r/sales: rules, karma requirements and posting culture

Who posts here

Posters are mostly working reps and managers, and terms like AE, SDR, OTE, PIP, ramp and 1099 go unexplained. Career changers are tolerated, and Sales Careers is the largest flair at about 43% of posts. But the wiki answers "is sales right for me" with "honestly, probably not", and generic beginner questions that search or the wiki already cover are removed as zero contribution.

• Account executives and SDRs in tech and SaaS comparing pay, quotas and job offers.
• Reps in industrial, trades, home improvement and distribution sales.
• Sales managers and leaders asking about comp plans, hiring and moving up from an individual role.
• People who were just laid off or fired, working through a job search.
• Career changers trying to get in, who are pointed to existing threads and the wiki.

Karma and account requirements

What it takes to get a post through in r/sales.

What you can post

What happens to a new post

Where the most recent posts ended up. Sample size: 400.

• Stayed up19%
• Removed by Reddit's filters9%
• Removed by moderators70%
• Deleted by the author2%

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

98%

Removed by Reddit's filters

0%

Removed by moderators

2%

Period

August 2025 to August 2026

The rules, in the mods' words

1. 1

   10 Community Karma Required to Post and Karma Farming

   Our community requires users to have 10 upvotes received on comments here before you will be allowed to create a new post or lead a discussion. Karma farming is asking for upvotes in the comments section of other users posts and should be reported to the mod team for removal.

2. 2

   No Selling or Self Promotion

   Users are strictly not allowed to promote what they sell here and should refrain from revealing who they sell for unless directly asked. This includes offering your solution in response to recommendation request, free trials, soliciting feedback, and similar conduct. Users found breaking this rule will receive an immediate and permanent ban.

3. 3

   No Recruiting Users

   This is not a place to recruit sales people. This includes posts inviting users to private trials for software or other tools/services/platforms. There are other subs for that such as /r/hiring or /r/salesjobs or /r/betatests . This is a *zero-tolerance* policy, and will result in an instant, permanent ban. *No exceptions, contesting, and absolutely no reversals of this ban will be considered!*

4. 4

   No Spam, Affiliation to Recommendations or Referral Links

   Spam, affiliation to recommendations posted, and referral links will result in a ban. Company or solution recommendations are only allowed by customers of what is being recommended. Recommendations by users working for or related to what they are recommending are not allowed and should be reported.

5. 5

   No Blogspam

   We do allow articles but we do not allow marketing blogspam. Any post that looks like blogspam will be removed and you will recieve a permanent ban. If you are the writer of an article, a full text version may be posted with identifying information removed and without backlinks to the blog.

6. 6

   No Sales Memes

   No sales memes, period! This sub is for professional sales and quality posts, and memes just don't fit in with that atmosphere. We understand the idea behind lighthearted posts, and discussions. Memes are close to zero effort, and provide less quality than we anticipate for our users. Memes are better represented in /r/saleshumor/ or r/growthmemes or /r/funny. First offense is removal of your post, and a 5-day ban. Second offense results in a permanent, indefinite ban.

7. 7

   No Off-Site Communities

   Any attempt to create, advertise or recruit r/Sales users to join off-site communities will result in an immediate and permanent ban. This includes Discord channels, other social media sites, masterclass groups, or networking groups and associations that require payment for membership.

8. 8

   Failure To Include Details

   If you are asking a question or for advice, include as much information and detail as you can without revealing company or personal information. Generic or low effort posts may be removed at our discretion.

9. 9

   No AI Generated Content

   R/Sales is for real users discussing their own thoughts. Posts and comments that are suspected of being AI generated content are subject to removal.

10. 10

    Zero Contribution

    Posts or comments that do not contribute directly to a sales topic, or closely related to a sales topic, will be removed. This includes questions about marketing, HR/workplace related issues and generalized questions already answered by other threads or in the Wiki.

11. 11

    Violates Sitewide Policies

    You posts will be removed and account banned from the sub for breaking sitewide policies. https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy

These are the rules as archived in January 2025. Rules change. Check the sidebar before you post.

The culture

r/sales has about 607,000 members and around 53 posts a day, though most of those never appear. What gets through is a break room for people who carry a quota. The typical post is around 120 words, close to half of titles are questions, and the median post gets 18 comments, which is a lot. If your post survives, people will answer it.

Careers dominate. Should I take this offer, am I underpaid, what happens to my deals if I move into management, how is anyone finding a decent job right now. Around that sit quarter-end stories, commission wins, firings, and venting about leadership. There is a recurring Friday thread for workplace gossip. Skill questions about cold email or contracts exist but draw less.

The mood right now is uneasy about tech sales. Threads ask whether the 2000s and 2010s were an unusually good time to sell, and whether buyers now only want AI so they can avoid hiring. Comments are short, blunt and sometimes rude, at around 25 words, and about 1% of them contain a link.

