Reddit guides for makers · October 13, 2026

Reddit weekly promo threads and ratio rules explained

A weekly promotion thread tells you where a promotion may go. A ratio rule limits how much of your activity may be promotional. You may need to satisfy both.

What a weekly thread permits

Find the current thread and read its opening instructions. Check whether you should leave a top-level comment, which details to include, whether a link is allowed and how often you may submit. A thread from last month may be closed or superseded. A pinned thread can also be for discussion rather than promotion.

If a rule says promotion belongs only in the weekly thread, put it there. Do not turn the same material into a standalone post or scatter it through unrelated comments. The exception is tied to a place and often to a format.

How the 10% and 9:1 rules work

Under a rule that caps promotion at 10% of counted contributions, one promotional contribution out of ten is 10%. Nine qualifying, non-promotional contributions plus one promotional contribution form a 9:1 ratio.

Worked example: suppose the rule counts posts and comments in that community, and your history has 18 qualifying contributions with no promotion. Adding one promotional post makes the share 1 / 19, about 5.3%. Adding a second makes it 2 / 20, exactly 10%. A third would make it 3 / 21, about 14.3%, over the cap.

A literal 10:1 rule is different: ten non-promotional contributions for one promotion is 1 / 11, about 9.1%. Read the wording rather than treating every ratio as interchangeable.

Check what the denominator includes

• Does the rule count posts, comments, or both?
• Does it count activity inside this community or across your account?
• Is there a time window, a waiting period or a separate frequency limit?
• What counts as promotion: your product name, your own content, a feedback request or only a link?
• Does the weekly thread explicitly change any of these conditions?

Do not manufacture filler comments to reach a ratio. If the rule is ambiguous about what counts, ask the moderators. Even a satisfied numerical condition does not make an off-topic post acceptable.

There is no universal promotion allowance

Reddit’s moderator guidance on spam describes communities that prohibit promotion and others that use a 10% rule. It leaves community policy to moderators. Treat the ratio as a local condition where stated, not a sitewide entitlement.

In our October 12 keyword scan, 76 of 3,676 saved rule sets matched a ratio pattern (about 2%); 52 matched promotion-only-in-a-weekly-or-megathread wording (about 1%). These small counts are pattern matches, not a complete inventory of such rules. They do not establish that every other community permits unrestricted promotion.

Before launching, write down the thread URL, the exact rule, what you counted and the date. The rule-reading guide gives you a compact worksheet.