Key Takeaways: Most subreddits that matter to founders do not ban promotion outright; they move it into one designated thread. In the published rules of 562 subreddits (archived January and February 2025), 46 named a specific promotion, launch or feedback thread: 22 weekly, 15 monthly, 2 daily and 7 standing pinned posts. The schedules differ more than most guides say: r/startups' Share Your Startup thread is monthly, not weekly; r/Entrepreneur uses Thank You Thursday; r/webdev limits showcases to Showoff Saturday; r/nocode has a monthly launch post. Posting the same link outside the named thread is the most common way to be removed, so match the thread to the rule and check the current pinned posts first.
The short answer
When a subreddit "allows self-promotion", it usually means one of three things:
- A designated thread. Promotion is banned in the main feed but allowed in a named weekly, monthly or daily thread, or in one pinned post. This is the most common pattern among founder, marketing and creator communities.
- A frequency cap. Promotion is allowed anywhere, but only up to a limit: r/cybersecurity caps it at under 10% of your activity there and once a week per promoted entity; r/dataengineering at once a month; r/learnmachinelearning at once a week.
- Conditions instead of a thread. r/indiehackers allows one self-promotion post per product with the SHOW IH flair; r/churning allows one front-page post per product; r/fintech allows sharing your own work if you say so at the start of the post.
The rest of this page lists the first group, because that is where search results and AI answers disagree most. When we ran a web search on these questions in October 2026, the sources disagreed: some described r/startups' thread as weekly and others as monthly, and they named three different days for r/SaaS. The subreddits' own rule text is the tiebreaker.
How we checked
We read the published rules of every subreddit named on GrowReddit's subreddit directory pages: 693 communities, of which 562 had a rules record in the Arctic Shift archive, captured between 19 January and 4 February 2025. We searched each rule for thread, cadence and promotion wording and then read every match. A subreddit is listed only if a written rule names a specific thread or post where promotion, launches, showcases or feedback requests belong. Rules that only point questions or job posts to a thread are left out unless promotion is involved.
The rule text is paraphrased below; each subreddit links to its current rules. Thread names, days and cadences change, and pinned posts can describe details the rules do not.
Founder, startup and business subreddits
| Subreddit | Where promotion goes | Cadence | Conditions in the rules |
|---|---|---|---|
| r/startups | Share Your Startup thread, stickied | Monthly | Feedback requests, surveys and polls go in the weekly feedback thread; no promotional posts anywhere else; your own blog needs prior moderator approval to link |
| r/Entrepreneur | Thank You Thursday thread, pinned | Weekly | Promotions, offers and discounts only there; 10 comment karma in the subreddit to post at all |
| r/smallbusiness | Promote-your-business thread | Weekly | Promotion is also allowed in a relevant reply; a separate weekly thread is for sharing your own experience |
| r/SaaS | Feedback thread, pinned | Weekly | Feedback requests must go there; mentioning your SaaS elsewhere is allowed only when relevant and helpful; no unsolicited direct sales |
| r/ycombinator | Megathreads for feedback and the application cycle | Ongoing | Separate rule: no self promotion |
| r/growmybusiness | Sticky thread for advice and strategy content | Monthly | A signature and links are allowed if the post has real content |
| r/realestateinvesting | Monthly Blatant Self Promotion Thread | Monthly | Outside it, self-promotion, apps, calculators and vendor recommendations bring a permanent ban |
| r/AmazonSeller | Community Promotional Post, pinned | Standing | The only place to mention anything you are affiliated with; disclosure required; affiliate and tracking links removed even there |
| r/Etsy | Share Your Stuff thread, stickied | Standing | Etsy links only in stickied threads; surveys, seller tools and blog posts go there; shop critiques on Fridays only |
| r/churning | Comments in the daily threads | Daily | Plus exactly one front-page post per product; referral links banned everywhere |
Marketing, creator and newsletter subreddits
| Subreddit | Where promotion goes | Cadence | Conditions in the rules |
|---|---|---|---|
| r/SocialMediaMarketing | Job and service-advertisement threads | Monthly | Advertisements for social media marketing services only there |
| r/Newsletters | Pinned post for newsletter links | Weekly | Links to your own newsletter elsewhere count as spam |
| r/Substack | Pinned threads | Standing | Self-promotion posts are discouraged; recommendations go in the pinned megathread |
| r/Blogging | Feedback thread | Monthly | Feedback requests on design, writing, structure or domain names only there |
| r/podcasting | Weekly Episode thread (Thursday mornings, Eastern Time) and a weekly Product or Service thread | Weekly | Linking your show in a post can bring a temporary or permanent ban; products and services need pre-approval outside the thread |
| r/youtubers | Show-Off Thread | Monthly | Promotion of non-YouTube content such as apps and services is never permitted; no referral codes |
| r/NewTubers | Feedback Friday and Self-Introduce Saturday megathreads | Weekly | Give meaningful feedback to two others before posting your own link |
| r/VideoEditing | Megathread for feedback and software questions | Monthly | |
| r/Zettelkasten | Self-Promo post | Monthly | Paid tools, free tools, newsletters and courses go only in the comments of that post |
If you sell to marketers, note what is not on this list: r/marketing, r/SEO, r/PPC and r/GrowthHacking had no promotion thread in the archive. r/marketing points advertisers to Reddit's paid ads and also bans AI-generated posts; r/GrowthHacking requires 100 community karma before you share your own content, and moderator permission before a SaaS founder or marketer promotes a tool. See our r/marketing and r/GrowthHacking guides.
