r/Entrepreneur: rules, karma requirements and posting culture
Reddit's biggest business forum, over five million members. Text only, professional in tone, and closed to anyone who has not earned comment karma inside it first.
Entrepreneur · Open on Reddit
- Members
- 5.3M
- Created
- 2008
- New posts a day
- 9.1
- Comments on a typical post
- 45
- New posts removed
- 43%
The short answer
You need 10 comment karma earned inside r/Entrepreneur itself before you can post, plus a verified email address. No account age is published. Posts are text only, almost all carry a flair, and promotion of any kind, including a URL or an invitation to DM, can get you banned. Once you are through the gate the audience is large and generous: a post that stays up typically gets around 45 comments.
Who posts here
The same front page holds someone who sold a company for seven figures and someone with savings and no idea what business to start. The second of those drew over 200 comments. The most basic questions are pointed to a weekly mentorship thread, and "how do I make money fast" posts are banned, but an honest beginner question with some detail is answered at length without being talked down to.
- Would-be founders with a job, some savings and no idea yet.
- Owners of small service businesses and agencies: cleaning, trades, marketing, consulting.
- Experienced operators who have built, sold or closed a company and answer more than they ask.
- Software and AI product builders looking for feedback or customers, who are the group the rules are written against.
- People buying existing businesses, from pizza shops to mobile home parks.
Karma and account requirements
What it takes to get a post through in r/Entrepreneur.
| Karma | 10 comment karma earned inside r/Entrepreneur. Karma from elsewhere on Reddit does not count, it can take a few days to register, and the moderators will not grant a waiver.Mods' wording: “Text posts require 10 comment karma in this sub.” |
|---|---|
| Account age | Not stated publicly. Your account does need a verified email address, or the post is removed.Mods' wording: “you do not have a verified email address” |
| Post type | Text posts only. A link may support the post but cannot be the post.Mods' wording: “links can only provide supplementary material” |
| Post flair | Nearly every post in the sample carries one. How Do I?, Growth and Expansion, Starting a Business and Lessons Learned are the common ones. |
| Links and promotion | No URL drops, no offers, no asking for or offering DMs, no pointing people at your profile. The welcome message says unsanctioned promotion leads to a permanent ban.Mods' wording: “We do not allow any URL drops in posts due to an abundance of spam.” |
| AI-written text | Posts and comments written by AI are treated as spam and can get the account banned.Mods' wording: “AI and GPT-generated posts and comments are unprofessional, and will be treated as spam” |
What AutoModerator says
The moderators' bot leaves these messages on posts. They are the closest thing to an official statement of the thresholds.
Welcome to /r/Entrepreneur and thank you for the post, u/[username]! Please make sure you read our community rules before participating here. As a quick refresher: * Promotion of products and services is not allowed here. This includes dropping URLs, astroturfing, asking or offering DMs, suggesting profile views/follows, and job / investor-seeking. *Unsanctioned promotion of any kind will lead to a permanent ban for all of your accounts.* * AI and GPT-generated posts and comments are unprofessional, and will be treated as spam, including a permanent ban for that account. * Check out our weekly stickied threads for hiring, feedback, and our subreddit marketplace. * Our mod team is looking for new moderators and applications are now open. Join the mod team today!
READ THIS WHOLE MESSAGE Your post has been removed as you have not earned enough subreddit karma to contribute here as a poster. Per Rule 3: You must participate in the comments of other posts on this subreddit before posting yourself. Engage meaningfully first and get to know the community. This rule is implemented to combat spam, and to make sure that potential posters have at least a basic familiarity with the /r/Entrepreneur community. We will not grant an exception to this removal. Do not write in to modmail to request we approve your post. If you are unfamiliar with karma, please check out /r/newtoreddit.
