The spreadsheet that saved my product after 6 Reddit bans now makes $5.4k/month

By month four I had a Google Sheet with 143 rows.

Each row was a Reddit post. Mine or someone else's. What subreddit. What happened to it. Removed or survived. Account age. Karma. Time posted. Tone used.

I was tracking my way out of hell.

Why I started tracking

My second product was dying.

React and Next.js animations developers kept asking for. Built it. Made one sale. Then got banned trying to tell people it existed.

That was ban number three.

By ban six I realized something. Everyone gives the same Reddit advice. "Be authentic." "Add value." "Don't be spammy."

I did all that. Still got banned.

So I stopped listening to advice and started collecting data.

What the data showed

After 4 months of tracking, patterns emerged that nobody talks about:

Small subreddits (under 100k) had way higher survival rates than big ones. r/Entrepreneur banned almost everything. r/SideProject let most things through.

Time of day mattered, but not how people said. Posting 2-5pm ET meant mods were active and watching. 9pm-1am meant your post survived longer before review.

Account age killed you faster than karma. Under 30 days old = automatic scrutiny regardless of karma score.

Commenting frequency triggered spam filters at 3+ per hour, even if every comment was genuinely helpful.

Pacing was everything. Post Monday, comment Tuesday/Wednesday, rest Thursday, post Friday different sub = stayed alive. Post Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday same sub = banned.

The desperate move

After ban six I had nothing left.

I signed up with my dad's email. Not because I thought it would work. Because I was out of options.

But this time I followed the data.

Waited 45 days before any product mention. Commented max twice daily. Stuck to 5 small subreddits. Matched tone to each community.

It worked. Not the email. The system.

Turning data into MediaFast

I kept the spreadsheet going for two more months. Then I thought: how many other builders are dying on Reddit right now because they're guessing instead of knowing?

So I built MediaFast around the data.

Takes your niche, finds which subreddits actually allow your product (tested, not guessed). Shows what content format works where. Builds a 30-day posting roadmap with the exact pacing that kept me alive.

Launched February 10, 2024. Almost a year ago now.

Month by month

Month 1 (Feb): $360 - Three customers. Almost quit.

Month 2 (Mar): $760 - Word of mouth on X started working.

Month 3 (Apr): $1,200 - Realized churn was almost zero. People were getting results.

Month 4 (May): $1,800

Month 5 (Jun): $1,700 - One annual churned, stung to see it dip.

Month 6 (Jul): $2,300

Month 7-9 (Aug-Oct): Held at $2,700-$3,000. Thought this was the ceiling.

Month 10 (Nov): $3,800

Month 11 (Dec): $5,000 - Something shifted. More builders finding it. SEO kicking in.

Month 12 (Jan 2026): $5,400

185 paying users at $29/month. 25% trial conversion. Almost zero churn.

What I learned building this

Data beats advice every time

Most Reddit guides are vague because the writers are guessing. I tracked 143 data points before I understood what actually worked.

Subreddit tolerance varies wildly

Some subreddits are strict on paper but loose in practice. Others are the opposite. You can't know without testing or tracking historical data.

Pacing is invisible but critical

Nobody talks about this. Reddit doesn't ban you for one post. It bans you for patterns. Post too often, comment too much, or stay active too long without breaks = pattern detected = banned.

New accounts need patience

If your account is under 30 days, you're under a microscope. I waited 45 days on my seventh account. Worth it.

Comments build more trust than posts

Sometimes the best move is commenting helpful answers for a week, then casually mentioning your product in someone else's thread days later.

Mistakes that cost me months

Chasing big subreddits

Wasted weeks trying to crack r/Entrepreneur and r/startups. Should've focused on smaller communities from the start.

Copy-pasting content

Tried posting same content across multiple subs in one day. Banned in four subs simultaneously. Each community has its own culture.

Ignoring rest periods

I thought posting every day showed consistency. Actually made me look like spam. Taking 2-3 day breaks between heavy activity kept me alive.

Not tracking from day one

If I'd started tracking after ban one instead of ban six, would've saved 3 months.

Current strategy

Growth is mostly organic now.

I share my journey on X (builders struggling with Reddit find MediaFast through my posts about ban cycles).

I post on Reddit sometimes using the exact system MediaFast recommends.

Focusing on SEO. Queries like "how to market on Reddit without getting banned" bring steady traffic.

Trial flow is simple: 7-day free trial → see subreddit analysis + roadmap → 25% convert to paid.

Why I built in public

Transparency works.

After losing two products in silence, I decided to share everything. Revenue. Struggles. The exact tracking system. My ban history.

People respect honesty more than polish.

And honestly, sharing the pain while I was in it built the audience before the product existed.

What's next

Goal: $10k MRR.

Not because I need it. Because I want to prove you can build sustainable income solving one painful specific problem.

Improving core features (better subreddit matching, deeper content analysis, more accurate pacing).

But mainly just helping people avoid the 4 months of hell I went through.

The spreadsheet is now a product

That Google Sheet with 143 rows became MediaFast.

👉 https://mediafa.st

I lost a product to Reddit bans. Built this so you don't have to.

You can follow along on X where I share revenue, mistakes, and what's actually working.