What lands

• A big win told straight: a record commission check with the number, or a large order landing on the last day of the quarter.
• A firing or a bad break with the full story. People reply with their own.
• A career decision with real figures: base, OTE, industry, years in, what the alternative is.
• A state of the industry question that lets everyone report what they are seeing.
• A specific operational question, such as how to handle an account a distributor is failing to move.

What gets removed or ignored

• Any first post from an account with fewer than 10 comment karma in the subreddit. AutoModerator filters it and tells you to go and comment.
• Hiring posts and offers of commission for bringing in clients. Recruiting is a zero tolerance, permanent ban rule.
• Questions that fish for tool recommendations or read as research for a product, like asking for the best way to pull emails or build lead lists.
• Generic getting-into-sales and should-I-switch questions already covered by the wiki and past threads.
• Anything that is not about the profession: items for sale, requests to connect on other networks, one-word titles.

The unwritten rules

• Earn the karma first. The removal message itself suggests sorting by new and leaving top-level comments, and says helpful, sarcastic or funny all work.
• Do not say who you work for unless asked. The rules tell you to hold back even that, and recommending something you are connected to is bannable.
• Numbers earn respect. Posts with base, OTE, quota and deal size get real answers. Posts without them get "it depends" or get removed.
• Expect to be told you are wrong in plain language. The wiki threatens bans for harsh criticism, but the tone in comments is still sharp.
• Many removed posts look like ordinary career questions, no different on the surface from ones that stayed up. If yours vanishes, check your karma in the subreddit before anything else.

Self-promotion

There is none, and the rules could not be clearer. You may not promote what you sell, offer your product when someone asks for a recommendation, offer free trials, or solicit feedback, and the stated penalty is an immediate permanent ban. Recruiting, invitations to private trials, off-site communities and blogspam carry the same penalty. If you wrote an article, you can post the full text with identifying details removed and no backlink. In practice the ban on revealing your employer means even honest disclosure is unwelcome. The only thing this subreddit offers a vendor is a place to listen to how salespeople talk about their work.

How people write here

Typical post length

122 words

Typical title length

8 words

Titles phrased as a question

48%

Typical comment length

25 words

Comments that include a link

1%

Posts that carry a flair

100%

The regulars

The accounts that showed up most in our sample. Worth reading before you post: they set the tone, and they are usually the first to reply.

Top keywords

The words and phrases that show up far more often here than in other communities, from recent posts in r/sales.

• sales 181 posts
• role 45 posts
• commission 23 posts
• inside sales 9 posts
• tech sales 12 posts
• sales role 10 posts
• sales career 8 posts
• ote 9 posts
• sales job 10 posts
• reps 14 posts
• career 27 posts
• b2b 22 posts
• cold calling 11 posts
• job 46 posts
• outside sales 5 posts
• account executive 6 posts
• base 19 posts
• leads 20 posts
• cold 23 posts
• rep 11 posts
• hiring 19 posts
• quota 9 posts
• salespeople 7 posts
• industry 22 posts
• company 39 posts
• saas 23 posts
• ae role 4 posts
• interview 18 posts
• selling 20 posts
• sell 22 posts
• manager 21 posts
• sales jobs 4 posts
• adtech 4 posts
• executive 9 posts
• commission-based 5 posts
• calling 14 posts
• service sales 4 posts
• sales manager 4 posts
• sales cycle 5 posts
• account manager 5 posts

Recurring topics: sales, tech, looking for, job, ae, company, new, saas, hiring, advice.

Posts that did well

• Biggest commission check of my career this Q3.357 upvotes · 118 comments · Sales Topic General Discussion
• Last Day of Quarter!245 upvotes · 44 comments · Fundamental Sales Skills
• Fired after my boss plead with me not to look for other jobs134 upvotes · 73 comments · Sales Topic General Discussion
• Was the 00s-10s just an unusually good time to be a salesperson?110 upvotes · 108 comments · Sales Topic General Discussion
• Dude how are people getting decent sales jobs??75 upvotes · 191 comments · Sales Careers
• SaaS bros (and gals), how we feeling?71 upvotes · 86 comments · Sales Careers
• L’s in the chat, bombed my 3rd round.36 upvotes · 19 comments · Sales Careers
• Changing from AE -> AM15 upvotes · 20 comments · Sales Careers

Growth

1. 2012940
2. 20132.4k
3. 20145.1k
4. 20159.6k
5. 201618k
6. 201731k
7. 201857k
8. 2019103k
9. 2020137k
10. 2023279k
11. 2024375k
12. 2025538k
13. 2026607k

Related subreddits

• r/Sales_Professionals
• r/startup
• r/SaaS
• r/marketing
• r/salesdevelopment
• r/Businessideas
• r/microsaas
• r/ProductMgmt
• r/digital_marketing
• r/Accounting

Common questions