I wasted 6 months scrolling Reddit before I figured this out

Not gonna lie, last month I did something I should've done ages ago.

I looked at my calendar and added up how much time I spent on Reddit marketing. Just scrolling. Looking for posts to comment on.

34 hours. In one month.

And you know what I got from it? Maybe 2-3 site visits per day. Basically nothing.

Something had to change.

What I was doing wrong
Okay so here's the thing. Everyone says "just find relevant posts and be helpful." Cool. But nobody tells you:

If you're looking at "hot" posts, you're already too late.

Hot posts have 200 comments. Your reply goes straight to the bottom where nobody sees it. You're invisible.

I spent MONTHS doing this before I realized - the problem wasn't my comments. The problem was timing.

The flip that changed everything
I started doing the opposite.

Instead of hot posts, I specifically looked for posts with almost no comments. Under 5. Posted in the last 24 hours.

Seemed backwards at first. Less engagement = less opportunity, right?

Nope. Less engagement = less competition. And the person who posted is still waiting for answers. Your comment is one of the first they see.

First time I tried this, boom - 4 DMs in one day. FOUR. That literally never happened before.

The tools I tried
Real talk - finding low-comment posts manually still took forever. Scrolling through 100 posts to find 5 worth my time.

So I tried a bunch of stuff:

Reddit search - useless for filtering by comment count
GummySearch - decent but expensive ($49/mo? nah)
Reddit Toolbox - free desktop app, does what I need
Manual spreadsheets - works but painful
I ended up sticking with Reddit Toolbox because:

It's free (big deal for me right now)
Scrapes multiple subreddits at once
Filters by comment count - exactly what I need
Runs on my computer so my IP doesn't get flagged
Honestly the UI is kinda rough. Not gonna pretend it's amazing. But it saves me like 2 hours a day so I'll deal with it.

Download: www.wappkit.com/download

My morning routine now
Takes 30 minutes total:

Open Reddit Toolbox
Scrape r/SaaS, r/Entrepreneur, r/startups, couple niche ones
Filter: comments under 5, posted in last day
Get ~15-20 posts that actually matter
Pick 3-5 where I have something useful to say
Write real replies (not templates)
Used to take me 3 hours of endless scrolling. Now it's just... part of my morning.

What actually works in comments
Here's where it gets good. Finding posts is half the battle. The other half is what you say.

What works:

Actually answer the question first. Be genuinely helpful.
Share specific experiences. "I tried X, it failed because Y" beats generic advice.
Mention your product casually if relevant. Never pushy.
What doesn't work:

Copy-pasting the same reply everywhere (mods catch this fast)
Old posts - desperate vibes
Fake enthusiasm ("Great question!") - everyone does this
Results
Honest numbers: 15-20 visits per day from Reddit comments now.

Not viral. Not crazy growth. But consistent. And these visitors actually engage because they came from real conversations.

Way better than the scroll-for-hours burnout I was doing before.

TL;DR
Stop chasing hot posts (too much competition)
Find posts with under 5 comments, posted recently
Use Reddit Toolbox to filter faster
Be genuinely helpful in your comments
30 minutes/day instead of 3 hours
Anyone else doing Reddit stuff? What subreddits work for you? Happy to answer questions.