How to monitor Reddit for brand mentions: a 5-step agent check

When someone recommends your product, complains about a bug or asks for exactly what you make on Reddit, you want to know before the thread moves on. This guide sets up a recurring check: pick terms and communities, run it on a schedule, triage what it finds into a table, keep a log, and have your agent draft replies for a person to post.

The ways to monitor Reddit, compared

Step 1: pick your terms

The best Reddit mention checks go beyond exact brand matches. Include:

• Your brand name and product names. The obvious ones people search for.
• Common misspellings. If people often get it wrong, include those too.
• Your founder's name or your account name. Founders get named in threads their companies do not.
• Competitor names. See where buyers compare you, and where people ask for alternatives to a rival.
• Category phrases. "Alternative to X", "best Y for Z", or the problem you solve in plain words.
• Negative terms for name collisions. If your brand name is a common word, add exclusions to cut false matches.

The agent checks each new post for these terms and flags the ones worth reading.

Step 2: pick the communities

Not every subreddit matters for your brand. Find the ones where your audience actually talks:

• Use Reddit search and the Communities tab to find subreddits on your topic.
• Read each community's rules before you add it to your list. Many ban self-promotion or limit it to specific days.
• Check activity levels. A subreddit with 100,000 subscribers but no posts this month is not worth watching.

For a step-by-step guide to finding subreddits and understanding their rules, see how to search Reddit with AI. Subreddit activity also helps find content ideas by showing what your audience cares about.

Step 3: run the first check

With your terms and subreddits chosen, your agent can run the first check. Here is how it works with Manifold MCP.

Manifold MCP

Manifold's Reddit MCP server is a hosted marketing data connector for AI agents. It needs no Reddit API app to register, and you pay per call. Every workspace gets 250 free credits a month, and Pro starts at $20/mo.

The main tool for brand monitoring is reddit_get_new_posts, which returns every post created in up to 10 subreddits inside a time window (up to 7 days back), oldest first. You can filter to posts whose title or body contains your match terms. It reports how much of each window it covered (and whether it was complete), and returns next_since to send as since on the next check. The agent dedupes on post id.

For comments and for mentions outside your chosen subreddits, reddit_search_comments and reddit_search_posts search all of Reddit by keyword. Reddit search is ranked and not complete, so it finds examples rather than every mention.

The same server also covers YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, SEO and AI answer data. For a full comparison of marketing data MCPs, see the best MCP servers for marketing. See the Reddit tools docs for what each tool returns and costs. For setup in Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor, see the Manifold MCP setup docs.

ChatGPT setup: Custom MCP servers are added at chatgpt.com/plugins on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu plans (web only). Click Add, then Create custom MCP server, and paste the server URL from the Manifold MCP setup docs.

Manifold does not send alerts or run on its own schedule. Your agent calls it when you ask or when your scheduled job runs.

Step 4: run it on a schedule

One-off checks miss the next mention. To track Reddit over time, run the check on a schedule.

Options that work today (checked October 2026):

• A cron job or scheduled task that runs your agent from the command line. For example, Claude Code supports headless prompts with claude -p "Check new Reddit posts since the last run".
• Automation tools such as n8n, Zapier or Make can trigger an agent workflow on a schedule. Check each tool's docs for MCP support.
• Scheduled ChatGPT tasks. Check OpenAI's scheduled tasks guide to confirm whether ChatGPT tasks can use custom MCP servers.

Whatever method you choose, save next_since from each run and pass it as since on the next check, so your agent picks up where it left off.

Step 5: triage and reply

Your agent has the new posts. Now it filters, scores and drafts replies:

• Sort by relevance. Not every mention of your keywords is about you. The agent reads each post and flags the ones that matter.
• Check sentiment. Positive mentions, complaints and feature requests each need different replies.
• Flag reply-worthy threads. The agent highlights threads where a reply would help the person and respect the community's norms.
• Draft a reply. The agent writes a first draft of a reply for you to review.

A person reads the thread, the subreddit rules and the draft, then posts it themselves. This is Reddit etiquette: subreddit rules vary, and communities notice when replies feel automated or off-topic.

