Getting Reddit karma isn't hard. It's just slow, and every shortcut works against you. Buying karma gets accounts banned; spamming low-effort comments gets them downvoted into the negative. What actually works is a handful of habits that also make you decent at Reddit — which is the point.
1. Comment where the conversation already is
The fastest karma comes from comments, not posts. Find an active thread — one that's an hour or two old with people still replying — and add something genuinely useful. A specific answer to the question being asked beats a clever one-liner nobody upvotes.
2. Start in welcoming subreddits
Some communities are built for participation and hand out karma easily: r/AskReddit, big hobby subs, and the niche you actually know something about. Build a base there before you go near a strict subreddit like r/startups, which will remove a low-karma account's post on sight.
3. Post things people want, with a title that earns the click
When you do post, the title does most of the work. Be specific and honest — a real result, a concrete story, a genuinely useful resource. Vague or promotional titles get scrolled past, and scrolled-past posts earn nothing.
4. Let your account age
Karma and account age are checked together. A two-day-old account with 200 karma still trips gates that a two-month-old account with the same karma clears. You can't rush age, so start the account before you need it.
What to skip
- Buying karma.Detectable, bannable, and it doesn't repair the trust that low-karma filtering is actually about.
- Karma-farming subreddits and reposts. Easy to spot, and the karma is worthless where it counts.
- Mass-commenting for the sake of it. Downvotes remove karma too — negative comment karma is worse than none.
The wall karma is really about
Most people chase karma because a post got removed and they suspect their account is the reason. Often it is: the subreddit had a karma or account-age gate, your account was under it, and AutoMod pulled the post silently.
Before you spend a week farming karma, it's worth knowing which gate you actually hit. WillItStayreads a subreddit's karma and age requirements and checks your draft against them, so you know whether the post will survive — or exactly how much karma you still need — before you post.