Your post was removed because of Rule 1: No promotion, sales, or solicitation. We do not allow any URL drops in posts due to an abundance of spam. If you are trying to advertise your services, please go to RedditForBusiness.com, or participate in our Talent Tuesdays or Feedback Fridays stickied weekly discussion threads. If you try to circumvent this restriction in any way, including reposting without explicit permission from our team in modmail, you will be permanently banned with no chance of appeal. Here's a copy of your post: For the past two years, I fell into what I call the Chatbot Trap. I was opening browser tabs, typing ad-hoc prompts, and manually stitching together outputs. Even with state-of-the-art models, my human attention remained the ultimate operational bottleneck. Last month, I decided to fix this. I shifted my role from a manual doer to the Chief Architect of an autonomous multi-agent AI workforce. Today, I’m open-sourcing and publishing the complete operational blueprint behind this transition in my new masterclass: "The Autonomous Solopreneur: Building & Scaling Multi-Agent AI Enterprises." Here is the exact architecture we built and deployed: 1. Role-Specialized Agent Swarms: - The Researcher: Gathers market data and long-tail keyword matrices. - The Writer/Editor: Synthesizes structured markdown manuscripts with strict stylistic constraints. - The
Your post has been removed because you do not have a verified email address. Please verify your email address in your Reddit account profile security settings and try again. Do not write in to the moderators to fix this issue as they cannot resolve it for you, and will not grant an exception to this removal.
What you can post
| Post type | Subreddit setting | Share of recent posts |
|---|---|---|
| Text | Allowed | 100% |
| Link | Not allowed | <1% |
| Image | Not allowed | 0% |
| Video | Not allowed | 0% |
| Poll | Not allowed | 0% |
Post flairs in use
- How Do I? 18%
- Weekly Discussion 17%
- Growth and Expansion 10%
- Starting a Business 9%
- Lessons Learned 8%
- Success Story 6%
- Recommendations 5%
- Best Practices 5%
- Mindset & Productivity 4%
- Operations and Systems 3%
What happens to a new post
Where the most recent posts ended up. Sample size: 400.
- Stayed up56%
- Removed by Reddit's filters6%
- Removed by moderators38%
- Deleted by the author<1%
Reddit counts a removal by the subreddit's own AutoModerator rules as a moderator removal, so that share is not all human. Held by AutoModerator means the post is waiting in the mod queue.
What happened when we posted here
We have posted here ourselves. This is how our own posts and comments fared.
- Stayed up
- 97%
- Removed by Reddit's filters
- 0%
- Removed by moderators
- 3%
- Period
- August 2025 to August 2026
The rules, in the mods' words
- 1
10 comment karma in /r/Entrepreneur to post
To lead a discussion in /r/Entrepreneur, we require a minimum of 10 comment karma within our subreddit. This is earned by contributing thoughtful comments to others' discussions. This policy not only helps reduce spam but ensures that you understand the community's dynamics—what types of posts resonate, and what might be overlooked or poorly received. Our goal is to help your posts gain traction. Take some time to engage with the community and discover how we can best support you.
- 2
No Self Promotion
It is acceptable to cite your sources and provide references to claims, even if this is to your own content/website. However, there should not be an explicit solicitation, advertisement, or clear promotion for the intent of awareness. Posts must NOT be made for the primary purpose of selling or promoting yourself, company or service. The most acceptable way to share a URL is to use a SPOILER tag with Reddit's formatting, if you do not, there is a chance your post will be removed.
- 3
No Personal Attacks
Constructive criticism of ideas, concepts, approaches, or plans is encouraged. Embracing reality, even when it is challenging, is a crucial aspect of business. However, personal attacks, hostility, or incitement to conflict are strictly prohibited and will not be tolerated in this community. If you encounter threats or harassment, please report them immediately. Avoid engaging with users who are harassing you or others.
- 4
Links Allowed as Supporting Material ONLY
This rule exists to foster meaningful discussion. If you wish to share links, they must be directly relevant, clearly described, and essential to the conversation. Your post should include sufficient context within Reddit to enable a productive dialogue.
- 5
No “How To Get Rich Quick” posts
This community is NOT for quick money schemes. Entrepreneurship is often a challenging and demanding journey, requiring effort, hard work, grit, and determination. Posts asking how to make $X, without a specific or reasonable idea, will not be tolerated, as they do not contribute meaningfully to the discussions in this subreddit.
