r/smallbusiness: rules, karma requirements and posting culture
A 2.5 million member question and answer board for people starting and running small businesses. Questions only, text only, and openly hostile to market research.
smallbusiness: Questions about starting, owning and growing a small business · Open on Reddit
- Members
- 2.5M
- Created
- 2009
- New posts a day
- 115.8
- Comments on a typical post
- 9
- New posts removed
- 39%
The short answer
r/smallbusiness publishes no karma or account age requirement, but about 38% of posts in our sample were removed by Reddit's filters before they were seen. The format is fixed: a text post that asks a real question about starting, owning or growing a small business. AutoModerator comments on every post to say the community is not your focus group, and promotion is only allowed in the weekly thread or in a relevant reply. Honest questions from newcomers are welcome and usually get answered.
Who posts here
The rules are built around newcomers asking and owners answering, and AutoModerator says so in as many words. Posts ask where to register a DBA, whether a bookkeeper needs industry experience, or what to do when a client has not paid. Replies explain the basics without sneering. There is no knowledge floor, only a sincerity one: a question that is really a pitch or a survey gets called out.
- First-time owners sorting out registration, tax, pricing and a business name.
- People with an idea and no business yet, asking whether it is worth starting.
- Established owners of trades, shops and service firms with staffing, partner and succession questions.
- Accountants, marketers and other professionals who answer in their own field.
- Software founders and agency starters looking for customers, who the rules are mostly written against.
Karma and account requirements
What it takes to get a post through in r/smallbusiness.
| Karma | Not stated publicly. About 38% of posts in our sample were removed by Reddit's own filters, so thin accounts are being stopped, but no threshold is published. |
|---|---|
| Account age | Not stated publicly. |
| Format | Questions only. No rants, success stories, how-to posts or lead generation. Your own experience goes in the weekly share-your-experience thread.Mods' wording: “r/smallbusiness is a question and answer subreddit.” |
| Post type | Text posts only. Link, image, video and poll posts are switched off, and every post in our sample was text. |
| Self-promotion | Not in posts. Use the weekly promotion thread, or mention your business in a reply where it is relevant.Mods' wording: “Promote your business in the weekly Promote-your-business thread only.” |
| Market research | Not wanted. Asking owners about pain points or what is hardest about a task is treated as research, not a question. The rules do allow small business surveys as posts.Mods' wording: “Please do not conduct market research on our community.” |
What AutoModerator says
The moderators' bot leaves these messages on posts. They are the closest thing to an official statement of the thresholds.
Friendly Reminder r/smallbusiness is a question and answer subreddit. Ask a question about starting, owning, and growing a small business and the community answers. Posts that violate the rules listed in the sidebar will be removed. Please do not conduct market research on our community. We are not your focus group and asking us about our pain points, needs, what is hardest about X, etc. is not asking about how small business works or for real help with running your small business. These posts are subject to removal and given the community's disgust with the constant spamming of these posts you might just destroy your brand and contaminate your company search results. Seeing this message does not mean your post was automatically removed. If you asked about pain points or are directly or indirectly promoting a product please remove your post. Come back to post an honest question or give a knowledgeable response to someone else's question and leave your company name in your own profile. We can tell if you know what you're doing and the community can reach out if they need to. We welcome honest question posts, especially from newcomers. Thank you for your post.
What you can post
| Post type | Subreddit setting | Share of recent posts |
|---|---|---|
| Text | Allowed | 100% |
| Link | Not allowed | 0% |
| Image | Not allowed | 0% |
| Video | Not allowed | 0% |
| Poll | Not allowed | 0% |
Post flairs in use
- Self-Promotion <1%
What happens to a new post
Where the most recent posts ended up. Sample size: 400.
- Stayed up60%
- Removed by Reddit's filters38%
- Removed by moderators<1%
- 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
- 2%
- Removed by moderators
- <1%
- Period
- August 2025 to August 2026
The rules, in the mods' words
- 1
Post only questions about small business.
r/smallbusiness is a question and answer subreddit. You ask a question about starting, owning, and growing a small business and the community answers. Exceptions None, no exceptions. Note: You can post own experience in the *new* weekly stickied or pinned share-your-experience thread.
- 2
No blog links and blog content.
Blogspam has been defined very early in r/smallbusiness as content that maybe text articles, images, or video. Practically all content, small business-related or not. Exceptions Allowed are links or quotes in comments and replies that are relevant to and come normally in the course of discussions. Surveys related to small business are allowed as posts.
- 3
No business promotion posts
No business promotion posts are allowed. Promote your business in the weekly Promote-your-business thread only. Exceptions You can promote your business in a relevant reply to a post or comment in other threads.
- 4
No personal attacks.
These are the rules as archived in January 2025. Rules change. Check the sidebar before you post.
The culture
r/smallbusiness is one of the largest business subreddits, with about 2.5 million members and well over 100 posts a day. It is strictly question and answer. Someone asks about an LLC, a late payer, a hire or a slow month, and people who have dealt with it reply. The typical post is about 115 words and gets 9 comments, and replies are substantial at around 40 words.
The range of businesses is wide and mostly offline: trades, food, retail, events, small manufacturers, local services. Online sellers and software founders are here too, but the room's centre of gravity is the owner of a real shop or crew. Posters come from many countries, so legal and tax answers often start by asking where you are.
