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How to Monitor a Subreddit with an API

Build a subreddit new-post monitor with a JSON API: create a monitor, run checks, and read events—distinct from brand-mention SaaS tools.

SFSpideyData team
8 min read

Introduction

A developer walkthrough for subreddit monitors—new and updated public posts over API. A monitor follows one subreddit you name. It is not keyword listening, brand-mention tracking, or user tracking across Reddit.

Goal: catch new posts in a subreddit

You want to know when new public posts appear (or existing ones update) in, say, r/webscraping, and pull them into your app as JSON. The Reddit Monitor API gives you that with a SpideyData Bearer key.

Create a monitor, run a check, read events

1. Create the monitor — POST /v1/reddit/monitors with a required subreddit. Optional fields include sort (hot, new, top, rising), check_interval_seconds (300–86400), max_items (1–100), and enabled.

bash
# Illustrative shape — confirm the schema in the live docs
curl -sS -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPIDER_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"subreddit":"webscraping","sort":"new","max_items":25}' \
  "$SPIDER_BASE_URL/v1/reddit/monitors"

2. Run a check — POST /v1/reddit/monitors/{monitor_id}/check fetches the listing now and records new or updated posts. You can send an Idempotency-Key header.

3. Read results — GET /v1/reddit/monitors/{monitor_id}/events lists new-post, updated-post, and error events; GET /v1/reddit/monitors/{monitor_id}/posts lists observed post records. Both paginate with limit and cursor.

Manage — GET /v1/reddit/monitors lists your monitors; PATCH /v1/reddit/monitors/{monitor_id} changes target, sort, polling, or enabled state.

Polling and webhooks

The create request accepts a check interval and an optional event_webhook configuration. You can also trigger checks yourself and poll the events endpoint. Use the Reddit API docs as the source of truth for webhook payloads and delivery behavior before relying on them.

If a monitor is configured with comment collection, an event can reference a comment job you poll separately.

Billing notes

Only completed checks are billed: a per-check base plus a charge per new or updated post record. Listing monitors, reading events, and reading posts are free. Failed checks are released. Current meters: Pricing.

Not brand monitoring

  • Monitors watch one subreddit’s listing, not keywords across Reddit.
  • Not user tracking, not a brand-mention inbox.
  • Not a historical archive: a monitor records what it observes from the time it runs.
  • Public subreddits only; no private or quarantined communities.

There is no free monitor tool; monitors require an API key. For a landing-page overview, see Monitor subreddit new posts.

Next step

Continue with the implementation

Related: Reddit Monitor API, Monitor subreddit new posts, Reddit Scraper API, Reddit API docs, and the Reddit data hub.

Sources and further reading

Next step

Try the smallest path that fits your target

Start with the public Fetch guide, then add browser rendering, crawling, or extraction when the workflow needs it.