- 6
Avoid unprofessional communication
As a professional subreddit, we expect all members to uphold a standard of reasonable decorum. Treat fellow entrepreneurs with the same respect you would show a colleague. While we don't have an HR department, that’s no excuse for aggressive, foul, or unprofessional behavior. NSFW topics are permitted, but they must be clearly labeled. When in doubt, always label it.
- 7
No free offerings threads (outside of weekly thread)
Our "Thank You Thursday" threads are designated for any promotions, offers, or discounts you wish to share with the community. Please refrain from posting free offerings outside of this weekly thread that is pinned to the top of the community. Any such posts made elsewhere will be removed.
- 8
Follow the Rules of Reddit
Rules of Reddit - They apply everywhere on Reddit. Also consider Reddiquette The latter isn't mandatory but might be used in considering the intent of your post.
- 9
Unsolicited Opinion and Thoughts
Please refrain from using this community as your personal blog. There is no need to share opinions or use this space as a diary for daydreams, thoughts, or subjective reflections. Instead, we encourage you to contribute by sharing evidence-based best practices, celebrating small victories, discussing strategies with clear frameworks, seeking feedback, and fostering professional conversations. Approach each post as though you're at work, representing the best version of yourself.
- 10
No Investment Solicitation
Posts about specific investments, such as cryptocurrency, are not permitted. Please refrain from soliciting, promoting, or offering any form of investment advice. There are other subreddits better suited for those discussions.
These are the rules as archived in January 2025. Rules change. Check the sidebar before you post.
The culture
r/Entrepreneur has about 5.3 million members and far fewer posts than that number suggests: roughly nine a day make it to the feed. The moderators ask people to behave as if they were at work, and the rules say outright that the subreddit is not a personal blog or a diary. Posts are short, around 85 words, and the replies do the heavy lifting.
The format that dominates is the open question that anyone who has run a business can answer. Why do people sell a company that is already making money. What would you start with a fixed sum. What do you do when the business is failing. Around these sits a fixed weekly schedule of pinned threads, one a day, for mentorship questions, services and hiring, free resources, feedback, wins and venting. Those threads are about a sixth of all posts in the sample and they are where promotion is allowed to live.
Moderators removed about 38% of the posts in our sample. The most common removal message by a wide margin is the karma one, and many removed titles read like ordinary questions, so a large part of that share is likely first posts from people who had not yet earned karma in the subreddit. The current pressure point is AI: what it does to small agencies and software businesses, and AI-written posts themselves, which the moderators call unprofessional and remove.
What lands
- A short open question that draws on experience, such as why owners sell a profitable business cheaply. The top post in the sample was one of these.
- A frank account of a business in trouble with enough detail to respond to. A young agency owner losing clients to AI tools drew over 300 comments.
- A concrete, bounded scenario: a fixed sum to invest and a required income within a year.
- A practical question from someone with real staff or customers, like what gift a team of a hundred people liked.
- Personal questions about the cost of the life: family, attention, anxiety after an exit.
What gets removed or ignored
- First posts from accounts without 10 comment karma in the subreddit. AutoModerator removes them and says no exception will be granted.
- Anything with a URL in it or a product behind it: free tools, free trial offers, courses, "I built" announcements.
- Numbers-heavy growth stories that read as lead generation, and posts inviting readers to drop their setup for a free review.
- Hiring, co-founder and mentor requests, and investor-seeking posts. These belong in the weekly threads.
- Posts from accounts without a verified email, and posts in other languages aimed at recruiting.
The unwritten rules
- Earn the karma with real comments first. A typical comment is around 35 words and only about 2% contain a link.
- Write it yourself. The moderators treat AI-written posts and comments as spam, and long, polished essays were common among the removed posts.
- Keep it short and ask something. Posts that lecture are treated as blogging, which the rules forbid.
- Mentioning a tool by name invites suspicion. Posters who name one sometimes add a disclaimer that they have no connection to the company.
- Use the daily pinned thread that fits. Feedback requests, service offers and free resources posted as standalone threads get removed.
