How to search Reddit: operators, filters and queries that find buyers

Reddit's help page lists four places you can search:

• Across Reddit: use the search bar. Inside a community, the community's name shows as a pill in the search bar and limits the search to that community. Click the option for results from the whole site to search beyond it.
• Within a community: go to the community and search from there.
• Within a post's comments: on the apps, tap the search icon while viewing a post. On the desktop site, click the search bar by the comments section, below the comment box.
• By flair: on the mobile apps, tap a flair tag on a post to see every post with that flair.

Reddit also has an AI-powered search through its Reddit Answers feature, which writes an answer from posts and comments. To find individual people to talk to, use the standard search, since you need the posts themselves.

Reddit documents these filter words. Don't put a space between the filter name and the term you're searching for.

Correct: author:cats. Wrong: author: cats.

Filters can be combined: author:reddit subreddit:reddit search updates. Wrap a multi-word value in quotes: title:"kitten gif".

Reddit's search supports AND, OR and NOT. These operators are case sensitive, so type them in capitals. Parentheses group terms.

• cats AND dogs returns results with both words.
• cats OR dogs returns results with either.
• cats NOT dogs returns results with cats and without dogs.
• Brackets prevent surprises. In Reddit's own example, hedgehog NOT sonic OR shadow gives very different results from hedgehog NOT (sonic OR shadow).

Two behaviours matter for buyer searches. A post search only needs results to include some of your search words, unless you use the filter syntax to force a match. A comment or user search currently requires all of your search words, though Reddit says this might change.

The post rule explains why loose queries return so much noise. When you want a phrase to count, use title:, selftext: and quotes.

Reddit documents author: for posts. To see everything someone has posted or commented, open their profile. Use judgment with this. Reading a public profile for context is normal, but we don't help build files on individuals, and HearBuyers doesn't offer user lookups.

Replace the bracketed parts with your category.

For someone asking for a recommendation:

`` title:"recommend" (crm OR "customer relationship") subreddit:smallbusiness ``

For someone asking for an alternative:

`` title:alternative "Tool A" NOT hiring ``

For someone describing the problem in the post body:

`` selftext:"I need a tool" (invoicing OR invoices) ``

For someone looking for a tool or service:

`` ("looking for" OR "I need" OR "can anyone recommend") (bookkeeper OR "bookkeeping software") ``

For someone unhappy with a competitor:

`` "Tool A" (cancelled OR switching OR "moving off" OR frustrated) ``

To search one community only:

`` subreddit:Entrepreneur "who do you use for" accounting ``

Run each one and sort by new. Our Reddit search builder writes these for you from a form. The post date finder tells you how old a thread is, which is worth checking first, since old threads rarely deserve a reply.

Reddit's comment search requires every word you type to match, so a long phrase often returns nothing. A common workaround is Google's site: operator, which Google documents: site:youtube.com cat videos limits results to one domain. Applied to Reddit:

`` site:reddit.com "looking for" "invoicing tool" site:reddit.com/r/smallbusiness "who do you use for" ``

Google also documents date operators, before: and after:, for example after:2026-03-10. Use them to restrict results to recent posts.

Treat Google results as a supplement. They only cover what Google has indexed, and they can lag behind what's on Reddit.

Every query brings back a mix. Below are sample posts, each scored 0 to 100 for buying intent the way HearBuyers scores them:

• Sample, score 89. "We need an invoicing tool for a 10-person consultancy, multi-currency, renewal is next month."
• Sample, score 41. "What do people use for invoicing?"
• Sample, score 7. "I wrote a guide to the best invoicing tools. Link in comments."

Open the first one and read the thread to see what's already been said. Check your community's rules before you reply. See the subreddit rules tool and the Reddit lead generation guide.

Reddit's public data access changes between 31 October 2026 and March 2027, and that affects tools that read Reddit from outside. One example is Later for Reddit: its notice of 3 October 2026 says it will stop posting on 1 January 2027. Some tools may cover less, and some may stop working. Searching in a browser, which is what this guide covers, doesn't need an outside tool. If you rely on one, ask what it will still be able to read after the change.

The methods on this page all work in a browser with no tool, which is why they're worth knowing.

• Searching by hand takes time. A saved routine helps, but nothing tells you when a new post goes up.
• Reddit search misses relevant comments, so try the same query a few different ways.
• Keywords alone won't show you who is a buyer. You have to judge intent yourself.

If you'd rather have posts and comments in chosen communities found and scored for you, see Reddit monitoring.

Our tools page has more free search builders and lookups.

To search one post's comments, open the post and use the search icon (apps) or the search bar by the comments section (desktop). Reddit's help page says that when you search comments across Reddit, all of your words currently have to appear.

Yes. AND, OR and NOT work when you type them in capitals, and parentheses group terms.

Search from inside the community, or add subreddit:name to your query.

Add author:username to search that user's posts, or open their profile. Use it only to read public context.

Run title:"recommend" subreddit:<your community> for the community where your buyers ask for help, sort by new, and read the top ten results.