Post Karma vs Comment Karma — What's the Difference?

Reddit splits your account's reputation into two separate running totals: post karma (also called link karma) and comment karma. They're both visible on your profile, both accumulate from net upvotes, and both count toward most subreddit karma minimums — but they behave very differently in practice.

What post karma measures

Post karma comes from submissions you make: links, images, videos, or self-text posts. Every upvote on something you submitted adds to this total, every downvote subtracts.

Post karma tends to be high-variance. A single post that catches the front page of a large subreddit can generate thousands of karma in hours. A post that flops (or gets removed) generates zero, or occasionally goes slightly negative if it's actively disliked before removal.

What comment karma measures

Comment karma comes from replies you leave on other people's posts, anywhere on the platform. It accumulates more slowly per item, but far more consistently, since you can comment dozens of times a day without looking spammy, while posting that often reads as flooding.

Practical differences that matter

Factor	Post karma	Comment karma
Speed per attempt	Fast if it hits, zero if it doesn't	Slower, but more reliable
Risk to a new account	Higher — bad posts get removed and can flag the account	Lower — mediocre comments just sit unvoted
Volume achievable per day	Low (1-2 posts before it looks spammy)	High (10+ comments is normal)
What it signals	"Has created content people liked"	"Actively participates in the community"

Which one should a new account build first

Comment karma, for the reasons in the table above. It's lower-risk, faster to accumulate in aggregate, and signals genuine participation rather than a drive-by. Most experienced Redditors and marketers building a new account's history recommend weeks of comment-focused activity before the first meaningful post — see our full method in how to get Reddit karma fast.

Does the split matter for subreddit access?

For clearing a subreddit's stated karma minimum, most communities check the combined total, not the split. But some stricter or spam-sensitive subreddits do look at the ratio specifically — an account with 500 comment karma and 0 post karma looks more organic than one with 500 post karma and 0 comment karma, since the latter pattern is more common in karma-farming setups (repost bots that only submit, never engage in discussion).

Can you have negative karma in one and positive in the other?

Yes. It's entirely possible to have solidly positive comment karma while an individual post (or even your post karma total, in rare cases) sits negative, if a specific submission was poorly received. The two totals are tracked and displayed independently, and a bad post doesn't drag down your comment karma or vice versa.

FAQ

Do I need both post and comment karma? Not strictly, but a healthy mix looks more natural to both AutoMod and human mods than karma concentrated entirely in one type, especially for accounts that plan to post promotionally later.

Which is harder to fake or farm? Comment karma is somewhat easier to farm at small scale (rapid low-effort replies), which is one reason some subreddits weight post karma or account age more heavily in their filtering rules.

Does deleting a post remove the karma it earned? No — karma earned before deletion generally stays counted toward your total, even after the content itself is removed from view.

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Want to see your own karma split, or check someone else's before you engage? Try the Karma & Account Checker — free, no login required.