Marketers Cite the Reddit 9:1 Rule as Policy. Reddit Retired It in 2017.

Is the Reddit 9:1 rule still Reddit's official policy?

Reddit ended sitewide enforcement of the Reddit 9:1 rule in May 2017, so the ratio now survives as a community convention and as a rule that individual subreddits choose to apply, not as a policy Reddit's admins act on. The announcement came from Reddit admin KeyserSosa in a r/modnews post titled State of Spam, dated May 16 2017: "effective one week from now, we are going to stop site-wide enforcement of the so-called '1 in 10' rule." Most marketing articles still present the ratio as current Reddit policy, and they are nine years out of date.

What did Reddit's original self-promotion wiki actually say?

Reddit's self-promotion wiki page states a percentage, not a ratio, and the number is a rule of thumb rather than a threshold. The page is still readable at reddit.com/r/reddit.com/wiki/selfpromotion, checked on September 9 2026, and the relevant bullet reads: "You should submit from a variety of sources (a general rule of thumb is that 10% or less of your posting and conversation should link to your own content), talk to people in the comments (and not just on your own links), and generally be a good member of the community."

Two details get lost in retelling. Reddit never wrote "9:1" anywhere on the page, and the count covers "posting and conversation," meaning your comments belong in the denominator alongside your submissions. The page now opens with a banner Reddit added itself: "This page is no longer updated. For more up to date information go here: https://www.reddithelp.com." Its footer records the last revision as seven years before the date of this check.

What exactly did Reddit say when it dropped the rule?

The State of Spam post retired both the rule and the machinery behind it, and it handed the decision to moderators. Reddit shut down r/spam, the subreddit whose automated tooling shadowbanned accounts for breaking the ratio, on the same schedule. The post's own summary line reads: "r/spam and the site-wide 1-in-10 rule will go away in a week."

The post gives the reason and the replacement in the same breath. Reddit wrote that "the false positives here, however, are simply awful for the mistaken user who subsequently is unknowingly shouting into the void," and listed what it uses instead: a Bayesian spam filter, moderators, AutoModerator, and backend rules engines. On what happens to the ratio itself, the post is explicit: "though we'll be dropping r/spam and this rule site-wide, communities can chose to enforce the 1 in 10 rule on their own content as you see fit."

A later edit on that same post settled the wiki page's status. Reddit kept the self-promotion page but demoted it "from 'ironclad policy' to 'general guidelines on what is considered good and upstanding user behavior.'" That is the current status of the ratio in one sentence, written by Reddit.

Does Reddit's current content policy mention a ratio?

Neither of Reddit's two live policy documents contains a self-promotion ratio. The Reddit Rules at redditinc.com/policies/reddit-rules run to eight rules, and the one that covers promotion is Rule 2: "Abide by community rules. Participate authentically in communities where you have a personal interest, and do not spam or engage in disruptive behaviors (including content manipulation) that interfere with Reddit communities." No number appears.

The Help Center Spam policy that Rule 2 links to replaces the ratio with a behavioral test. It defines spam as "repeated or unsolicited actions (whether automated or manual) that negatively affect redditors, communities, and/or Reddit itself." Its advice to anyone promoting their own work is a judgment call, not a quota: "If your contributions to Reddit consist primarily of links to a business that you run, own, or otherwise benefit from, please be thoughtful about the frequency of posting, or consider advertising opportunities using our self-serve platform."

How do you calculate your self-promotion ratio?

The ratio counts every contribution you make, then divides by the ones that point at your own work.

self-promotion share = your own-link contributions / all your posts and comments

A 9:1 ratio means nine unrelated contributions for every promotional one, a share of 1/10, or 10 percent. Say you made 40 contributions last month, 6 submissions and 34 comments, and 4 of them linked to your product. That is 4/40, exactly 10 percent, sitting on the old wiki's ceiling. Add a fifth promotional link and nothing else and you are at 5/45, or 11 percent.

Do the arithmetic once, as a diagnostic. Treating it as a budget to spend down is the failure mode: an account that pads its comment count to buy a promotional slot is doing what Reddit's spam policy calls repeated action that negatively affects communities, and moderators recognize it faster than the arithmetic suggests.

What governs self-promotion on Reddit now?

Three mechanisms decide whether your promotional post survives, and none of them is a sitewide number. Subreddit rules come first: each subreddit sets its own terms, and Reddit's Spam policy concedes the point directly, noting that "community moderators adjudicate what constitutes unwanted/spammy content in their communities and may take action accordingly." Some communities ban all self-promotion, some run a weekly promo thread, some still write the 1-in-10 ratio into their sidebar because Reddit told them in 2017 that they could.

