Why buying Reddit upvotes gets accounts banned

Reddit's rules name it directly. Its policy on disrupting communities lists "voting services" as vote manipulation, right next to multiple accounts and automation.

So when someone sells you 1,000 Reddit upvotes, the thing you're buying is a rule break with your username on it.

Here is what the rules say, what a bought burst looks like, what Reddit can do about it and what works instead, in 4 parts, with 2 things you can copy.

Save this. Read it before you pay anyone for votes.

Short answer

Buying Reddit upvotes gets accounts banned because Reddit treats it as vote manipulation. Its rules list voting services, multiple accounts and coordinated voting by name. Reddit catches it through its own systems and through reports, and it can remove the post, warn the account, ban it for days or for good, and restrict new accounts. The only upvotes worth having come from people who read the post.

Key takeaways

• Reddit's rules name voting services, multiple accounts, coordinated voting and automation as vote manipulation.
• Moderators can't see who voted. Reddit's own systems and reports catch it.
• Enforcement ranges from removing the post to banning the account and restricting new ones.
• Reddit hides vote counts for a post's first hours on purpose, to blunt manipulation.
• Sharing your post is fine. Asking or paying anyone to vote on it isn't.

1. Is buying Reddit upvotes against the rules?

Yes. Reddit's disrupting communities policy bans vote cheating or manipulation, whether manual, programmatic or otherwise. It lists multiple accounts, voting services and automation used to push vote counts up or down, coordinated voting by organized groups, and automated karma manipulation. Buying upvotes is a voting service by definition.

The same rule sits in Reddit's Content Policy, which bans vote manipulation as part of keeping content authentic.

Reddit's help page on multiple accounts closes the obvious loophole. You may own several accounts, but using them to vote on the same posts or comments is vote manipulation too.

Reddit even builds the site around this. Its help page on hidden vote counts says votes aren't shown for the first few hours of a post to prevent vote manipulation and keep people from being swayed by others' votes.

If you came here from a karma farming thread, karma farming vs warming up your account covers the softer version of the same shortcut.

The slow alternative is what I built Rankhog around. Rankhog warms up accounts you own, slowly, in your own browser.

2. What does a burst of bought upvotes look like?

To a moderator, mostly a score that doesn't match the room. Reddit says mods can't see who voted, so they judge what anyone can see: a new or quiet account, a post with a product or link, a score far above the rest of the day's posts, and little real discussion under it. Reddit's own systems see more than mods do, and it says it combines those signals with reports.

Reddit's page on what mods can't do is clear that a moderator can't know who voted on things in their community. Its disrupting communities page says Reddit combines reports from moderators and users with its internal systems to decide whether someone's behavior breaks the policy.

So the people most likely to notice are readers and mods looking at the post, and the people most likely to act are Reddit's admins.

Here is what a bought burst tends to look like from the outside. Check any post you're tempted to boost against it.

1. A new or long-quiet account suddenly has a post near the top.
2. The post is about a product, a link or a launch.
3. The score is far above everything else posted that day.
4. Few comments, or comments that read like the same voice.
5. The same pattern on the account's other posts.

Any one of these happens naturally. Together, they make a mod look twice, and a mod who looks twice can remove the post and report the account.

3. What does Reddit do to the account and the post?

Whatever fits the violation. Reddit's enforcement page says it can remove content, warn the user, ban the account for a time or for good, restrict new accounts, or remove privileges. For some rule breaks, it says the steps go warning, 3-day ban, 7-day ban, permanent ban. Others skip straight to a permanent ban.

That list is on Reddit's page on content moderation, enforcement and appeals. The page talks about banning a user's accounts, plural. Using several accounts doesn't spread the risk. It can widen it.

The post can be removed as content that broke the rules. Reddit doesn't publish what it does with the bought votes themselves, so I won't guess.

And the account that bought the votes is the one with a reason to post that link. Whoever pressed the buy button, the post that gained from it is yours.

Don't switch to another account while an action is open, either. That is ban evasion, and it adds a second violation to the first.

If an account of yours gets actioned, how to appeal a Reddit ban covers where and how. If it simply goes quiet, run the shadowban checks.

4. What gets real upvotes instead?

Posts and comments that help the people in the room, in rooms small enough to read them, from an account with a history. Sharing your post somewhere else is fine. Asking or paying anyone to vote isn't. The real path is slower, and it is the only one that keeps both the post and the account.

Here is the line I use. Copy it.

Fine

• Sharing a link to your post in a newsletter or with friends, without asking for votes.
• Posting where the rules allow it, at a time the room is reading.
• Replying to every comment on your post.
• Voting on other people's posts you actually like.

Not fine

• Paying anyone for votes, by the hundred or the thousand.
• Trading votes in exchange rooms, voting groups or "upvote for upvote" threads.
• Boosting your own post from a second account you control.
• Asking anyone, anywhere, to upvote a specific post.

The last line catches founders who mean well. The Reddit rules that get marketers banned explains why asking your team for votes counts too.

For the slow path itself, how to get karma on Reddit has the comment routine, and the Reddit marketing guide covers posting a product without a pitch.

If you're comparing Reddit tools, check what each one sells. Best Reddit marketing tools notes which one lists upvotes on its pricing page.

What I don't know yet

• Reddit doesn't publish how its systems spot bought votes, so I can only tell you what it says it uses: internal systems and reports.
• I don't know what Reddit does with the votes themselves once it finds them. It doesn't say.
• I don't know how often bought votes go uncaught. Nobody who sells them publishes that honestly.

Who this is not for

If you've never considered buying votes, you only need the "Not fine" list, and mostly the last line of it.

If your account was already banned for this, start with the appeal post, and be honest in the appeal. The reviewer can see the history.

What to do next

Today, in this order:

1. Read Reddit's disrupting communities policy once.
2. Cancel any order for votes or karma you have running.
3. Check your posts logged out to make sure they still show.
4. Share your next post the allowed way, without asking for votes.
5. Spend the money on time in small rooms instead.

Read. Cancel. Check. Share. Help.

Thanks for reading. If you'd rather earn the votes slowly with an account you own, that is the job I built Rankhog for. Rankhog warms up accounts you own, slowly, in your own browser.