Reddit will let you spam if you wait long enough. Here's the exact waiting period.
45 days.
That's how long you have to wait before Reddit stops treating you like spam.
Not "build karma first." Not "be helpful first." Just wait.
How I discovered the timer
Account 1: Posted on day 3. Banned. Account 2: Posted on day 14. Banned. Account 3: Posted on day 21. Banned. Account 4: Posted on day 18. Banned. Account 5: Posted on day 28. Banned. Account 6: Posted on day 19. Banned.
Account 7: Did absolutely nothing for 45 days. Then posted. Survived.
Same promotional content. Only difference was the calendar.
Reddit has an invisible timer
Every new account starts with a spam score.
The score decays over time. Not from activity. From age.
Under 30 days = high spam score = everything flagged 30-45 days = medium spam score = suspicious 45+ days = low spam score = trusted
You can't speed this up with karma. You can't game it with helpful posts. You literally just have to wait.
Why this matters
Most people create an account and start posting within a week.
Instant death. Because the timer hasn't run out yet.
The advice says "build karma first" but that's just accidentally making you wait longer. The karma isn't what helps. The time passing is.
What I built
After figuring out the 45-day rule, I built MediaFast (https://mediafa.st).
Shows you when your account is actually ready (based on age, not karma)
Maps which subreddits accept younger accounts (some tolerate 30 days, most need 45+)
Tells you what to do while waiting (low-frequency commenting that doesn't reset the timer)
Builds posting schedules that start after your account ages out of the danger zone
The system:
Instead of rushing in and getting banned, you see exactly when you're clear.
Instead of building karma hoping it helps, you wait the actual required time.
Instead of guessing, you follow the timer.
Launched February 10, 2025. $5,400/month now.
185 people who stopped fighting the timer and started following it.
The truth:
Reddit will let you post promotional content.
You just have to wait 45 days first.
I got banned 6 times before I learned to wait.
MediaFast (https://mediafa.st) shows you the timer so you don't waste those bans.
Stop posting. Start waiting.
I found this quite interesting but I have an entire different experience. I have had my Reddit account for 5 years. Grant it I have not have much activity during that time, mostly just reading posts with very few upvotes. Well this weekend I tried to launch a product and immediately got banned for 7 days. I am able to still comment on some posts and upvote but very peculiar how this all works for sure!
Do you guarantee no ban?
Wild insight on the 45-day rule! I wasted hours farming karma. Does your tool track CQS too?
Sick this is helpful
Really helpful. thanks for that info! Hopefully I had a 4 years old account inactive which I could revive.
I have been banned from a couple subreddits trying to post about what I am building and could not figure out the pattern. The fact that karma does not speed it up and it is purely time based is counterintuitive but it actually explains why my older accounts get traction faster than my newer ones with similar content. Going to try the wait it out approach next time.
Love it!
The "45 days, not karma" framing is too clean. Reddit's spam score is multi-factor: account age, karma velocity, comment-to-post ratio, AutoModerator rules per sub, and link domain reputation all feed into it. Across founders running Reddit outreach at Hivemind, accounts that age silently for 45 days still get banned if the comment-to-post ratio gives them away.
Real pattern is closer to "look like a real Reddit user before you promote." Age + light commenting in 2-3 niche subs gets accounts cleared by day 25-30. Pure aging without engagement gets flagged the moment the first link drops.
MediaFast has a real wedge if it maps the multi-factor score. Less so if it just counts days on a calendar.