Reddit has introduced a new contributor payment initiative. This program enables users to exchange their virtual gold and karma points for real-world money, which will be paid out on a monthly basis.
For now, the reward program is exclusively for Reddit users located in the United States who are at least 18 years old and can confirm their identities via Stripe or Persona. To qualify for monetization, posts must be safe-for-work and accounts should be active for a minimum of 30 days.
Under this program, a user’s earnings depend upon their Reddit karma (total number of upvotes). To earn real money and cash out, Reddit users are required to earn no less than 10 gold within a span of 30 days. If this minimum isn’t achieved, the balance carries forward to the next month. Users with karma scores between 100 and 4,999 will receive $0.90 per gold. However, when a user’s karma score exceeds 5,000, the rate increases to $1 per gold.
Recently, Twitter (now rebranded as X) launched a comparable program that allows content creators to earn ad revenue from their post impressions. However, such programs have raised concerns about potentially encouraging spam or “engagement bait” posts.
Alongside the user reward program, Reddit is also modifying its gold award system. Previously, users could buy coins which they could then use to purchase gold or other rewards for high-quality posts. Reddit, however, is simplifying this process by removing the awards and coins system.
Users can directly purchase gold by hovering on the upvote icon on desktop or long-pressing it in the app. Gold prices start at $1.99 and can go as high as $49 for 25 gold. Considering that top users can earn $1 per gold, Reddit keeps approximately half of the payment. The new features will debut on the app first, with a rollout on web platforms scheduled for later this year.
This new Reddit user rewards program comes at a time when Reddit is facing turbulence with a portion of its user base remaining upset over controversial API modifications that have rendered it costly for a lot of developers to build on the platform. As a result, popular third-party apps like Sync, Apollo, ReddPlanet, and Reddit is Fun were forced to cease operations.