Key Takeaways: A survey, a beta-test request or a "what are your biggest pain points?" post is one of the fastest ways for a founder to get removed from a subreddit. In the published rules of 562 subreddits (archived January and February 2025), 150 had a written rule on surveys, market research or product research: 124 banned them outright, 14 required moderator approval first, and 12 allowed them only in a designated thread or under conditions. Professional communities are the strictest: r/marketing, r/UXDesign, r/freelance, r/msp, r/projectmanagement and r/ycombinator ban them, and r/ecommerce and r/shopify ban "Dev Research" posts by name. The places that do allow research are specific: r/SampleSize (which has a Marketing flair), r/smallbusiness for small-business surveys, r/startups' weekly feedback thread and r/woocommerce for WooCommerce user needs. Reading what people already wrote needs no permission at all.
The short answer
You can post a survey on Reddit, but only where the community's rules allow it, and most communities that mention surveys do not. Of the 150 subreddits in our check with a rule on the subject, 124 ban surveys or market research outright. Only 12 allow them, each with conditions, and 14 more want you to ask the moderators first.
The pattern is consistent. The communities whose members are most useful to a B2B founder (marketers, UX researchers, HR, IT providers, freelancers, store owners) are the ones that say so most bluntly, usually for the same reason r/UXDesign gives: professionals are not an impartial audience for your survey. Several of them send researchers to r/SampleSize instead.
How we checked
- Which subreddits: every subreddit named on GrowReddit's subreddit directory pages, 693 distinct communities, of which 562 had a rules record in the Arctic Shift archive, captured 19 January to 4 February 2025. We could not read reddit.com directly from our tools and did not try to get around that.
- What counted: we searched each rule for surveys, questionnaires, market research, research posts, "dev research", pain points, validation and beta testing, read every match, and classified it as a ban, approval required, or allowed under conditions. Two matches were not about posting research and were excluded.
- What could be missed: rules worded differently, sidebar text outside the rules, and unwritten moderator norms. 150 is therefore a floor.
Each subreddit below links to its current rules. Rule text is paraphrased; only rule names are quoted.
Where research posts are allowed
| Subreddit | What the rules allow | Conditions |
|---|---|---|
| r/SampleSize | A community for surveys, with Casual, Academic and Marketing flairs | Posts must link to a survey (not list questions in the body), state the topic and intended respondents in the title, and may be reposted once every 24 hours; no study recruitment; no soliciting respondents in other threads or by private message |
| r/smallbusiness | Surveys related to small business are allowed as posts | Stated as an exception in its no-blog-content rule; the subreddit is otherwise a question-and-answer community and business promotion goes in a weekly thread |
| r/startups | Feedback requests, including surveys and polls | Only in the feedback thread or another appropriate weekly thread; you may repost each week |
| r/SaaS | Feedback requests | Only in the pinned weekly feedback thread. Its rules do not mention surveys specifically |
| r/woocommerce | Posts about market research and the needs of WooCommerce users | Alpha and beta-test requests count as promotion and are not allowed |
| r/GrowthHacking | Surveys, feedback, reviews and beta tests | Ask the moderators first if you collect members' contact details or ask them to DM you |
| r/LLMDevs | Posts and surveys asking for input, including for market analysis | Disclose the purpose, confirm no personally identifiable information is collected or monetized, and share results back where appropriate |
| r/Etsy | Surveys about buyers, sellers or marketing | Only in the Share Your Stuff thread |
The other allowed-with-conditions entries in the dataset are consumer communities: r/crafts (monthly shop thread), r/crochet (weekly promo thread), r/truegaming (survey guidelines in its wiki), r/books (its promotional rules apply) and r/dividends (surveys need context).
Where they need moderator approval first
r/cscareerquestions (survey or data-collecting posts), r/ExperiencedDevs, r/networking, r/jobs, r/datasets and r/privacy (approved surveys must be non-commercial) all require approval before posting. r/AppleWatch asks developers to message the moderators before posting beta-test requests. In several health and support communities the approval route exists only for academic research, sometimes with ethics review, so a product survey will not qualify.
