Search Reddit Comments, Get Real Matches

Genuine comment search. Returns the actual comments whose body matches your query, with the comment body, score, author, a comment-deep permalink, and the parent post.

When to use this vs Search Comments

The sibling GET /api/reddit/search/comments is Reddit's native comment-search mode: it matches comment text but hands back the parent posts, never the comments. Use it when you want the threads where a topic is discussed and want the cheapest, fastest call.

This endpoint goes the extra step for you: it takes those parent posts, fetches each post's comment tree, and returns the comments themselves. Use it when you want the first-hand opinions and answers, not just the threads.

How it works

1. Runs Reddit's comment search to get the parent posts.
2. Fetches each post's comment tree.
3. Returns the comments whose visible body contains your query (all terms, at word boundaries; link URLs are ignored), sorted by score.

Because it fans out into several reads, it is a premium call at $0.02 (versus $0.002 for the plain endpoints). limit bounds how many parent posts it expands into their comment trees, 1-25 (default 5), not how many comments come back.

Going deeper: paginate. The response's after pages the underlying post search, not the comments. Pass it back as after to expand the next batch of parent posts, so you can walk as far as you want while each call stays bounded. Use max_comments to cap how many comments come back (the highest-scored are kept); meta reports comments_matched vs comments_returned vs capped.

Best-effort, not exhaustive. A comment deleted since Reddit indexed it, or one below the fetched tree depth, may be missed. meta.truncated is true when a tree was too deep to walk fully. If you need every comment on a specific thread, fetch it directly with GET /api/reddit/comments.

Query Parameters

Example

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  "https://api.redditapis.com/api/reddit/search/comments/deep?q=best%20mechanical%20keyboard&limit=5"

const response = await fetch(
  "https://api.redditapis.com/api/reddit/search/comments/deep?q=best%20mechanical%20keyboard&limit=5",
  { headers: { Authorization: "Bearer TOKEN" } }
);

import requests

response = requests.get(
    "https://api.redditapis.com/api/reddit/search/comments/deep",
    params={"q": "best mechanical keyboard", "limit": 5},
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer TOKEN"},
)

Response Shape

{
  "comments": [
    {
      "id": "t1_n1abc2d",
      "body": "The Aula F75 is the best starter board, hands down.",
      "score": 42,
      "author": "keyboardsage",
      "subreddit": "MechKeyboards",
      "permalink": "https://reddit.com/r/MechKeyboards/comments/abc123/thread/n1abc2d/",
      "created": "2026-02-02T01:47:30.000Z",
      "parent_post": {
        "id": "t3_abc123",
        "title": "New to mechanical keyboards, what's the best one to get?",
        "url": "https://reddit.com/r/MechKeyboards/comments/abc123/thread/"
      }
    }
  ],
  "after": "t3_abc123",
  "meta": {
    "posts_scanned": 5,
    "limit_used": 5,
    "limit_clamped": false,
    "comments_matched": 109,
    "comments_returned": 25,
    "capped": true,
    "truncated": false
  }
}

Response Fields

When after comes back empty

An empty cursor means there is no next page to ask for. It does not always mean you have every comment: Reddit often stops serving a busy listing long before it runs out. Paging r/all on 2026-08-14 stopped after 400 posts covering about a minute of a feed that plainly holds more.

The response tells you which happened. When after is null it also carries listing_status, which reads complete, truncated or unknown. Only complete means you have everything; treat the other two as a partial answer and widen your search rather than stopping. The full field list and what to do about each answer is in Pagination depth.

Group by author (research mode)

Pass group_by=author when you want to know who is talking about a topic rather than reading every comment. Instead of a flat comments array, the response returns an authors array: the distinct people whose comments matched, ranked by how many of their comments matched (then by total score). Each author carries their matching-comment count, total score, the subreddits they matched in, and their single top comment. Use max_authors to cap the number of people returned (the most prolific first). Removed accounts (Reddit's [deleted]) are dropped so they never collapse into one fake mega-author.

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  "https://api.redditapis.com/api/reddit/search/comments/deep?q=best%20mechanical%20keyboard&group_by=author&max_authors=20"

{
  "authors": [
    {
      "author": "keyboardsage",
      "comment_count": 4,
      "total_score": 118,
      "subreddits": ["MechanicalKeyboards", "MechKeyboards"],
      "top_comment": {
        "body": "The Aula F75 is the best starter board, hands down.",
        "score": 42,
        "permalink": "https://reddit.com/r/MechKeyboards/comments/abc123/thread/n1abc2d/",
        "subreddit": "MechKeyboards"
      }
    }
  ],
  "after": "t3_abc123",
  "meta": {
    "group_by": "author",
    "posts_scanned": 5,
    "limit_used": 5,
    "limit_clamped": false,
    "comments_matched": 109,
    "authors_matched": 37,
    "authors_returned": 20,
    "authors_capped": true,
    "truncated": false
  }
}