01 Jul 2025
Social Media

Your tool helps: Startups, indie hackers, creators track relevant ...

...Reddit conversations in real time Discover where users are talking about your niche/product Join conversations naturally and early, before they explode Avoid getting banned by promoting subtly and meaningfully Save time by not manually searching Reddit all day

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Freemium

People love using similar products but resist paying. You’ll need to either find who will pay or create additional value that’s worth paying for.

Should You Build It?

Build but think about differentiation and monetization.


Your are here

Your idea of a real-time Reddit conversation tracker for startups and creators falls into the 'Freemium' category, where users appreciate the utility but are hesitant to pay. There's a high number of similar products (15), indicating both significant interest and strong competition in this space. The average comment count on similar products is moderate (9), showing reasonable engagement. Since there are many similar products, differentiation and monetization are key challenges. The biggest hurdle for you will be convincing free users to upgrade to a paid plan or add extra paid features from the beginning.

Recommendations

  1. Given that many users are wary of automated engagement tools sounding inauthentic, and perhaps even spammy, focus your marketing and onboarding on users who will use the product to manually discover conversations, and then organically engage. By doing so, you'll gain more trust and have less churn.
  2. Identify the core user segments that derive the most value from the free version of your Reddit tracker. For example, are indie hackers using it to validate startup ideas, or are marketers using it to track brand mentions? Knowing this will inform your upselling strategy.
  3. Develop premium features that cater specifically to the needs of these high-value user segments. For instance, indie hackers might pay for competitor analysis features, while marketers might value sentiment analysis or advanced reporting. Consider integrating advanced filtering options to avoid irrelevant keywords.
  4. Explore team-based pricing models. Larger organizations or marketing agencies might be more willing to pay for a collaborative platform with advanced features and multiple user accounts, compared to individual subscriptions.
  5. Offer personalized onboarding, help or consulting services to users who need extra assistance in leveraging the platform for their specific needs. This could be a higher-tier offering for users who require hands-on support.
  6. Experiment with different pricing strategies with smaller user cohorts. Offer early adopters exclusive deals, discounts, or lifetime access to premium features in exchange for their feedback and testimonials.
  7. Address the criticism from similar products regarding the potential for spam and misuse. Implement safeguards to prevent users from automating excessive or irrelevant comments, and educate users on responsible Reddit engagement practices. Emphasize the importance of genuine engagement and manual discovery.
  8. Pay close attention to requests from other similar product launches and consider integration with X/Twitter and LinkedIn. While staying within your stated vision for the product, by being aware of these other requests, you may discover hidden opportunities to improve your positioning.

Questions

  1. Given the concerns about potential spam and misuse of automated tools on Reddit, how will you ensure that your platform promotes authentic engagement and avoids negative brand perception?
  2. Considering the competition in the real-time Reddit tracking space, what unique features or value propositions will differentiate your platform from existing free alternatives and justify a paid subscription?
  3. How will you balance the need for scalability and affordability, especially with the rising costs of API access for platforms like Twitter, while still providing a comprehensive and valuable service to your users?

Your are here

Your idea of a real-time Reddit conversation tracker for startups and creators falls into the 'Freemium' category, where users appreciate the utility but are hesitant to pay. There's a high number of similar products (15), indicating both significant interest and strong competition in this space. The average comment count on similar products is moderate (9), showing reasonable engagement. Since there are many similar products, differentiation and monetization are key challenges. The biggest hurdle for you will be convincing free users to upgrade to a paid plan or add extra paid features from the beginning.