Where they are banned: business and technology
| Subreddit | Rule name | What it says |
|---|---|---|
| r/marketing | Homework Help & Surveys | Don't post them, including asking for ideas for your next web or app project |
| r/digital_marketing, r/advertising, r/AskMarketing | Surveys and/or homework/assignment help | Don't post them |
| r/socialmedia | No posting petitions or surveys | Asks whether social media professionals are really your target respondents |
| r/ecommerce | No 'Dev Research' posts | No posts looking for store owners' pain points, app validation ideas or feedback on app ideas |
| r/shopify | No 'Dev Research' posts | The same, plus beta testing and app reviews |
| r/AmazonSeller | Restricted post types | Surveys and any form of market research are removed |
| r/UXDesign | Research (including surveys, polls, and recruiting) is not allowed | No product research; automod deletes survey posts; suggests r/SampleSize |
| r/UXResearch | No user recruitment | Suggests r/SampleSize |
| r/UI_Design and r/web_design | No surveys / no testing requests | No attempts to collect information from members |
| r/programming and r/datascience | No surveys | Almost any survey is removed; r/programming suggests r/SampleSize |
| r/msp | No Surveys, Market Research, etc. | A flat rule |
| r/humanresources | No surveys or research | Not a place to survey HR professionals or research your product |
| r/freelance | No surveys or market research questions | Not your focus group, including testing interest in a freelancing marketplace idea |
| r/consulting | Rule 5 | No advertisements, free products, surveys or blogs |
| r/projectmanagement | No Self-Promotion / Advertising / Soliciting | Covers links to tools and surveys; violations are a permanent ban |
| r/productivity and r/managers | No Advertising / Lost redditor | No surveying products or services; no survey requests |
| r/ycombinator | No solicitation of surveys, DMs, external groups | Posts should be useful to other members, not only the poster |
| r/growmybusiness | No External Surveys/Feedback Requests | Says these too often collect contact details for upselling |
| r/bigseo and r/copywriting | Promotion and AI-tool rules | No free tools or beta tests; r/copywriting makes it an instant ban |
| r/blueteamsec | No surveys, paid or otherwise | Addressed, in its own words, to startup product people |
Finance, real estate and hospitality communities are just as strict: r/personalfinance, r/investing, r/StockMarket, r/CreditCards, r/FinancialPlanning, r/RealEstate, r/realestateinvesting, r/restaurantowners and r/KitchenConfidential all ban surveys or market research in the archived rules, and r/law and r/LawFirm ban market research specifically.
How to research your market on Reddit within the rules
- Read before you ask. Searching a community for the problem you are solving shows you how people describe it, what they already use and what they complain about. No rule restricts reading, and the answers are already written.
- Use the places built for questions. r/SampleSize for a survey with a Marketing flair, r/startups' and r/SaaS's weekly feedback threads for feedback on a product, r/smallbusiness for a small-business survey. Follow each one's format rules exactly.
- Ask the moderators where approval is required. Say what the research is for, who it is for, what you will collect, and whether you will share the results. Do not post first and ask later.
- Do not recruit through private messages. r/SampleSize prohibits soliciting respondents in other threads or by unsolicited private message, and several business communities ban asking members to DM you.
- Disclose who you are. A research post that turns out to be a disguised launch is removed under promotion rules even where research is allowed. See the self-promotion rules guide and the list of self-promotion threads.
- Write it yourself. Several of the same communities also ban AI-written posts (which subreddits ban AI-generated posts).
For choosing which communities hold your audience in the first place, see the subreddit research guide and the subreddit directories.
Limitations
- Age: rules captured 19 January to 4 February 2025. Some have changed.
- Coverage: the 562 subreddits are the ones listed in GrowReddit's directories, weighted toward business, technology and hobby communities; the proportions are not a measure of all of Reddit.
- Judgement: each rule was read and classified by hand. Borderline cases (for example, a survey ban that exempts academic research) are counted as bans when commercial research is not allowed.
If a rule here has changed, tell us through the contact page and we will correct and re-date the entry.
To plan how your team can learn from and take part in these communities without breaking their rules, book a call.