Reddit Ads do not have a fixed price or a published minimum budget. Reddit runs a real-time auction, so what you pay depends on your campaign objective, your targeting, and how much competition there is, not a set rate. The "$5 a day minimum" repeated across the web is not in Reddit's current documentation. Reddit's help pages for budgets and for Max campaigns do not state a dollar minimum either.
If you are trying to figure out what Reddit Ads will cost you, the honest answer is "it depends," but the mechanics are knowable. Here is how billing actually works and what drives the number.
There is no fixed Reddit Ads price
Reddit Ads is an auction, so there is no rate card. Just as important, there is no universal minimum daily or lifetime budget in Reddit's current help pages. The widely repeated "$5 a day" figure does not appear in Reddit's live ad documentation. Budget instead around your goal and audience, and start small enough to test before you scale.
How Reddit Ads bill you, by objective
What you pay for changes with your campaign objective. Per Reddit's Campaign Objectives page, awareness and consideration campaigns pay by cost per thousand impressions (CPM), or by cost per view (CPV) when optimized for 6-second video views. Lead generation pays by cost per click (CPC). Sales campaigns, with or without a catalog, and app promotion pay by optimized CPM (oCPM) with lowest-cost bidding or by CPC with cost-cap bidding. Traffic is listed as CPC there, but Reddit's Budgets and Bidding page says a traffic campaign is billed by oCPM on lowest cost and by CPC on cost cap.
Because it is a live auction, your spend is not perfectly fixed even with a daily budget. Reddit notes that "since Reddit Ads relies on real-time, live auctions to deliver ads to users, your ad group may overspend its budget by up to 20%" on a given day.
Max campaigns have no published minimum either
Max campaigns are Reddit's AI-automated campaign type, and Reddit made them available to all advertisers on September 3, 2026. Reddit's Max campaigns help page does not state a dollar minimum. It says budget and bids "are automatically allocated and adjusted to minimize cost-per-action (CPA)," and setting a campaign spend cap is optional. If you have seen a $20 daily or $620 lifetime minimum quoted for Max, it is not on Reddit's current Max page.
What actually drives your cost
Three things move the number: your objective, how competitive your targeting is, and the auction itself. There is no reliable independent CPM or CPC benchmark for Reddit, so treat any specific "average cost per click" figure you see on other sites with caution, since Reddit does not publish rates. Where Reddit does give budget guidance, it is contextual, for example recommending a daily budget of "five times your average CPA" for a specific app-optimization tactic, a formula rather than a fixed floor.
How to budget for Reddit Ads
The practical approach is to pick one clear objective, set a modest daily budget you can afford to test with, and measure results against that objective alone before scaling. Ads work best on top of a genuine organic presence rather than as a replacement for it. For the fuller decision on whether to run them at all, see our guide on whether Reddit Ads are worth it, and for the paid product itself, our Reddit Ads guide.
Frequently asked questions
How much do Reddit Ads cost?
There is no fixed price. Reddit Ads is an auction, and you pay by CPM, CPC, oCPM, or CPV depending on your campaign objective. Total cost depends on your objective, targeting, and competition, so budget by testing rather than a set rate.
Is there a minimum budget for Reddit Ads?
Not for standard self-serve campaigns. Reddit's current documentation states no universal minimum, and the common "$5 a day" figure does not appear there. Reddit's Max campaigns help page does not state a dollar minimum either.
Why is there no fixed Reddit Ads price?
Because it runs on a real-time auction. Prices are set by competition for the audience you target, not a published rate card, which is also why a daily budget can overspend by up to 20% on a given day.
What is a good starting budget for Reddit Ads?
Enough to gather meaningful data on one objective, kept small until you see results. Reddit does not mandate a starting amount for standard campaigns, so test conservatively and scale only what performs.