Recommendations

  1. Given that many users are wary of automated engagement tools sounding inauthentic, and perhaps even spammy, focus your marketing and onboarding on users who will use the product to manually discover conversations, and then organically engage. By doing so, you'll gain more trust and have less churn.
  2. Identify the core user segments that derive the most value from the free version of your Reddit tracker. For example, are indie hackers using it to validate startup ideas, or are marketers using it to track brand mentions? Knowing this will inform your upselling strategy.
  3. Develop premium features that cater specifically to the needs of these high-value user segments. For instance, indie hackers might pay for competitor analysis features, while marketers might value sentiment analysis or advanced reporting. Consider integrating advanced filtering options to avoid irrelevant keywords.
  4. Explore team-based pricing models. Larger organizations or marketing agencies might be more willing to pay for a collaborative platform with advanced features and multiple user accounts, compared to individual subscriptions.
  5. Offer personalized onboarding, help or consulting services to users who need extra assistance in leveraging the platform for their specific needs. This could be a higher-tier offering for users who require hands-on support.
  6. Experiment with different pricing strategies with smaller user cohorts. Offer early adopters exclusive deals, discounts, or lifetime access to premium features in exchange for their feedback and testimonials.
  7. Address the criticism from similar products regarding the potential for spam and misuse. Implement safeguards to prevent users from automating excessive or irrelevant comments, and educate users on responsible Reddit engagement practices. Emphasize the importance of genuine engagement and manual discovery.
  8. Pay close attention to requests from other similar product launches and consider integration with X/Twitter and LinkedIn. While staying within your stated vision for the product, by being aware of these other requests, you may discover hidden opportunities to improve your positioning.

Questions

  1. Given the concerns about potential spam and misuse of automated tools on Reddit, how will you ensure that your platform promotes authentic engagement and avoids negative brand perception?
  2. Considering the competition in the real-time Reddit tracking space, what unique features or value propositions will differentiate your platform from existing free alternatives and justify a paid subscription?
  3. How will you balance the need for scalability and affordability, especially with the rising costs of API access for platforms like Twitter, while still providing a comprehensive and valuable service to your users?

  • Confidence: High
    • Number of similar products: 15
  • Engagement: Medium
    • Average number of comments: 9
  • Net use signal: 28.7%
    • Positive use signal: 34.7%
    • Negative use signal: 6.0%
  • Net buy signal: -0.6%
    • Positive buy signal: 2.2%
    • Negative buy signal: 2.7%

This chart summarizes all the similar products we found for your idea in a single plot.

The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.

The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.

The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.

Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.

Similar products

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KeyMentions - Convert Reddit traffic into customers

KeyMentions tracks your brand and keywords and notifies you when an active discussion is taking place. Make sure you engage with Reddit discussions that are going viral, for maximum reach potential, and start leveraging Reddit traffic today!

KeyMentions' Product Hunt launch garnered significant interest for its Reddit monitoring and engagement capabilities. Users praise its potential for time-saving, traffic generation, and real-time brand tracking. Concerns arise regarding potential spam, misuse of auto-generated content, invasiveness, and the need for robust filtering and customization. Several users reported issues with verification emails and website accessibility. Questions were raised about pricing, compliance, integrations, metrics, language support, and mobile responsiveness. Some highlighted the potential for increased ROI, efficient discussion tracking, and community building, while others were skeptical about the value of automated promotions.

Users expressed concerns about the tool's potential for spamming Reddit with auto-generated, insincere comments, leading to bans and negative brand perception. Customization of AI replies and avoiding irrelevant keywords were frequently requested. The tool was described as invasive, creepy, and potentially ineffective compared to alternatives. Issues with mobile responsiveness, website access, verification emails, and unclear pricing were also noted. There are requests to extend monitoring to X/Twitter and LinkedIn.


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Popsy - Find Reddit discussions where you can promote your product

AI tool that monitors Reddit and alerts you about opportunities to engage & promote your product. It also generates suggested responses to make your job easier.

Popsy is seen as a valuable tool, especially for startups, revolutionizing Reddit marketing by efficiently promoting products. Users appreciate its ability to save time and build real-time brand awareness, surpassing Google in effectiveness. There's interest in its origin and a general desire for a product like this.

A Product Hunt launch received a query about the AI's ability to analyse user engagement and how the AI responds to user customization.