Self-promotion
The written rule allows you to cite your own site as a source, bans posts made mainly to promote yourself, and suggests hiding any URL behind a spoiler tag. The AutoModerator messages are harsher than the rule: no URL drops at all, no DM requests, no profile nudges, and a permanent ban across all your accounts for unsanctioned promotion or for trying to get round a removal. Go by the harsher version. In practice a few posts that name the poster's own product do stay up when they are framed as a real question, but removal is the usual outcome. The sanctioned outlets are the weekly threads for services, feedback and free resources, and paid Reddit ads, which the removal message recommends.
How people write here
- Typical post length
- 84 words
- Typical title length
- 10 words
- Titles phrased as a question
- 41%
- Typical comment length
- 34 words
- Comments that include a link
- 2%
- Posts that carry a flair
- 100%
When people post
- 0:00 UTC, 9
- 1:00 UTC, 14
- 2:00 UTC, 10
- 3:00 UTC, 11
- 4:00 UTC, 5
- 5:00 UTC, 8
- 6:00 UTC, 7
- 7:00 UTC, 13
- 8:00 UTC, 49
- 9:00 UTC, 13
- 10:00 UTC, 15
- 11:00 UTC, 11
- 12:00 UTC, 11
- 13:00 UTC, 9
- 14:00 UTC, 25
- 15:00 UTC, 23
- 16:00 UTC, 31
- 17:00 UTC, 27
- 18:00 UTC, 20
- 19:00 UTC, 18
- 20:00 UTC, 19
- 21:00 UTC, 16
- 22:00 UTC, 19
- 23:00 UTC, 17
New posts by hour of day, UTC.
Top keywords
The words and phrases that show up far more often here than in other communities, from recent posts in r/Entrepreneur.
- business 116 posts
- money 52 posts
- entrepreneur 14 posts
- idea 46 posts
- sunday steam 7 posts
- success saturday 7 posts
- steam vent 7 posts
- professional tomorrow 7 posts
- platforms algorithms 7 posts
- general chaos 7 posts
- consequence-free space 7 posts
- community loves 7 posts
- clients platforms 7 posts
- september 25 posts
- clients 29 posts
- pitch 19 posts
- personal attacks 7 posts
- website pitch 6 posts
- tuesday services 6 posts
- thankful thursday 6 posts
- templates tools 6 posts
- talent tuesday 6 posts
- resources templates 6 posts
- pitch logo 6 posts
- monday mentorship 6 posts
- mentorship ask 6 posts
- logo idea 6 posts
- idea pricing 6 posts
- honesty general 6 posts
- honest eyes 6 posts
- general impressions 6 posts
- friday rate 6 posts
- forward drop 6 posts
- folks jump 6 posts
- feedback friday 6 posts
- experienced folks 6 posts
- elsewhere experienced 6 posts
- ask elsewhere 6 posts
- entrepreneurship 10 posts
- success 20 posts
Common questions
How much karma do you need to post in r/Entrepreneur?
10 comment karma earned inside r/Entrepreneur itself. Karma from other subreddits does not count. You get it by replying to other people's posts and being upvoted, it can take Reddit a few days to credit it, and the moderators say they will not approve a post early or grant a waiver. You also need a verified email address.
Can I promote my business in r/Entrepreneur?
Not in a normal post. Promotion of products and services is banned, including dropping a URL, asking for DMs or pointing people to your profile, and the stated penalty is a permanent ban. Use the weekly pinned threads instead: there is one for services and collaborations, one for feedback and one for free resources.
Why was my r/Entrepreneur post removed?
Most often because you do not yet have 10 comment karma in the subreddit. The other common causes are a link or product mention, a request for DMs, a hiring or co-founder request outside the weekly threads, AI-written text, or an unverified email address. Moderators removed about 38% of posts in our sample.
Can I post a link in r/Entrepreneur?
Only text posts are allowed, and a link can only be supporting material inside a post that already stands on its own. The rules suggest putting a URL behind a spoiler tag, but the removal messages say URL drops are not allowed at all. The safe choice is to leave the link out.
Data as of October 4, 2026. Numbers come from public Reddit data (the Arctic Shift archive and GummySearch) sampled on this date. Removal share counts posts taken down by moderators, AutoModerator or Reddit's own filters. Banner and icon belong to the community. Moderators change rules without notice, so treat the sidebar as the final word.