Developer, data and AI subreddits
| Subreddit | Where promotion goes | Cadence | Conditions in the rules |
|---|---|---|---|
| r/webdev | Showoff Saturday | Weekly (Saturdays) | Sharing a project or portfolio, or asking for feedback on it, is removed on any other day |
| r/web_design | Showoff Saturday and Feedback Weekend threads | Weekly | Critique and feedback requests only there |
| r/cpp | Show and Tell post, pinned | Standing | For personal projects; libraries of general interest can still be posted normally |
| r/Python | Daily thread | Daily | AI-model and API-wrapper showcases are no longer allowed as posts |
| r/AI_Agents | Project display thread | Weekly | Blog links go in comments, not posts |
| r/ChatGPT | Self-promotional megathread, pinned | Weekly | For posts advertising another LLM service |
| r/ChatGPTPromptGenius | Tips & Tools Tuesday megathread | Weekly (Tuesdays) | Paid tools must show their pricing prominently |
| r/StableDiffusion | Promo thread | Weekly | Paid services and paywalled content only there; free, open-source or local tools can be posted once per tool, guide or update |
| r/tableau | Self-promotion Saturday | Weekly (Saturdays) | Accounts that only promote, outside that thread, are removed and repeat offenders banned |
| r/platformengineering | Self promotion thread | Monthly | Post in it once a month |
| r/msp | Promo thread | Weekly | Vendor participation is encouraged, but product promotion and webinars only there; vendors identify themselves by username or flair |
| r/cscareerquestions | Stickied promotional thread | Monthly (first Sunday) | Promotion of a person, service or website only there |
For B2B software, r/msp is unusual: it explicitly welcomes vendors in discussion as long as they identify themselves, and keeps promotion to one weekly thread. Compare r/cybersecurity, which has no thread but caps promotion at under 10% of your activity and once a week per entity, and bans AI-generated posts (which subreddits ban AI-generated posts).
Hobby and consumer subreddits
These matter when your product is consumer-facing. In the archive, each named a promotion thread:
- Weekly: r/writing (self-promotion and critique thread), r/horror (every Sunday), r/listentothis (music melting pot), r/BeautyGuruChatter (Sundays), r/crochet, r/knitting (Buy-Sell-Trade-Promote, Thursdays), r/Cooking (YouTube/Content Round-Up), r/photography (community threads).
- Monthly: r/horrorlit (from the 1st), r/crafts (shop thread), r/analog (self-promotion thread), r/TrueCrimePodcasts, r/therapists (on the 1st).
- Standing: r/fantasywriters and r/selfpublish (self-promotion threads).
How to use a promotion thread well
- Post in the right thread on the right day. Most removals here are mechanical: a showcase on a Tuesday in r/webdev, a launch post in r/nocode outside the monthly launch post, a startup link in r/startups' main feed.
- Read the thread's own rules. Several pinned posts add conditions the sidebar does not: r/NewTubers requires two pieces of feedback before your own link; r/ChatGPTPromptGenius requires visible pricing for paid tools.
- Write a real entry, not a link. What the product does, who it is for, and one specific thing you learned building it. Reply to other entries; most threads are read by the people posting in them.
- Keep contributing in the main feed without links. The thread is where the link is allowed. Answers elsewhere are what make people click it. The 90/10 rule still applies to your account as a whole.
- Check whether the community allows AI-written text before you draft the entry with it. Several do not.
Limitations
- Age: rules captured 19 January to 4 February 2025. Thread names, cadences and days change.
- Coverage: 562 subreddits drawn from GrowReddit's directories, weighted toward business, technology and hobby communities. Many other subreddits run promotion threads that are not listed here.
- Written rules only: some communities announce threads in pinned posts without a rule that names them. Those would not appear here.
If a thread here has changed, tell us through the contact page and we will correct and re-date the entry.
Related guides
- Reddit self-promotion rules: the 90/10 rule and how bans happen.
- Per-subreddit guides: r/startups, r/Entrepreneur, r/smallbusiness, r/SaaS, r/indiehackers and r/webdev.
- Which subreddits ban AI-generated posts.
- Can you post a survey on Reddit?: where research and feedback posts are allowed.
- Subreddit directories with each community's promotion rule.
To plan where your product can be discussed and how, book a call.