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Track live mentions of any keyword on any forum + Twitter

24 Jul 2024 Marketing

Hey HN! My name's Josh and I'm the sole founder of ForumScout.I had the idea for this project about 3 months ago, and I've been building it ever since.ForumScout notifies you whenever your chosen keyword(s) are mentioned on ANY forum or Twitter thread.For example, let's say you own a SaaS that generates AI headshots. You could get notified when someone mentions "AI headshot", and offer them a free trial of your service.There are many ways I believe a tool like this can be useful, but a few of the obvious ones are:- Respond to mentions of your brand/website in real time.- Find people who mention keywords related to your niche, and engage with potential customers.- Monitor mentions of your competition, and pick the right moments to offer your alternative.- Get creative. You can track live mentions of literally anything, anywhere on the internet.When new posts are found, they will be added to the feed in your dashboard. Email notifications are optional, but will help you engage much faster.Data is pulled from various different real-time Forum APIs, as well as a few native platform APIs, like Reddit.I also built a free search engine so you can search for past mentions if you don't need live ones: https://forumscout.app/searchThe search engine works differently from the live service, so it might miss quite a few posts - the live service doesn't miss any.Right now, there's a 2 week free trial that lets you setup 5 of these automations for free.If you'd like a longer trial period, please email me at josh@forumscout.app and I'd be more than happy to extend it for you in return for your feedback:)If it sounds like something you're interested in, I'd be extremely grateful to hear your thoughts. I'm considering adding new features and looking for direction.

Users generally praise the idea, with one user calling it 'awesome.' There are questions about scalability, filtering, integrations, and technical details. Additionally, there are concerns about the cost of the Twitter API and potential workarounds.

Users have raised concerns about the product's scalability, potential for false positives, and the need for better integrations. Additionally, the high cost of the Twitter API is a significant issue.

Thank you very much :)Scalability: This is more of a cost/resource issue than a technical one. Right now, ForumScout checks every hour for new posts. This isn't ideal, but it allows me to offer the product for much cheaper than if we were to check, say, every 5-10 minutes. Scalability is much more manageable with an hourly check, but the goal eventually is to get as close to real time as possible. I plan on offering a higher pricing tier for real-time checks to account for the extra resources.Filtering: By default, the searches are performed via exact match. From testing, there are no false positives; there's some code that double-checks that each post contains an exact match of the keyword(s). Users can manually turn off exact match if they want broader searches. Sentiment searching is a VERY good idea. I will add it to my list!Integrations: This is a great point, and something I had not yet considered. Right now, the feed can be exported via CSV, but direct integrations would be much better for UX.Technical: Honestly, it wasn't too difficult - every hour, the automation will make a call to all the different APIs and search using the parameters provided by the user at setup. Then we format and combine all the results, remove duplicates, perform some more filtering (depending on what settings the user has chosen), and add the results to the user's feed. If emails are turned on, we send an email with the new results. As mentioned, making this real-time will be more difficult, but it would really just mean doing this every few minutes, requiring more resources. I did build a custom scraping function for Reddit comments, because the native Reddit API doesn't allow direct searching of comments like you can on their website/app, but everything else is third-party.


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I made a fool that finds potential customers for you

Hey everyone!I wanted to share a tool I built to help you quickly find potential customers across social media for your product. It's a really simple concept: you simply paste in your landing page URL, and it shows you highly relevant posts across Reddit (Working to integrate few more) from people who likely need your product or service.For example, if you have a minimal to-do list app, it will show you posts like "Anyone know of a minimal to-do list app?" or "Really starting to dislike how complex Notion is." These posts are from the last 48 hours, updated in real-time, and uniquely tailored to your product.You can then get your product in front of these potential customers by replying or sending a direct message. I’ve found both methods to be successful, depending on the nature of the post.I originally built this for myself to find users for my SaaS. Manually using Reddit advanced filters to search for relevant terms was time-consuming, so I automated the process and sharing here to help you.Replyhub works great for SaaS, consumer products, service businesses, and agencies. It helped me get 1-3 new paying customers per day for my service, and I want it to help you do the same!It's free to try at [1]. Cheers! :)[1] https://replyhub.co

Users found the intentional phrase 'I made a fool' funny and clear, though one user suggested it might be a typo and should be 'tool'. There was also a reference to a famous quote in the title.

