# Search inside one subreddit for a topic, from a single query

To search inside one community, put subreddit:name in front of the keyword, such as subreddit:smallbusiness invoicing. social.search passes it to Reddit and returns the matching posts from that subreddit only, with title, date, upvotes and comment count. Good for reading how one audience talks about a problem.

HTML page: https://www.routergrowth.com/tools/reddit/subreddit-search
Part of: [Reddit tools](https://www.routergrowth.com/tools/reddit.md)

## The call

[`social.search`](https://www.routergrowth.com/catalog/social.search): Public posts matching a keyword on X, LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram or Facebook: brand mentions, category conversations, competitor chatter.

Price on this network: $0.002432 per post, $0.002 minimum a call. The exact quote is shown before every run.

## What a real run returned

Run on 2026-10-26: 5 records in 39.5 s for $0.0139. Personal fields are masked. All five posts came from r/smallbusiness: a software question, a pricing debate and a late payment rant, each with 100 comments or more.

| text | posted | upvotes | replies |
|---|---|---|---|
| What software are you using to invoicing? | 2026-09-06 | 11 | 107 |
| Anyone else planning on adding a “Tariff charge” line on their invoices and receipts? | 2025-04-08 | 1288 | 100 |
| Can I just rant about customers not paying invoices on time? | 2026-10-11 | 107 | 106 |

## How to do it

1. **Name the subreddit.** Write it as subreddit:name, without the r/, then the keyword: subreddit:smallbusiness invoicing.
2. **Call social.search.** platform reddit and that query. Check that every post's community is the one you asked for.
3. **Rank the threads.** Sort by replies to find the discussions people joined, not only the ones they upvoted.
4. **Open the busiest ones.** social.comments on a post URL returns what people wrote under it.

## Ask it like this

- Search r/smallbusiness for invoicing and tell me which tools people name most. (`social.search`)
- Find the busiest r/smallbusiness threads about late payments and summarize their top comments. (`social.search`, `social.comments`)

## Connect

MCP server: `https://api.routergrowth.com/mcp`

```bash
claude mcp add --transport http routergrowth https://api.routergrowth.com/mcp
```

```bash
npm install -g routergrowth && routergrowth setup
routergrowth run -c social.search -i '{"platform": "reddit", "query": "subreddit:smallbusiness invoicing", "limit": 5}'
```

```bash
curl -X POST https://api.routergrowth.com/v1/run \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ROUTERGROWTH_API_KEY" \
  -d '{"capability": "social.search", "input": {"platform": "reddit", "query": "subreddit:smallbusiness invoicing", "limit": 5}}'
```

## Worth knowing

- **The operator rides in the query.** There is no separate subreddit field. In this run the operator held: every post was from r/smallbusiness.
- **Recent posts without a keyword.** social.posts with r/name lists a subreddit's latest posts. It does not filter by keyword.
- **Not sorted by date.** Results follow relevance, so a 2025 thread sat next to this month's. Sort on the date yourself.

## Questions

### Do I write r/smallbusiness or smallbusiness?

In the query, use subreddit:smallbusiness. In social.posts, the handle is r/smallbusiness.

### Can I search several subreddits at once?

Run one query per subreddit, or drop the operator to search all of Reddit and group by community.

### Are private subreddits searched?

No. Only public communities are covered.

### How long does it take?

This run took about 40 seconds for five posts. Plan for that when an agent waits on it.

## Related

- [Search Reddit from an agent and get posts it can filter and rank](https://www.routergrowth.com/tools/reddit/search.md)
- [A hosted Reddit scraper your agent runs by naming a subreddit](https://www.routergrowth.com/tools/reddit/scraper.md)
- [Scrape the newest posts of any public subreddit into clean rows](https://www.routergrowth.com/tools/reddit/post-scraper.md)
- [Read a subreddit's posts without registering a Reddit developer app](https://www.routergrowth.com/tools/reddit/developer-api.md)
- [Scrape the comments on a Reddit thread by pasting its link](https://www.routergrowth.com/tools/reddit/comment-scraper.md)
- [Search every public subreddit for a phrase, in one API call](https://www.routergrowth.com/tools/reddit/search-api.md)
- [What Reddit data costs through RouterGrowth, and how a call is billed](https://www.routergrowth.com/tools/reddit/api-pricing.md)
- [Search Reddit from your agent without a Reddit developer account](https://www.routergrowth.com/tools/reddit/api.md)
- [Read Reddit from a Python script with one HTTP request, no PRAW setup](https://www.routergrowth.com/tools/reddit/python.md)