You've found the right subreddits. Your account has some history. Now someone posts exactly the question your product answers. What do you write?
Most founders get this part wrong too. They write a comment that's really just a pitch with some helpful padding. Reddit readers can tell. The comment gets downvoted or removed, and you get nothing.
Here's what actually works.
The only framework you need
Good Reddit comments that mention a product follow the same structure every time:
Answer the question first. Actually answer it. If someone asks "what's the best way to monitor Reddit for brand mentions?", tell them what works. Give them a real answer they could act on without ever using your product. This is the part that gets upvoted.
Add your context. After the answer, add one sentence about why you know this. "I built a tool for this so I've thought about it a lot" is honest and gives your product mention a reason to exist.
Name your product. Don't link it. Say the name. Don't paste a URL. Reddit communities are hostile to links in comments. A product name is easy to search for. A link looks like spam.
Name your competitors
This one surprises founders, but it works. Mentioning competing tools in the same comment as yours makes your comment look like an honest overview rather than a pitch.
"Tools like F5Bot (free), RedShip, and [competitor] all handle this differently" is much harder for a moderator to remove than "you should try my product." It also positions you as someone who knows the category well, which builds credibility.
You don't need to trash competitors. Just name them. The fact that you're listing options, not just pushing one thing, is what matters.
When to comment vs. when to post your own thread
Comment when there's already a thread with real engagement and a specific question you can answer. This is the default. Most of your Reddit activity should be comments.
Post your own thread only when you have something worth posting on its own: original research, a detailed breakdown, a genuine story about building your product. Posts require more account credibility to land well and they're easier to get wrong. Stick to comments for your first 2 months.
The post formats that actually work
When you do post:
Data you collected yourself: "I looked at 200 threads asking about CRM tools. Here's what people actually want." Original data is hard to dismiss as promotional.
An honest founder story: "I built this after failing at X for 6 months. Here's what I learned." Works in r/entrepreneur and similar communities. Has to be genuinely honest, not a press release. Reddit communities will call out fake vulnerability immediately.
A question you actually want answered: Asking a real question in your target community gets you engagement and gives you customer research at the same time.
What a good comment actually looks like
Here's a real example. Someone posts: "Looking for something to track when my brand gets mentioned on Reddit. Using Google Alerts but it misses a lot."
A bad comment: "Check out RedShip! It does exactly this."
A good comment: "Google Alerts misses most Reddit posts because it doesn't index Reddit well. The main options are F5Bot (free, email alerts, gets noisy), Reddit's own search with site:reddit.com (manual, but works), or tools like RedShip that score threads by relevance so you're not digging through noise. Depends how much volume you're dealing with."
Same product mention. Completely different reception.