How I Finally Made Reddit Work for My SaaS (After 2 Months of Failure)

Okay so I've been lurking here for a while, reading everyone's marketing journeys. Figured I'd share what actually worked for me with Reddit because honestly, most advice out there is pretty vague.

Quick context: I built a desktop tool for Reddit research. Nothing fancy. When I launched, I had exactly zero marketing budget and zero audience. Just me and a laptop.

The First 2 Months Were Painful
I did everything the "guides" told me to do. Joined relevant subreddits. Tried to be helpful. Posted comments. Made a few posts.

Result? Maybe 5 visitors total. And two of those were probably me checking from my phone.

The problem wasn't Reddit itself. The problem was I was doing it completely wrong.

What I Was Doing Wrong
Three things killed my early Reddit efforts:

I was commenting on posts with 100+ comments

My replies got buried instantly. Nobody saw them. Complete waste of time.

I was scrolling manually looking for opportunities

This took forever. Like 30-40 minutes per day just to find 5-6 decent threads. And I'd still miss most of the good ones.

My comments sounded like a marketer wrote them

Too polished. Too helpful. Too... obvious. Redditors can smell marketing from a mile away.

What Actually Started Working
The breakthrough came when I started filtering threads by comment count. Sounds simple, but it changed everything.

Posts with 0-5 comments are gold. Less competition. Your reply actually gets seen. And if the thread takes off later, your comment is near the top.

I started using my own tool (yeah, eating my own dog food) to bulk-scrape posts across multiple subreddits and filter by comment count. What used to take 40 minutes now takes about 5. Honestly pretty game-changing for my workflow.

If you want to try it: Reddit Toolbox - free tier available. UI is rough but the filtering works great.

The Other Thing That Helped
I stopped trying to sound helpful and started writing like I actually talk. Shorter sentences. Some humor. Admitting when I don't know stuff.

Turns out Redditors respond way better to "yeah I tried that, here's what happened" than "here are 7 tips for optimal results."

Current Results (Month 3)
Reddit is now about 23% of my signups. Not my biggest channel, but it's consistent and the users are way more engaged than from other sources.

Time investment: Maybe 30 minutes per day, 5 days a week.

Not gonna lie, some days I get zero traction. Some comments just flop. But the average is worth it.

What I'd Tell Past Me
Stop commenting on popular threads. Stop writing like a marketer. And for the love of god, stop scrolling manually through subreddits - batch your research first.

Anyone else doing Reddit marketing? Curious what's working for you.