10 Real Reddit Ads and What Each One Cost
Paul Xue ·
The short answer
The Reddit ads that converted best for us were plain image ads on the Conversions objective, not the ones with the highest click-through rate. An image ad built on retiring at 55 versus 65 brought in 46 leads at $3.26 each from a 0.50% click-through rate, while a free-form ad on the same account hit 10.48% and produced almost no leads. Ads built from posts that had already done well organically cost $1.63 per signup against $38.40 for untested creative, and one comparison chart took 54% of a finance account's spend and 73% of its button clicks.
Search for Reddit ads examples and you mostly get Reddit threads asking other people for Reddit ads examples. So here are ours. Ten ads from client accounts we ran between 2025 and September 2026, with what each one cost, straight from Reddit's reporting.
Clients stay anonymous. The ads in the images are recreated with the brand removed, and the hooks are described rather than quoted, because ad copy is searchable. The numbers aren't rounded to flatter anyone.
What does a Reddit ad look like?
A normal post with a Promoted label on it. Reddit sells four formats: image, video, carousel with 2 to 6 images, and free-form, which is a text post that can carry images and links. They run in the feed or in conversations, the slot between a post and its first comment. The sizes and limits are in our Reddit ad specs post.
One sentence on Reddit's free-form ads page explains most of what follows. When someone clicks a free-form ad, "they are taken to your post to continue reading." Your post. Not your site.
The cheapest leads came from the boring ads
These four ran on the same financial advisor matching account in 2025:
Ad | Format | Spend | Click-through rate | Leads | Cost per lead |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Image | $150.05 | 0.50% | 46 | $3.26 |
| Image | $393.01 | 0.80% | 52 | $7.56 |
| Free-form | $482.89 | 10.48% | about 0 | none |
| Free-form | $588.51 | 3.62% | about 0 | none |
The cheapest lead came from the ad with the lowest click-through rate of the four. Both image ads ran on the Conversions objective, optimising for the lead, and both led with a retirement worry the reader already had. The free-form ads got people reading. Almost none of them went on to the form.
Even the good version only just paid. Across the account, $3,162 of spend returned 12 paid conversions and $3,184 in tracked revenue.
The 10% click-through ads sold nothing
The click opened the post, not the site. Free-form click-through counts people reading your ad on Reddit. It isn't traffic.
A cross-border payments client showed the same thing this September. Alex on our team, on 7 September: "12% CTR on the US freeform campaign." And on what worked inside it: "all the creatives about taxes are outperforming all of those that are not." A week later, looking at what happened after the click: "Freeform seems like ~0% click rate - links on every ad creative." The account's Max campaign went on to bring in 236 signups in about nine days. The client's verdict was that the ads "haven't translated to sales."
High click-through fails on link ads too. Ad 5 was a US home goods retargeting ad that sent people straight to the store. It spent $834.90 for 3,111 clicks at $0.27, a 3.9% click-through rate, and got two adds to cart and zero purchases. The note in our Monday review: "Keep the creative. 3.9% CTR means the hook works; the plumbing doesn't."
We now use free-form to test headlines, build trust and build a retargeting audience, as in how to advertise on Reddit. The selling happens in the image ads that come after.
A winning ad on a high-ticket product
It was one chart. A US financial planning account ran five prospecting ads and two retargeting ads from July to September 2026, measured on clicks of the landing page's main button:
Ad | Spend | Click-through rate | Clicks that pressed the button | Cost per button click |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $3,300 | 1.32% | 2.69% | $30.28 |
Prospecting ad B | $324 | 1.36% | 2.11% | $40.52 |
Prospecting ad C | $173 | 0.83% | 2.26% | $43.29 |
Prospecting ad D | $250 | 1.21% | 2.07% | $50.05 |
Prospecting ad E | $178 | 1.33% | 1.78% | $59.31 |
| $192 | 0.79% | 5.83% | $31.93 |
| $235 | 1.01% | 6.29% | $23.48 |
The chart took 54% of all spend and produced 73% of all button clicks. Its click-through rate was middle of the pack. What set it apart was what happened after the click.
The retargeting ads had the lowest click-through rates in the table and the best landing-page behaviour, because the people seeing them had already been to the site once. Ad 8 was the cheapest button click on the account.
That account still paid $425 a lead overall, as the Reddit ads cost breakdown shows. A good ad doesn't fix an expensive funnel.
Do ads copied from organic posts beat new creative?
By a lot. On a developer-tools account in Q2 2026, ads built from posts that had already done well organically brought in signups at $1.63. Everything else averaged $38.40. In my words from an August call, "my process literally is just go down the list and look at the top comments." That's the wording the subreddit already upvoted.
Ad 9 was the best single ad in the account: 44,971 impressions, a 1.77% click-through rate and 110 signups at $0.82 each.
Ad 10 was the discount. A double-tokens offer spent $459.73 at a 0.71% click-through rate for 33 signups, $13.93 each. The account's relaunch campaign in the same quarter paid $2.00 a signup, about a seventh of that. The offer lost to posts people had already argued about for free.
That account delivered almost entirely outside the US, which is why every price in this section is low. Compare the ratios, not the dollar amounts.
What the winners had in common
They sold the next step to people who were already interested. The cheapest leads came from the Conversions objective, a form or signup event that happens often, and a hook the audience recognised from their own threads.
Click-through rate predicted almost none of it. Our own rule is that an ad needs 0.5% click-through to stay live and about 3% to count as a winner. The advisor account's cheapest lead came from an ad sitting right on that floor. It spent $150.05, and 199 of every 200 people who saw it scrolled straight past.
Common questions
What is a good click-through rate for Reddit ads?
We keep an ad live above 0.5% and call about 3% a winner. Click-through rate alone did not predict leads in our accounts: our cheapest lead, $3.26, came from an image ad at 0.50%, while free-form ads at 3.62% and 10.48% on the same account produced almost no leads.
Do free-form Reddit ads convert?
Rarely, in our accounts. A click on a free-form ad opens the post on Reddit, not your site, so the click-through rate counts readers rather than visitors. We use free-form to test headlines, build trust and build retargeting audiences, and sell with image ads on the Conversions objective.
Should Reddit ads be built from organic posts?
Yes, if you have posts that already did well. On a developer-tools account, ads built from proven organic posts cost $1.63 per signup against $38.40 for untested creative, and the best single ad brought 110 signups at $0.82 each.
Does retargeting work on Reddit?
On a US financial planning account, retargeting ads had lower click-through rates than prospecting ads but 5.83% and 6.29% of their clicks reached the main button, against about 2% for prospecting. The best retargeting ad cost $23.48 per button click, the cheapest on the account.
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