What a triaged check looks like

Ask your agent to return each run as a short table you can act on in two minutes. The rows below are illustrative, to show the format; your agent fills them from the posts it found.

Three columns do most of the work. Type tells you who should handle it (marketing, support, sales). Relevance stops you replying to name collisions. Action keeps the run from turning into reading time.

Keep a mention log

A table per run is useful; a running log is better. Ask your agent to append each run's flagged posts to a sheet or a Markdown file with the date, post URL, type and what you did. After a month you can see:

• Which subreddits send real buyers, so you can drop the quiet ones from your list.
• Which competitor complaints repeat, which is input for positioning and for content ideas.
• How fast you replied, since a reply on day one gets read and a reply on day five mostly does not.

Store next_since in the same file, so the next run starts where the last one stopped.

Common mistakes

• Searching instead of listing new posts. Reddit search is ranked and samples results, so it misses posts. For your core communities, list every new post since the last run; keep search for finding mentions elsewhere.
• Watching too many subreddits. Ten active communities you know beat fifty you do not. Start small and add from your log.
• Replying with a pitch. Answer the question first. Mention your product only when it is the answer, and say you work on it.
• Letting the agent post. Drafts are fine; a person should read the subreddit rules and post.

Alert services, if you would rather not run the check

If you want alerts without building a check, F5Bot sends free email alerts for keywords in posts and comments, and Syften, MentionDrop and Octolens collect and score mentions and expose them to your agent over MCP. The table at the top lists what each costs. For a fuller comparison across Reddit and other networks, see the best social listening MCP servers.

Workflow automation with Zapier, Make or n8n

Zapier, Make and n8n can trigger on new Reddit posts matching a search, then pass the results to an AI step. Check each platform's Reddit integration docs for what triggers and actions they support:

• Zapier Reddit integration lists triggers for new posts matching a search.
• Make Reddit modules cover search and monitoring.
• n8n Reddit node supports post search and subreddit monitoring.

Combine a Reddit trigger with an AI node (such as OpenAI or Anthropic) to filter, score and draft replies.

Example prompts

Once a Reddit MCP server is connected, paste these into Claude or ChatGPT. Your agent does the searching, deduping, triaging and drafting.

Run the first check:

Find new posts in r/SaaS, r/startups and r/entrepreneur from the last 7 days that mention [our brand], [competitor] or "alternative to [competitor]". For each post, tell me the title, the subreddit, how many upvotes and comments it has, and whether it is asking for recommendations, complaining, or just mentioning us. Include the Reddit URL.

Check since the last run:

Check new posts in r/SaaS, r/startups and r/entrepreneur since the last run (use the saved next_since timestamp). Filter to posts that mention [our brand], [product name] or [competitor]. Dedupe by post id, rank by relevance, and flag any that are asking for a tool like ours or complaining about a competitor.

Triage and draft replies:

From the flagged posts, pick the top three where a reply would be helpful and respect the subreddit's rules. For each one, draft a short reply that answers the person's question, mentions our product only if it fits, and sounds like a person, not a sales pitch.

Track competitor mentions:

Search r/SaaS and r/startups for new posts from the last 3 days that mention [competitor]. Summarize the complaints, feature requests and reasons people say they are switching away from them.

Monitor category keywords:

Check new posts in r/SaaS from the last 24 hours that mention "CRM for small business" or "alternative to Salesforce". List the posts, what people are asking for, and which tools are being recommended.

Which method should you use?

Pick by how much control you need over filtering and replies.

You want simple email alerts when a keyword appears. Use F5Bot. It is free, covers posts and comments, and needs no agent setup.

You want alerts across Reddit and other platforms, with MCP access. Use Syften (Pro adds MCP) or Octolens.

You want brand monitoring built for MCP from the start. Use MentionDrop.

You want to automate the check with your own workflow. Use Zapier, Make or n8n with a Reddit trigger and an AI step.

You want your agent to run the check on a schedule, triage the results, and draft replies. Connect a Reddit MCP server such as Manifold (hosted, no Reddit API app to register, pay per call), then schedule the check with a cron job, an automation tool or your client's scheduling feature. To compare hosted and local Reddit MCP servers, see the best Reddit MCP servers. Browse all available MCP servers to explore other data sources your agent can use.