Reddit wants you to spend more time in the app, and publishers to see more value in posting there.
On September 10th, the platform announced a suite of new publisher-facing tools under its Reddit Pro business offering, alongside a notable user test: the ability to read articles directly in the Reddit app, with Reddit comments pinned underneath.
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Instead of being bounced to a browser, users can now scroll through an article while simultaneously engaging with the conversation around it. Importantly, Reddit says the feature respects publisher paywalls, meaning subscribers will still need to log in, while others may encounter locked content unless publishers choose to share “gift links” or ease restrictions for Reddit traffic.
What’s in it for publishers?
Reddit is clearly positioning itself as a friendlier home for media outlets at a time when referral traffic from Google and social platforms is under pressure from AI. New tools being tested include:
- Specialized analytics: See which subreddits are sharing your stories and how they’re performing (upvotes, clicks, engagement)
- RSS syncing: Automatically import stories to then share across relevant subreddits
- AI recommendations: Suggestions for which subreddits are best suited for a given article
For journalists, the analytics tool sounds like a replacement for Meta’s now-defunct CrowdTangle, which was once critical for tracking what content was going viral on Facebook.
With AI increasingly intercepting search and referral traffic, publishers are re-evaluating how and where they distribute content. Reddit’s move reflects a bigger trend: platforms trying to become both the content source and the conversation hub. If the test rolls out widely, Reddit could become a far more significant traffic channel for publishers, and potentially a new kind of news feed where stories and community discussion live side-by-side.