AutoModerator comes second. It is the rules engine mod teams configure per subreddit, removing or filtering content on conditions the mod team writes: account age, karma floors, domain blocklists, title patterns. It acts before a human reads your post, which is why a submission can vanish in a community whose written rules you followed.

Reddit's own spam enforcement comes third, and it is the layer where the shift away from ratios matters most. The Help Center list of violating behaviors names "mass-posting repetitive content for the purpose of exposure or financial gain" and "repeatedly posting unrelated/off-topic/link-farmed content that disrupts conversations within a community." Those describe an account's pattern over time. The reddit promotion rules guide covers what each layer removes and how to tell whether you have been caught by a shadowban.

What should you do instead of counting to ten?

Read the sidebar of every subreddit you post in and follow the number that mod team publishes, because that is the only ratio anyone will enforce against you. Where a community writes no rule, the operative question is the one Reddit's policy asks: does your account read as a participant with something to sell, or as a sales channel with an account? Reddiquette covers the etiquette side of that question, and astroturfing covers where inauthentic participation crosses into a Rule 5 problem.

The practical version is to find conversations where your product is already the answer, so a helpful reply happens to mention it rather than a promotional post asking to be tolerated. RedReplier does that part: you add a website and keywords, and it surfaces Reddit, X, Bluesky, Facebook and Hacker News mentions ranked by buying intent, with an AI explanation of why each one was flagged. Set up Reddit keyword monitoring and the promotional posts you were rationing become replies you were asked for.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Reddit 9:1 rule still enforced in 2026?

No. Reddit stopped sitewide enforcement in May 2017 and shut down r/spam, the subreddit whose tooling applied it. Individual subreddits may enforce their own version of it, and Reddit explicitly told them in that announcement that they could. Check the sidebar of each community you post in.

Where did the 9:1 ratio come from?

It comes from Reddit's self-promotion wiki page, which advised that "10% or less of your posting and conversation should link to your own content." Marketers restated that percentage as a 9:1 ratio and Reddit admins referred to it as the "1 in 10" rule. The phrase "9:1" does not appear on Reddit's page.

Can I still read Reddit's original self-promotion guidance?

Yes. The page is live at reddit.com/r/reddit.com/wiki/selfpromotion, confirmed on September 9 2026, under a banner reading "This page is no longer updated." Reddit kept it after the 2017 change but reclassified it as general guidelines on good user behavior rather than policy.

Do comments count toward the ratio?

Yes, under the original wording. Reddit's wiki page counts "posting and conversation," so a comment linking to your own site counts the same as a submission. Most restatements of the rule count only submissions, which understates the share.

What replaced the 9:1 rule sitewide?

Reddit Rule 2 and the Help Center Spam policy. Rule 2 requires that you "participate authentically in communities where you have a personal interest" and not spam. The Spam policy tests repeated or unsolicited behavior across your account rather than measuring any fixed proportion of promotional posts.

Will keeping a 9:1 ratio protect my account?

Not on its own. Reddit's current enforcement looks at whether your contributions consist primarily of links to a business you benefit from and whether your posting disrupts communities, so an account that hits the ratio with filler comments still matches the pattern. A subreddit ban or an AutoModerator filter can also remove your post regardless of your sitewide numbers.

What happened to r/spam?

Reddit shut down r/spam on the same one-week schedule as the sitewide 1-in-10 rule, according to the State of Spam post. The subreddit had run the automated tooling that shadowbanned accounts for breaking the ratio. Reddit gave the false-positive rate as the reason, calling it "awful for the mistaken user who subsequently is unknowingly shouting into the void."

What counts as spam under Reddit's current policy?

The Help Center Spam policy defines it as repeated or unsolicited actions, automated or manual, that negatively affect redditors, communities, or Reddit itself. Two named examples are mass-posting repetitive content for exposure or financial gain, and repeatedly posting unrelated or link-farmed content that disrupts conversations. Neither example measures a fixed ratio; both describe a pattern over time.

Can a subreddit enforce a stricter ratio than 9:1?

Reddit's State of Spam post told moderators directly that "communities can chose to enforce the 1 in 10 rule on their own content as you see fit," with no cap on how strict a subreddit's version can be. Subreddit rules are the layer Reddit's admins hand to moderators, so the number posted in a given sidebar is whatever that mod team wrote, not the wiki's 10 percent. A community that still runs the original ratio, or a tighter one, is doing exactly what Reddit invited them to do in 2017.

What does AutoModerator do to self-promotional posts?

AutoModerator is the rules engine each subreddit's mod team configures to remove or filter content automatically, based on conditions like account age, karma floors, domain blocklists, and title patterns. It acts before a human moderator reads the post, so a self-promotional submission can vanish even in a community whose written rules you followed. It sits between subreddit rules and Reddit's own spam enforcement, the second of the three layers that decide whether a promotional post survives.