What Is Reddit Karma and How Does It Actually Work?

Reddit karma is a running count of the net upvotes your account has received across every post and comment you've ever made, split into two separate totals: post karma and comment karma. It shows up on your profile as a single visible number to other users, but under the hood it's tracked as two.

How karma is calculated

Every time someone upvotes something you posted or commented, you gain a point. Every downvote subtracts one. Your visible karma is the net result — upvotes minus downvotes, summed across your account's history. Reddit doesn't show you a live 1:1 count for every interaction (the exact display number is fuzzed slightly for spam-resistance reasons), but the underlying mechanic is straightforward addition and subtraction.

There are two separate pools:

• Post karma (sometimes called "link karma") — from submissions you post, whether that's a link, an image, or a text post
• Comment karma — from replies you leave on other people's posts

A single post that goes viral can generate thousands of karma in one hit. Comment karma tends to accumulate more slowly but more consistently, since you can comment far more often than you can post without looking spammy.

What karma is actually for

Karma has no functional use on Reddit itself. You can't spend it, trade it, or redeem it for anything. Its entire purpose is as a trust signal:

1. Spam filtering. Many subreddits require a minimum karma threshold before AutoMod will let your post through, specifically to filter out throwaway and bot accounts, which almost never have any.
2. Social proof at a glance. A comment with 500 upvotes visually signals "other people agreed with this" before you've read a word of it.
3. Account age + karma together = trust score. A 3-year-old account with 20,000 karma reads as an established, real person. A 2-day-old account with 4 karma reads as disposable, whether or not that's actually true.

Post karma vs comment karma — which matters more

Neither is universally "better" — they signal slightly different things:

Signal	Post karma	Comment karma
Speed to earn	Fast if a post hits, but high variance	Slower per-item, more consistent
Removal risk	Higher (bad posts get removed entirely)	Lower (comments usually just sit unvoted, not deleted)
What it signals to mods	"Has created content people liked"	"Actually participates in discussions"
Best for	Established accounts posting content	New accounts building baseline trust

Most experienced Reddit users recommend building comment karma first if you're starting from zero, since it's lower-risk and faster to accumulate (see our guide on getting karma fast).

Why some subreddits require high karma to post

Subreddits that are frequent spam targets — business, marketing, crypto-adjacent, self-promotion-heavy niches — often set karma minimums specifically because low-effort spam accounts are cheap to create and easy to abandon. A minimum of 50-100 combined karma filters out the vast majority of throwaway accounts without meaningfully inconveniencing real users, since genuine participation naturally clears that bar within a couple of weeks.

Does karma affect what Reddit shows you?

Karma doesn't directly change your feed or what content you see. It's not a ranking or reputation system in the way a credit score affects loan terms. Its influence is entirely at the point of posting/commenting: whether AutoMod lets your content through, and whether a human mod bothers to review it manually versus removing it on sight.

Common misconceptions

• "High karma means I'm Reddit-famous." Not really — karma is cumulative and largely invisible outside your own profile. Most Redditors never check another user's karma unless they're evaluating trustworthiness for a specific reason (vetting a seller, checking if an account looks like a bot).
• "Karma decides my account's reach." No — Reddit's ranking algorithm for any individual post is based on that post's own vote velocity, not your historical karma total.
• "Negative karma gets you banned." Not automatically. It can make posting harder (some subs gate on positive karma specifically) but isn't itself a ban trigger.

FAQ

What is a good amount of Reddit karma? There's no universal benchmark — it depends entirely on subreddit requirements. 100+ combined karma clears most mid-tier subreddit gates; some large or spam-sensitive subs want 500-1,000+.

Can karma go negative? Individual posts and comments can show negative scores if downvotes outweigh upvotes. Total account karma typically has a practical floor near zero for most accounts, though very new accounts can occasionally show small negative totals.

Does deleting a post remove its karma? Deleting content removes it from view but the karma it earned generally stays counted toward your total — Reddit doesn't retroactively subtract earned karma when you delete the source.

How do I check karma for a specific subreddit, not just my total? Reddit's default profile doesn't break this down. Our Karma & Account Checker shows your (or any public account's) karma split by subreddit.

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Want to see your karma breakdown by subreddit, or check an account before you engage with it? Try the free Karma & Account Checker.