# Reddit Pain Point Finder for SaaS Ideas (`rodrgds/reddit-pain-point-finder`) Actor

Find Reddit complaints, alternatives, recommendation requests, and buying-intent threads for SaaS validation, product research, ICP research, and social listening.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/rodrgds/reddit-pain-point-finder.md
- **Developed by:** [Rodrigo Dias](https://apify.com/rodrgds) (community)
- **Categories:** Social media, Lead generation, AI
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $5.00 / 1,000 reddit threads

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Reddit Pain Point Finder

Find Reddit threads where people complain, compare tools, ask for recommendations, or show buying intent around your keywords.

Use it for SaaS idea validation, product research, ICP research, social listening, competitor monitoring, and voice-of-customer datasets. Give it keywords like `alternative to intercom`, `best crm for freelancers`, or `stripe fees`, and it returns ranked Reddit posts with complaint/recommendation/buying-intent signals.

### What it extracts

- Reddit posts matching your keywords, optionally limited to specific subreddits
- Top-level comments from each post
- Complaint, recommendation request, question, and buying intent signals
- Engagement metrics such as score, upvote ratio, and comment count
- A simple opportunity score so the most useful threads rise to the top

### Common workflows

#### Validate a SaaS idea

Search the category before building. Look for repeated complaints, pricing frustration, migration pain, and people asking for alternatives.

Example queries:

```json
[
  "alternative to intercom",
  "stripe fees too high",
  "best crm for freelancers"
]
```

#### Find buyer-intent threads

Monitor keywords where people are already looking for a tool, comparing competitors, or asking for recommendations.

#### Build voice-of-customer datasets

Export raw customer language from Reddit into a dataset for positioning, landing pages, support docs, or LLM/RAG workflows.

### Output fields

Each dataset item includes:

- `query`, `subreddit`, `postId`, `title`, `text`
- `url`, `redditUrl`, `author`, `createdAt`
- `score`, `upvoteRatio`, `numComments`, `flair`
- `isQuestion`, `isComplaint`, `isRecommendationRequest`, `isBuyingIntent`
- `matchedSignals`, `topComments`, `opportunityScore`

Top comments include `id`, `author`, `body`, `score`, `createdAt`, and `permalink`.

### Input example

```json
{
  "searchQueries": [
    "alternatives to apollo",
    "best crm for freelancers"
  ],
  "subreddits": [
    "SaaS"
  ],
  "sort": "relevance",
  "time": "month",
  "maxPostsPerQuery": 10,
  "includeComments": false,
  "maxCommentsPerPost": 3,
  "userAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; PublicRedditResearch/1.0)",
  "useApifyProxy": true
}
```

Leave `subreddits` empty to search Reddit globally.

### Sample output

A typical item looks like this:

```json
{
  "query": "alternative to intercom",
  "subreddit": "SaaS",
  "title": "Looking for an Intercom alternative that does not get expensive so quickly",
  "redditUrl": "https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/...",
  "score": 42,
  "numComments": 18,
  "isComplaint": true,
  "isRecommendationRequest": true,
  "isBuyingIntent": true,
  "matchedSignals": ["alternative", "too expensive", "recommendation"],
  "opportunityScore": 87
}
```

Use the raw URLs and exact wording for customer research, positioning, landing page copy, or outreach prompts.

### Pricing

Pay per Reddit thread found. Start with a narrow query, review the matches, then scale up. Comments and proxy requests increase runtime, but benchmark runs stay cheap enough for platform usage to be included in the per-thread price.

### Notes

This Actor uses public Reddit endpoints without login, browser automation, or paywall bypassing. Reddit often blocks datacenter IPs, so Apify Proxy is enabled by default for reliability. Keep requests targeted; broad searches across many subreddits will naturally run longer.

# Actor input Schema

## `searchQueries` (type: `array`):

Keywords, competitor names, categories, or problem phrases to search for on Reddit.

## `subreddits` (type: `array`):

Optional subreddit names to search. Leave empty to search all public Reddit results.

## `sort` (type: `string`):

How Reddit should sort matching posts before scoring them.

## `time` (type: `string`):

Time range used by Reddit search for relevant sorts.

## `maxPostsPerQuery` (type: `integer`):

Maximum Reddit posts to fetch for each query and subreddit combination.

## `includeComments` (type: `boolean`):

Fetch top-level comments for each matching Reddit post.

## `maxCommentsPerPost` (type: `integer`):

Maximum top-level comments to keep for each post.

## `userAgent` (type: `string`):

User-Agent header sent to Reddit endpoints.

## `useApifyProxy` (type: `boolean`):

Use Apify Proxy for Reddit requests. Recommended because Reddit blocks many datacenter IPs.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "searchQueries": [
    "alternatives to apollo",
    "best crm for freelancers"
  ],
  "subreddits": [
    "SaaS"
  ],
  "sort": "relevance",
  "time": "month",
  "maxPostsPerQuery": 10,
  "includeComments": false,
  "maxCommentsPerPost": 3,
  "userAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; PublicRedditResearch/1.0)",
  "useApifyProxy": true
}
```

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "searchQueries": [
        "alternatives to apollo",
        "best crm for freelancers"
    ],
    "subreddits": [
        "SaaS"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("rodrgds/reddit-pain-point-finder").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "searchQueries": [
        "alternatives to apollo",
        "best crm for freelancers",
    ],
    "subreddits": ["SaaS"],
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("rodrgds/reddit-pain-point-finder").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "searchQueries": [
    "alternatives to apollo",
    "best crm for freelancers"
  ],
  "subreddits": [
    "SaaS"
  ]
}' |
apify call rodrgds/reddit-pain-point-finder --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=rodrgds/reddit-pain-point-finder",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/COOtC9DZ9upJrbfrG/builds/iGjYjoaQhkerCifC3/openapi.json