How to buy a Reddit account and what can go wrong

Reddit's User Agreement has one line on this: "You will not license, sell, or transfer your Account without our prior written approval."

So every Reddit account for sale breaks Reddit's rules the moment it changes hands. People sell them anyway, and founders buy them, usually to skip a slow start.

This is what you actually get, what goes wrong and what I do instead, in 4 parts, with 4 things you can copy.

Save this. Read it before you pay anyone.

Short answer

You can find Reddit accounts for sale on marketplaces and forums, often sold as aged or with karma. Buying one breaks Reddit's User Agreement, which doesn't allow selling or transferring an account without Reddit's written approval. The seller may still control the email, the karma may come from vote trading, and mods can read the history. If you buy one anyway, take over the email, password and two-factor login on day one, then warm it up slowly. I build accounts I own instead.

Key takeaways

• Reddit's User Agreement doesn't allow selling or transferring an account without its prior written approval.
• Owning several accounts you made yourself is fine. Buying one isn't.
• Whoever controls the email controls the account, because Reddit's password reset and unlock go through it.
• Karma from vote trading is vote manipulation, and a history you didn't write is easy for a mod to read.
• A bought account still needs a slow warm-up under its new owner.

1. Can you buy a Reddit account?

You can find sellers, but Reddit doesn't allow the sale. The User Agreement says you will not license, sell or transfer an account without Reddit's prior written approval, and Reddit's help center describes no way to get it. So "where to buy Reddit accounts" has an honest answer: marketplaces list them, and every one of those listings is outside Reddit's rules.

What you can do is own more than one account. Reddit's help page on multiple accounts says yes, and even lets you verify them with the same email. The same page has one warning: don't use your accounts to vote on the same posts or comments. That is vote manipulation.

So the line is simple. Make as many accounts as you like. Don't buy, sell or share them.

The sellers' pitch is usually one of two things.

"Aged" accounts promise to clear account age minimums. They can, but the age comes with years of someone else's posts.

Accounts "with karma" promise to clear karma minimums. Those minimums can count only karma earned in that one subreddit, so a big total from elsewhere may not help. How to get karma on Reddit explains how those checks work.

I chose the slow way for Rankhog. Rankhog warms up accounts you own, slowly, in your own browser.

2. What does a Reddit account seller not tell you?

Who still holds the email, where the karma came from, whether the account was banned or flagged before, what it posted, and how many people have used it. A listing shows a username, an age and a karma number. None of those tell you whether the account is safe to put your name on.

Here is the table I would go through with any account for sale. Copy it.

The email row is the one that bites. Reddit's page on locked accounts says you unlock an account by resetting the password through its email. It adds that Reddit can't help if the email is out of date. If the seller's email is on the account, the seller holds the key.

The karma row is the next one. Karma from vote trading is vote manipulation under Reddit's Content Policy. It can disappear, and it leaves a trail of posts in subreddits that exist only to trade votes.

3. How do people get caught with a bought Reddit account?

There are four usual ways, and none of them is dramatic. The seller takes the account back with a password reset. Reddit locks it after a sign-in that doesn't look like the owner's. Votes from the old ring get thrown out. Or a mod opens the profile, sees a stranger's history, and removes the post. Each one costs the money and often the account.

Reddit's own security pages describe the first two from the other side.

Reddit's hacked account page lists sharing accounts with other people as a common way accounts get compromised. It tells owners to watch for unusual IP history and emails about password or email changes they didn't make. A sold account is a shared account. The same page also says that when someone changes the email on an account, the original address gets a message explaining how to change it back. On a bought account, that original address is the seller's.

Reddit's locked account page says Reddit may lock an account when it detects technical irregularities. A new owner, on a new device and a new network, writing in a new voice, is one possible irregularity. I can't tell you how Reddit's checks decide.

Then there are the mods. When you post or comment in a subreddit, Reddit's profile settings page says its mods can see your full profile history for the next 28 days, whatever you hid. Hiding the old posts from your profile doesn't hide them from the mods.

Here is what a bought account tends to look like to a mod. Check any account against it before you use it.

1. A long silence, then sudden activity in a new topic.
2. Old posts in another language, hobby or country than the new ones.
3. Posts in karma trading subreddits.
4. A voice that changes overnight.
5. A product mention within days of waking up.

If you bought the account to get around a ban, that is ban evasion, and it puts every account you use at risk. How to appeal a Reddit ban is the better route.

4. If you buy one anyway, what should you do first?

Take control before you post anything. Change the email to one you own and verify it, change the password, turn on two-factor authentication, remove apps you didn't authorize, and log out every other session. Then read the whole history and warm the account up slowly, as if it were new. None of this makes the purchase allowed. It only cuts the ways the seller can take it back.

Here is the day-one checklist. Copy it.

1. Change the email to your own and verify it.
2. Change the password to a new, unique one.
3. Turn on two-factor authentication.
4. Remove any authorized app you don't recognize.
5. Log out of every other session from the account activity page.
6. Read the inbox for ban notices and the profile history for anything you wouldn't sign.
7. Open the profile in a private window to check it isn't hidden.

Steps 1 to 5 follow what Reddit tells owners to do to keep an account secure. They don't fully lock the seller out: as above, the original email gets a way to undo the change. Step 7 is the shadowban check.

Then check where the account stands. Rankhog's free analyzer reads the public profile and shows which published karma and age minimums it clears today, at the Reddit karma checker.

After that, treat it like a new account with an odd past. Read for a few days, comment in small subreddits, keep links out, and post later. How to warm up a Reddit account has the day-by-day plan. I would run it more slowly on a bought account, not faster.

If you are weighing this against farming karma on an account, karma farming vs warming up your account covers that side.

What I don't know yet

• Reddit doesn't publish how it spots a sold account. I only know the signals its help pages tell owners to watch.
• I don't know how many bought accounts get caught, or how fast. Sellers don't publish that either.
• I have never seen Reddit grant the written approval its User Agreement mentions, and I don't know if it ever has.

Who this is not for

If you already own an old account you made yourself, you don't need any of this. Warm that one up.

If you want an account to post about your product this week, a bought account won't get you there safely. Post as yourself from the account you have, and say who you are. The Reddit marketing guide covers how to do that without a pitch.

What to do next

Today, in this order:

1. Read the User Agreement line at the top again and decide if the risk is worth it.
2. If you already bought one, run the day-one checklist now.
3. Run the account through the analyzer.
4. Start the warm-up plan, slower than the plan says.
5. If you haven't bought one, make an account you own and start the plan today.

Read. Secure. Check. Warm up. Wait.

Thanks for reading. If you want an account that is yours from the first day, that is the job I built Rankhog for. Rankhog warms up accounts you own, slowly, in your own browser.