Compliance guide

The Reddit 90/10 rule

If you remember one thing about marketing on Reddit, make it the 90/10 rule. It is the single norm that most reliably separates accounts that grow from accounts that get banned.

FounderReply Editorial TeamUpdated 9 June 20263 sections

r/startups r/indiehackers All subreddit guides

What the rule actually says

The 90/10 rule states that no more than roughly 10% of your contributions — posts and comments — should be self-promotional. The other 90% should be genuine participation with nothing to sell. It is a community norm rather than a hard-coded limit, but moderators and spam filters effectively enforce it.

Why it exists

Reddit’s value is that it is not an ad network. The 90/10 rule protects that: it ensures the people promoting are also the people contributing. An account that only shows up to drop links provides no value to the community, so the community — and the algorithm — treats it as spam.

How to actually hit the ratio

Lead with help. Spend the vast majority of your Reddit time answering questions in your area of expertise, with no link and no pitch. When a thread genuinely calls for your product as part of a complete answer, mention it — disclosed — as one option. Done consistently, your promotional 10% lands with credibility because the 90% earned it.

Primary sources

Where this guidance comes from

This guidance is grounded in each platform's own published policy — the same documents FounderReply's shipped defaults follow. We name them rather than link URLs that move. It is general education, not legal advice; platform rules change, so check the current policy before you act.

Reddit: Responsible Builder Policy, and the Reddit API Terms
Meta: Meta Platform Terms
LinkedIn: Professional Community Policies
X: Automation Rules

The limit of the claim

What no tool can promise.

Nobody can guarantee you will never be banned, and any product that says otherwise is selling you something. FounderReply simply does not do the things that get you banned: it acts on the accounts you connected yourself, at a human pace, and every action starts gated behind your approval — nothing but you ever moves one of those dials, and moving one is warned about before it saves and written to the audit log.

Frequently asked

The Reddit 90/10 rule — straight answers

Not as a precise counter, but Reddit’s spam detection and moderators effectively act on the same pattern: accounts whose activity skews promotional get removed or shadowbanned. Treat it as a real constraint.

Ideally you build genuine standing in the communities where you also promote. Helpful activity scattered across unrelated subs does less to earn trust where it matters.

After the guide

The Reddit 90/10 rule. Now the compliant version.

FounderReply is designed around the 90/10 ratio: it points you to threads where you can add real value and drafts useful contributions, so promotion stays the rare, earned exception rather than the pattern — and a human approves every one before it posts from your own account.

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