The fault line is research and promotion. With this many owners in one place, the subreddit is a target for founders validating ideas and agencies hunting clients. AutoModerator's standing message says the community is disgusted with it and warns that such posts can damage your brand. Plenty still get posted, and commenters call them out directly. Moderators removed very little in our sample. Reddit's filters did most of the removing.
What lands
- A specific question about your own business with the facts included: what you do, where, how long, what is going wrong.
- Formation and compliance questions, such as where to file, how an account should be set up, when to hire a CPA.
- People problems: a partner who works differently, a candidate with a possible conflict, a client who has not paid.
- Should I start this questions about a concrete business type, which draw replies from people who run one.
- Local marketing questions from an owner who says what they have already tried.
What gets removed or ignored
- Around 38% of posts are removed by Reddit's filters. Our data does not show what they had in common.
- Posts asking owners for their pain points or struggles. AutoModerator tells authors to remove these themselves.
- Service adverts, including offers of free work to build a portfolio, which the sidebar counts as promotion.
- Success stories, how-to guides and instructional posts nobody asked for.
- Blog links and blog-style content, whether text, image or video.
The unwritten rules
- Everyone sees the AutoModerator reminder under your post. If your question looks like research, the first replies will say so.
- Keep your company name out of the post. The mods' own advice is to leave it in your profile and let people come to you.
- Say your country, and your state if it is a legal or tax question. Otherwise the first reply is asking for it.
- Vague posts with a title like a plea for help and two lines of body get little. A named problem gets answers.
- About 8% of comments carry a link. Most of the promotional ones belong to the weekly thread, and a link dropped elsewhere gets noticed and sometimes insulted.
Self-promotion
The rule is clear and has one exception. No business promotion posts, and that includes lead generation and offers of free services to build a portfolio. You may promote in the weekly Promote-your-business thread, or in a reply where your business is relevant to what was asked. In practice promotional posts and thinly disguised validation posts appear every day and some sit there for a while, but the audience is primed against them by the AutoModerator message on every thread. The route the moderators recommend is to give knowledgeable answers and keep your company name in your profile.
How people write here
- Typical post length
- 116 words
- Typical title length
- 9 words
- Titles phrased as a question
- 53%
- Typical comment length
- 42 words
- Comments that include a link
- 8%
- Posts that carry a flair
- 0%
When people post
- 0:00 UTC, 9
- 1:00 UTC, 11
- 2:00 UTC, 15
- 3:00 UTC, 7
- 4:00 UTC, 5
- 5:00 UTC, 9
- 6:00 UTC, 8
- 7:00 UTC, 21
- 8:00 UTC, 12
- 9:00 UTC, 12
- 10:00 UTC, 13
- 11:00 UTC, 16
- 12:00 UTC, 15
- 13:00 UTC, 30
- 14:00 UTC, 25
- 15:00 UTC, 23
- 16:00 UTC, 22
- 17:00 UTC, 27
- 18:00 UTC, 19
- 19:00 UTC, 13
- 20:00 UTC, 34
- 21:00 UTC, 22
- 22:00 UTC, 18
- 23:00 UTC, 14
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/smallbusiness.
- business 154 posts
- businesses 44 posts
- owners 28 posts
- interested 39 posts
- customers 32 posts
- marketing 31 posts
- business owners 17 posts
- starting 33 posts
- instagram 18 posts
- website 29 posts
- clients 23 posts
- sell 24 posts
- experience 40 posts
- selling 20 posts
- online 26 posts
- shop 16 posts
- customer 23 posts
- sales 23 posts
- products 22 posts
- product 31 posts
- inventory 13 posts
- service 22 posts
- owner 15 posts
- enquiries 6 posts
- wholesale 8 posts
- leads 15 posts
- ads 16 posts
- websites 14 posts
- family business 5 posts
- local 22 posts
- business name 6 posts
- social media 13 posts
- thinking 25 posts
- agency 15 posts
- business owner 8 posts
- designs 8 posts
- especially 23 posts
- partner 14 posts
- suppliers 9 posts
- clothing 8 posts
Recurring topics: business, small, ai, small business, start, sourcing, social, website, businesses, online.
Growth
- 20125.7k
- 201314k
- 201428k
- 201543k
- 201657k
- 201794k
- 2018166k
- 2019253k
- 2020409k
- 2021727k
- 20231.5M
- 20241.9M
- 20252.3M
- 20262.5M
Related subreddits
Common questions
How much karma do you need to post in r/smallbusiness?
No number is published. The rules and AutoModerator message do not mention karma or account age. About 38% of posts in our sample were removed by Reddit's own filters, so an account with little history may find its post never appears.
Can I promote my business in r/smallbusiness?
Not in a post. The rules send all promotion to the weekly Promote-your-business thread. The one exception is a reply to someone else's post or comment where your business is relevant. Offers of free services to build a portfolio count as promotion.
Can I do market research or validate an idea in r/smallbusiness?
The community does not want it. AutoModerator posts a reminder on every thread asking people not to conduct market research, and says asking about pain points or needs is not a real question. Such posts are subject to removal. The rules separately allow surveys related to small business as posts.
What kind of posts are allowed in r/smallbusiness?
Text posts that ask a question about starting, owning or growing a small business. Rants, success stories, how-to guides, blog content and adverts are not permitted in posts. Experiences can be shared in the weekly share-your-experience thread.
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.
