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November 3, 2026
Reddit for Indie Games: How to Promote Without Getting Banned
Reddit lets developers post their own games. What gets accounts banned is acting like an advertiser: the same post in ten communities, a profile that is nothing but Steam links, friends asked to upvote, a second account after the first one is banned. Reddit’s site-wide rule asks you to take part in communities you actually care about and not to spam. Each community adds its own rules on top, and its moderators decide what counts as spam there. Below is what Reddit’s own pages say, in their words where it matters, and a way of posting that keeps your account.
What Reddit’s own rules say
The Reddit Rules are short. Rule 2 is the one that applies to promotion: “Participate authentically in communities where you have a personal interest”, and do not spam or disrupt communities. Rule 5, “Be authentic”, forbids misleading people or impersonating someone. For a developer that means posting as the developer, not as a player who happened to find your game.
Reddit’s help page on spam, updated in October 2026, defines spam as repeated or unsolicited actions, manual or automated, that negatively affect users or communities. Its examples include mass-posting repetitive content for exposure or financial gain, and using tools such as bots or generative AI tools in ways that spread spam. It also speaks to people like you directly: if most of what you post is links to a business you run or benefit from, think about how often you post, or use Reddit’s self-serve ads. And it says plainly that community moderators decide what counts as unwanted content in their own communities.
Enforcement, on the same Reddit Rules page, runs from a polite request to stop, through removed content and restrictions, to temporary or permanent suspension of the account.
How much self-promotion Reddit accepts
Self-promotion, in Reddit’s own numbers
10 percent, or 1 in 10
- Reddit’s moderator help page says promotional content is not inherently spam. Some communities ban promotion completely. Others use a 10% rule: only 10% of your posts and comments in that community may promote your own work, and the rest should be ordinary participation.
- Reddiquette calls the 9:1 ratio “a widely used rule of thumb”: “only 1 out of every 10 of your submissions should be your own content”.
- Reddiquette is written by users, not by Reddit’s staff. Reddit still hosts it in its help center and asks everyone to follow it as best they can.
Sources: How do I keep spam out of my community? and Reddiquette, both in Reddit Help, updated October 2026.
The 10% rule counts comments too. Every useful answer you give another developer is participation, and it makes room for the post about your own game.
Before your first post
Use an account with a history
Moderators can switch on filters that look at who is posting. Reddit’s moderator help describes Reputation filtering, based on signals from across the site, and Crowd Control, which filters posts from people who are not yet trusted members of that community. In a community that uses them, a post from an account with no history there can be filtered before anyone sees it. Take part for a few weeks first, under the account you will post from.
Read the rules, every time
Reddiquette asks you to read a community’s rules before making a submission, and notes that they are usually in the sidebar. IndiePump’s own outreach rules say the same thing. Look for these points:
- whether self-promotion is allowed at all, or only on certain days or in a weekly thread;
- whether you have to use a flair, or a set title format;
- whether links are allowed in the post or only in a comment;
- whether the community wants video, screenshots or text.
Rules change. Read them again before each post, even in a community where you posted last month.
Write a post that survives
- Lead with the game. A short gameplay clip uploaded to Reddit itself shows more than a link to your store page.
- Keep the title factual. Reddiquette asks for titles that are factual and opinion free, and warns that a title cannot be edited once the post is up. Read it twice.
- Say you made it. “I made this” in the title or the first line of the post is Rule 5 in practice.
- One link, where the rules allow it. No link shorteners: Reddiquette lists them among the things not to do.
- Stay for the comments. Post when you can answer questions for the next few hours. Price, platforms and release date will come up.
Never ask for upvotes, on Reddit or anywhere else. Reddiquette names hints like “Is this front page worthy?” and messages on other sites asking people to vote, and about the second it says: “This will result in a ban from the admins.” That includes a post on your Discord or your X account asking followers to go and upvote.
Posting in more than one community
Reddit’s moderator help counts posting the same or similar comments over and over, in one community or across several, as spam. Reddiquette warns that flooding Reddit with many submissions in a short time can get your future posts blocked by the spam filter, or your account shadow banned in serious cases.
IndiePump’s outreach rules
Written after real bans and throttles
- Never send the same text twice. Every community gets its own title and its own opening.
- Read the community’s rules before you write, not after the post is removed.
- A rate limit means stop, not retry. When a platform slows you down, stop posting there for the day.
- Use the channel a person asks for. If the moderators want a message to modmail before any promotion, send that first.
Write each post for the people who read that community. A developer community wants to know how you built the thing: a shader, a level design problem, what a playtest changed. A players’ community wants to see the game and know when they can play it. Two different posts about the same game, days apart, are participation. The same post pasted into both is the spam Reddit describes.
When Reddit tells you to slow down
If Reddit tells you to wait before posting again, wait. If a moderator removes your post, read the reason and the rules once more before you do anything. Reddit’s spam page suggests contacting the moderators when you are unsure, and that is the right next step. Do not post the same thing again, and do not open a second account to get around a ban: moderators can switch on a ban evasion filter built for exactly that.
If what you want is simply reach, Reddit sells it. Its spam page points businesses that mostly post their own links to its self-serve ads, and a paid post under clear rules costs less than a banned account.
Give creators somewhere to ask
A good post brings comments asking for a key. Reply with a press kit link rather than a pile of private messages, so the creator can see the game and request a key in one place. These three games on IndiePump.space each had keys for creators on 20 October 2026.
Press kits on IndiePump.space with keys for creators
Demo available
How IndiePump can help
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