New data: read the current self-promotion rules of 35 AI subreddits, and only 10 let you post your own tool with conditions attached. Seventeen restrict it outright, three allow it only inside a weekly or pinned thread, and five never mention promotion at all, which looks like a loophole until you dig into the fine print. This Redditor, u/investigatormaker over on r/PromptEngineering, read every one of those 35 rule pages between September 24 and 26 and turned the findings into a free tool called ThreadFox, which is the author’s own project.
I build with AI tools too, and I’ve watched more than one launch post get nuked inside an hour because nobody checked the pinned rules first. Seeing someone actually count this across 35 communities instead of guessing is the kind of homework that saves a weekend.
Here’s what the count actually shows. r/ChatGPT, at 11.6 million members, funnels every self-promo post into its pinned weekly thread instead of the main feed. r/MachineLearning, r/OpenAI, r/LocalLLaMA, r/cursor, r/LangChain and r/n8n all restrict tool posts in one form or another. But the rule that actually catches builders isn’t the promo rule. It’s the quieter “no AI-written posts” rule, and it’s common. r/ChatGPTCoding bans raw AI output in rule 6. r/cursor bans AI-generated content in rule 11. r/n8n bans what it calls “AI slop” in rule 2. If a model drafts your posts, all three of those subs are closed to you no matter how good the tool is.
Three practical applications worth pulling out of this before your next launch
- 📌 Match the post to the sub’s specific format, not just its topic. r/AgentsOfAI wants a detailed text body with links pushed down into the comments, not up top. r/aiagents wants 100+ words, a flair, nine value posts for every promotional one, and no repeat launch inside a month. Get the format wrong and the topic doesn’t save you.
- 📌 Treat the five silent subs as conditional, not open season. Five of the 35, including r/PromptEngineering itself, don’t mention promotion in either direction. The read here: with the link stripped out, the post still has to be useful on its own.
- 📌 Build the rule check into your posting process, not just your memory. The author’s own instruction for anyone running this through an agent: “read every rule, then look specifically for promo threads, AI-text bans, flair requirements and ratio rules.” That one line would have caught every restriction above before a post ever went out.
Tips and pitfalls worth stealing directly from the thread
The rule that actually gets a post removed is rarely rule 1. The author missed a “don’t use bots” rule sitting at number 9 on one sub, and a “showcases allowed on Sundays only” rule hiding the same way on another. Both cost a deleted post before anyone read past the top of the page. One commenter, u/junewave56, flagged the pitfall that survives even after you clear every rule: subreddits that technically allow self-promotion will still downvote a post into oblivion if it can’t stand on its own with the link removed. Clearing the rules gets you past the mods. Standing on your own gets you the upvotes.
One more worth noting: r/learnmachinelearning allows your own content once a week, generous for a sub that size, but only if you don’t spend that slot on something thin.
Pros and cons of leaning on a rule audit like this instead of eyeballing each sub yourself right before you post
- Pro: You get the exact rule number and the quoted text, so you know which sentence would trip you up instead of guessing after a removal.
- Pro: It surfaces the buried rules, the ones sitting at number 9 or number 11 that nobody reads past rule 3.
- Con: Rules change, and a snapshot read between September 24 and 26 goes stale the day a mod team edits its wiki.
- Con: Passing every rule still doesn’t guarantee the post survives contact with readers, per junewave56’s point above. Use an audit like this to get past the mods. Use your own judgment, and a post that stands without the link, to get past the readers.
None of this replaces reading the actual rules for the specific sub you care about right now. The full index tracks 705 subreddits total, with each community’s own rule text and the date it was checked, so you’re reading current rules instead of six-month-old assumptions. Head over to the original post on r/PromptEngineering, check which subs the community has actually found welcoming to builders, and add your own findings to the thread.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Of 35 AI subreddits analyzed, how many actually allow self-promotion?
Only 10 of the 35 communities explicitly allow self-promotion, though usually with specific conditions like minimum post quality or ratio requirements (e.g., 9 value posts per promotional one). Another 3 restrict it to weekly or pinned threads. The remaining 22 either restrict self-promotion or don’t mention it at all, and silence doesn’t mean permission.
Q: I read the subreddit rules and don’t see anything against my post. What could still get me removed?
Watch for “no AI-written posts” rules, they’re surprisingly common on r/ChatGPTCoding, r/cursor, r/n8n and others, but often buried as rule 6 or 11 instead of up top. If your post was drafted by an LLM, even a polished one, you could violate the rule and get removed. Always read every rule to the end, and specifically search for promo threads, AI-text bans, flair requirements, and ratio rules.
Q: Does following the subreddit rules guarantee my post will do well?
No, following the rules is just table stakes. The real filter is whether your post provides genuine value to the community without relying on the link. Many communities downvote promotional posts that only make sense with the promotional link, regardless of technical rule compliance. Write for the community first; the link is secondary.
Q: What if a subreddit doesn’t mention self-promotion at all?
Silence on promotion doesn’t mean permission. The safest approach: assume the post should be useful and interesting with the link removed entirely. This keeps you on the right side of community norms even when the rules are unclear.
I read the self-promotion rules of 35 AI subreddits. Where AI tool builders can actually post, and the rules that catch people out
by u/investigatormaker in PromptEngineering