHour, October 22, 2025. Source for the defendants and the Ben Lee quote. Link Retrieved October 7, 2026.
- MediaPost. (2026). Reddit infiltrated by stealth AI in brand citation race, July 6, 2026. Reports Reddit's figure of 23 million spam views blocked a day. Link Retrieved September 15, 2026.