Did you sign up to Reddit, and want to know how to get karma fast?
Karma is very important early on, as certain communities or features may be limited until you reach a certain level of karma.
Thankfully, it’s very easy to get karma quickly if you know what to do. In this article, we’ll discuss several different strategies on how to get karma quickly – whether you’re just starting out, or you’re hoping to reach millions of karma points.
What Is Karma On Reddit? The Two Types Of Reddit Karma
On Reddit, karma can be seen as sort of a ‘reputation’ system – similar to the rep points that used to be given out on forums.
It’s a general measure of how much you have contributed to Reddit as a whole. Users can upvote your posts or comments if they find them or interesting or valuable, which will give you one karma point. Likewise, they can downvote you to remove one karma point.
Your total number of karma is publicly visible to people who your view your profile. Some subreddits limit posters to people to have a certain level of karma, to prevent potential spammers from posting. So, getting those first few karma points can be quite important!
On Reddit, there are two different types of karma – post karma, and comment karma.
Post Karma
Post karma is karma that you’ve earned from posts that you’ve shared on Reddit.
Essentially, this is like threads that you’ve started. You will not earn post karma from commenting on other people’s threads – you must start your own.
Post karma used to only be obtained from sharing images or links, but can now be earned from any posts that you create – even if they’re just text.
Comment Karma
Comment karma is tracked separately from post karma.
Essentially, comment karma is just what it sounds like – karma earned from comments that you’ve left.
These can either be comments on your own posts, or comments that you’ve left on other people’s posts.
How To Get Karma On Reddit Quickly
Now that we’ve talked a little about what karma actually is and why it’s important, let’s look over some strategies on how you can get karma fast.
Each one of these are great on their own, but they’re even more powerful when combined together.
1. Leave A High Volume Of Thoughtful Comments
Ultimately, it comes down to this.
The more comments you leave, the more karma you will get. Plain and simple. Even those that post a lot of controversial opinions still tend to end with a net positive in karma, and most people with high karma on Reddit are extremely active.
More comments = more chances to be seen, which equates to more upvotes and more karma.
The key is to actually add to the conversation in some way. Just like on other social media platforms, leaving vague, pointless comments won’t help you in any way.
In fact, on Reddit you can actually lose progress like this, due to the downvote system. Some people even have negative karma because of it!
So, avoid leaving comments that just waste people’s time, like ‘Nice’ or ‘Cool, I upvoted this.’
Be specific, and always look for opportunities to add to the conversation.
2. Sort Posts By ‘Rising’ To Maximize Views
This is a neat little trick that has a lot of impact.
If your goal is to maximize karma, timing is very important. You want to leave your comment on threads that are getting views, but not threads that are already filled with more comments than anyone will read.
If you’re too late, your comment may get buried, and never end up with any real visibility.
So, how do you know what posts to comment on?
Easy – take advantage of Reddit’s ‘Rising’ filter. This will show threads that are gaining traction at that very moment, but may not have enough upvotes to reach the ‘Top’ or ‘Hot’ sections yet – where they’ll gain most of their overall views.
Tip: Upvote the post after you’ve left your comment, to help it reach and be seen by even more people.
3. Post In Free Karma Subreddits – At Your Own Risk
If you’re desperate for some quick karma and you don’t want to bother commenting on real posts, another option is to take advantage of free karma subreddits like /r/FreeKarma4U.
The idea with these comment subreddits is simple – it’s generally expected that whatever you post, it will be upvoted by others. So, you’re expected to upvote and give karma to other people as well.
Therefore, it can be a good way to get some of that initial karma you’ll need to post in certain subreddits.
That being said, these free karma subreddits come with a big warning.
Certain communities on Reddit will automatically ban anyone who has posted on FreeKarma4U (and other similar subreddits) from posting or commenting in theirs.
So, by posting in /r/FreeKarma4U even once, you can automatically block off potential opportunities to participate in certain subreddits forever. Therefore, we recommend that you avoid this strategy if possible – it’s simply not worth it.
You may be wondering why you receive an automatic ban, simply for posting in here. It’s kind of strange, right? Well, when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.
Some people see posting in free karma subreddits as a way of circumventing Reddit’s protection systems. Subreddit moderators implement karma requirements specifically to keep spammers and new accounts out, to cut down on the amount of work and moderation they have to do.
After all, spammers tend to get banned quickly, so they are constantly making new accounts.
It is believed that if you post on free karma subreddits, that you’re more likely to be a spammer and thus cause a disturbance in their community. So, anybody that posts on free karma subreddits are preemptively banned.
According to Reddit admins, these subreddits are not against Reddit rules entirely. However, since subreddit staff are free to make their own rules for their communities, some have chosen to implement this banning policy.
Note: When you are banned from a subreddit, you are still able to view it. However, you will not be able to create new threads, or even reply to comments on any post made in that community.
4. Answer Specific Questions, In Specific Subreddits
Another great strategy working out is to go to specific subreddits you have knowledge, expertise or opinions in, and answer people’s questions.
The reason this strategy works so well is simple – there often aren’t a lot of people answering, and the original poster is usually desperate for an answer.
(After all, most people don’t bother to write a question on Reddit if they can find it out in a quick Google search.)
When you leave a comment, the poster of the question will receive a notification with your response, which they can then upvote if they’ve found it helpful.
Plus, people are likely to find your comment in search engines like Google months or even years after you’ve posted it. Since Reddit threads are not always archived like they used to be, this means you can continue earning karma for years to come!
Tip: For maximum visibility, we recommend sorting by ‘New’ when it comes to answering questions. This way, you’ll be sure that the original poster will be quick to view your answer. Other Redditors will also upvote your answer rather than providing your own, to signal that it’s either correct or that they agree with you.
5. Piggyback Off Of Top Comments
Lastly, you may consider piggybacking off of other people’s top comments, rather than posting individual comments of your own.
By this, I mean replying to the comments on the thread that already have a lot of karma, and are located towards the top of the page.
The reason for this is that these comments are already receiving a lot of visibility. On popular threads with thousands of comments, it can be difficult for many people to see your comment at all if you post too late.
Therefore, you get a better return on your time – and a higher likelihood of having your comment seen (and thus upvoted) if you reply to other people’s comments instead.
As a bonus, the person who initially left the comment will get a notification that you replied, which can lead to them upvoting it themselves straight away.
Of course, replying should only be done when you actually have something meaningful and valuable to share, and you shouldn’t reply to every single comment.
Behave in a natural way without coming across as a spammer. Otherwise, people may erase all of your hard work with downvotes.
Conclusion
Once you reach a certain number of karma points, it’s not really something you need to pay much attention to anymore.
That being said, if you’re just starting a new Reddit account and you don’t yet have any karma, you may be limited in what you’re allowed to do until you get some. Each subreddit has their own rules, so pay attention to them so you’ll know what thresholds you have to meet.
In this article, we’ve covered several different ways to gain karma on Reddit fast. However, it’s important that you don’t abuse these – post at a natural pace, and be a good community member.
Finally, if you have any other methods you’d like to share or you have any other questions about Reddit, please ask them using the comment form below.
Wishing you the best,
– James McAllister