The title is perceived as insulting to customers, implying they are fools. Additionally, there is a typo in the text.


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Prospecttit - AI agent powered reddit leads and discovery

Automatically find and connect with potential clients posting on Reddit. Get real-time alerts for relevant posts in your target subreddits.

Users find the product promising but express concerns about the high price and limitations of the free plan for effective trial. A question was raised about the product's unique features compared to free alternatives like F5Bot, suggesting a need to highlight differentiating value propositions.

Users criticize the high price point, arguing that the free plan doesn't provide sufficient functionality for adequate evaluation. Doubts are raised about the product's added value compared to readily available and free alternatives offering similar features.


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Reddit Niche Bot - Reddit bot emailing posts & comments based on keywords.

Reddit Niche Bot automates Reddit monitoring by tracking specific keywords in posts and comments. It sends email alerts and generates daily reports using OpenAI's API. Ideal for staying updated on niche topics. Docker-based for easy deployment.

The launch received positive feedback, with one user congratulating the team and describing Reddit Niche Bot as "super cool." A comment was deleted, so it is impossible to know the sentiment of that comment.


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We built a tool to help startups monitor their online presence

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Hi HN, I'm Toni, i'm a Product Manager.In June, during a team building at my company, my friend Tristan & I decided to partner up to start a side project.After one failed attempt, we got the idea for buska out of our own frustrations :Tristan had successfully launched an app in the past and he struggled to check every mention of it on social media, media coverage...I had worked as a Music Manager and spent hours tracking mentions of my artists online. And as a PM,I would manually go on every social media for user posts about my product.At the time neither of us couldn't find a tool to get everything in one place.So in August, we decided to build our own tool.Our guidelines were : - track mentions from every social media + internet + news + communities (reddit, product hunt, hacker news...) - minimalist design focused on showing the mentions - real time notifications for new mentionsIn the current economy, online reputation is becoming a crucial asset and we believe startups and small businesses can leverage it too.As we were building, we found out about the existing monitoring platforms, they focus on Enterprise Market, with many features and lots or reporting that suit large teams.We designed buska specifically for startups and small businesses.You can give it a try directly on our landing page.And for those who would want to check more, we are currently offering the starter plan.Let me know what you think.Any feedback will be highly appreciated to help us improve.Thanks for your attention.

Comment flagged for review.


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Subreddit Signals - Effortless lead generation & authentic engagement on reddit

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The tool is perceived as useful for creating connections and engagement on Reddit, especially for SaaS founders. Users are excited about the launch and express positive wishes for its success. The lead generation aspect looks promising, and John's work is praised. There's a question regarding the Reddit connection, indicating a need for clarity on that aspect.


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I made a site that responds to relevant Reddit posts automatically

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Hi HN, Creator here!We see many posts on Reddit where we could introduce our product, but it's hard to respond in a timely manner, and making replies manually is time-consuming. This is where Replyhub comes in to solve the problem. It takes the hassle out of the process so you can focus on other tasks while it handles this side of things.Replyhub tracks keywords across Reddit and finds relevant posts. It then analyzes the post content to determine if a reply is warranted and automatically crafts a curated response. For example, if someone is asking about the best productivity tools, Replyhub can respond with a recommendation for your product, complete with details.All you need to do is define a few keywords, which takes just a few minutes. Then, sit back and let Replyhub handle the rest. This means you can engage with potential customers and promote your product without spending hours on Reddit.Any feedback and suggestions are welcome. Thanks in advance!Site link: https://replyhub.co

Users are critical of the potential for increased bot activity on Reddit due to Replyhub, an automated reply service. They emphasize the value of genuine engagement and question the need for more AI-generated content. Some suggest that the marketing for Replyhub should focus on selective and relevant conversations. Despite skepticism, there's an acknowledgment that there is a market for such a service, with one user labeling it as 'spambots as a service.'

Users criticized the Show HN product for an overabundance of bots leading to reduced monetization potential, a marketing page that fails to emphasize selective, relevant conversations, an oversaturation of AI content, concerns over business ethics and product effectiveness, and the perception of the service as a facilitator for spambots.


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