Why Reddit posts about products get removed
Most subreddits are run by volunteer moderators who spend a lot of their time removing spam. A post that looks like it exists to drive sign-ups tends to get removed quickly, sometimes automatically, and it can get your account flagged. Members react the same way: they downvote posts that read like ads, even when the product is good.
That doesn’t mean you can never mention your product. It means the post has to be worth reading if the product were taken out of it.
What this checker looks at
- Removal and ad risk. How likely moderators are to remove it as self-promotion, and how likely members are to see it as an advert.
- Disclosure. Whether you say you built it or work there.
- What comes first. A story, lesson, data or problem, or the product and its features.
- Links up front. A link in the title or first lines is the classic shape of a drive-by promo post.
- Asks. Requests to upvote, sign up or check it out. Reddit’s rules forbid vote manipulation, so never ask for upvotes.
- Discussion and fit. Whether there’s a real question for members, whether the title is clickbait, and whether the post fits what the subreddit is usually about.
How to post about your product without it reading as an ad
- Read the rules and sidebar. Look for a weekly self-promotion or feedback thread and use it if there is one.
- Lead with the useful part: what you tried, what broke, what you learned, with real numbers if you have them.
- Say who you are in the first lines: “I built this” is enough.
- Put the link at the end, or leave it out and answer if people ask.
- Ask a real question, then stay and reply to comments.
- Take part in the community before and after you post, not only when you have something to share.
For Hacker News, try the Show HN title scorer. To draft launch posts for several platforms at once, use the launch post generator. And for a listing that doesn’t depend on any moderator’s mood, launch free on LaunchRanked.
How it works
Jev 1.13, TypeSafe’s decision model, answers a fixed set of yes/no and scale questions about your post and returns a probability for each, via OpenRouter. We combine those into the risk score shown. Claude Haiku 5.5 then suggests a safer title and opening paragraph. Neither model can see Reddit, so neither knows the subreddit’s live rules or its current mood.