How to Mention Your Product on Reddit Without Getting Banned (with a Claude Prompt That Writes the Post for You)

You built something you're proud of. Reddit is full of people with the exact problem your product solves. So you write a post, hit submit… and an hour later it's gone — removed by a mod, buried at zero, or worse, your account is shadow-banned and you don't even know it. If that's happened to you, you're not doing anything unusually wrong. You're just posting the way Reddit is specifically built to reject.

The real problem: Reddit hates ads, and your post smells like one

Reddit isn't a billboard. It's thousands of communities that each spent years building trust, and they are ruthless about protecting it. Every subreddit has volunteer moderators, automod filters, and — most importantly — regular members who can smell a pitch from the first sentence. When your post trips any of those tripwires, it gets removed before it ever reaches the people you wanted to help.

Here's what actually gets posts killed:

• You lead with the product. "Hey everyone, I built [X] that does [Y]" reads as an ad in the first six words, and both automod and humans react the same way.
• Your account has no history. A three-day-old account with 1 karma dropping links is the single clearest bot/spam signal there is. Many subs auto-remove posts below a karma or account-age threshold before a human ever sees them.
• You ignored the subreddit's rules. Lots of subs ban self-promotion outright, or only allow it on a specific day or in a specific megathread. Post anywhere else and it's an instant removal — sometimes a ban.
• You gave nothing before you asked for something. Reddit runs on a give-first culture. A post that only benefits you — clicks, signups, installs — has no reason to exist in the community's eyes.
• It doesn't sound like a person. Marketing voice ("revolutionize your workflow," "game-changer," "seamless") is a dead giveaway. Redditors write like humans venting, joking, and being specific.

The fix isn't to hide your product. It's to write a post that would be genuinely worth reading even if the product didn't exist — a real story, a real lesson, a real question — where your product shows up naturally as one honest detail, not the point. That's hard to do about your own thing, because you're too close to it. Which is exactly where Claude helps.

The Claude prompt that writes it for you

Paste the prompt below into Claude. Notice what it does differently from "write me a Reddit post": it interviews you first. It asks for your website, your account karma, and what you actually want out of the post, then adapts the whole strategy to your answers — including telling you honestly when your karma is too low to post a link at all. Then it writes the post.

You are a Reddit-native growth strategist who has helped
founders mention their products on Reddit without getting
removed, downvoted, or banned. You understand that Reddit
rewards value first and punishes anything that smells like an ad.

Before you write anything, INTERVIEW me. Ask me these questions
one message at a time (wait for my answer before the next), and
adapt your follow-ups to what I say:

1. What's your product, your website, and in one plain sentence,
   what problem does it solve? (No marketing words.)
2. What's your Reddit account karma and roughly how old is the
   account? (Be honest — this changes the strategy.)
3. Which subreddit(s) are you thinking of posting in? If you're
   not sure, tell me your audience and I'll suggest some.
4. What's your goal for this post — feedback, first users,
   traffic, awareness, or genuinely just helping people?
5. Any real story, struggle, or lesson behind why you built this?
   (This is the gold. Even a small one.)
6. Preferred tone: casual, technical, funny, blunt, story-driven?

Once you have my answers, do the following:

A) KARMA + RULES CHECK. Based on my karma and account age, tell
   me honestly whether I can safely post a link now, whether I
   should build karma first (and how), or whether I should post
   with NO link and let people ask. Never encourage me to break a
   subreddit's self-promotion rules — flag when I need to read
   them or use a designated promo thread/day.

B) STRATEGY. In 2-3 lines, tell me the angle you'll use and why
   it fits that subreddit's culture.

C) THE POST. Write a Reddit post that:
   - Leads with value, a story, or a real question — NOT the product.
   - Sounds like a specific human, not a brand. No buzzwords, no
     "revolutionize," no "seamless," no hype.
   - Mentions the product ONCE, naturally, low-key, and only if it
     genuinely fits. If karma/rules make a link risky, leave the
     product out of the body and add a note on how to mention it
     if someone asks.
   - Gives more than it asks for.
   Provide a title (with 2 alternates) and the body, formatted the
   way Redditors actually write (short paragraphs, plain language).

D) SAFETY NOTES. List what could still get this removed in that
   specific sub, and 3 rules of thumb for engaging in the comments
   after posting (reply like a person, don't get defensive, thank
   critics).

Start by asking me question 1 now.

Because the prompt makes Claude ask before it writes, you don't get a generic ad. You get a post tuned to your account, your subreddit, and your real story — the three things that decide whether it survives.

Why the karma question matters so much

Most "how to post on Reddit" advice skips the single most common reason posts vanish: the account. This prompt makes it question two on purpose. If you tell Claude you're on a brand-new account with 2 karma, a good strategist doesn't hand you a link-drop — it tells you to spend a week being a normal, helpful member first, and writes you a link-free post so you don't burn the subreddit on day one. That honesty is what keeps you out of the shadow-ban zone.

A quick before / after

What gets removed: "🚀 Introducing [Product] — the all-in-one tool to supercharge your workflow. Sign up free at [link]!" Deleted in minutes.

What survives: "I wasted three months manually tracking this before I snapped and built a tiny script for it. Here's the exact workflow that finally worked — happy to share the whole thing." People ask what you used. Then you mention the product, in a comment, because someone invited it. That's the whole game.

The mindset to keep

• Read the sidebar and rules first. Every time. It takes 60 seconds and saves you a ban.
• Be a member before you're a marketer. Comment helpfully for a while. Reddit rewards accounts that give.
• One mention, max. If the product is the point of the post, you've already lost.
• Show up in the comments as a human. Thank critics, answer questions, drop the sales voice entirely.

FAQ

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