Best Subreddits to Promote a Shopify App
Shopify merchants gather in a handful of ecommerce subreddits and actively ask for app recommendations. The catch: those same subs are heavily farmed by app developers, so mods watch vendor mentions closely.
8 communities, 11.4M combined members, ranked by each subreddit's own rules.
Where promotion is tolerated (with care)
These communities allow product mentions under their stated conditions. Read the linked rules before posting, the conditions are specific.
r/dropshipping 274.6K members · ~35 posts/day
Allowed with conditionsYes, but only in limited ways. Rule 1, "No Spam," says "Selling services related to Dropshipping is allowed if done at a low volume (i.e. once per week max) and if flaired as \"marketplace\"." The submit page also says, "Marketplace - If you want to promote, sell, or buy something this is the flair to use," and warns that if you promote your own videos, courses, or blog posts as a Discussion, "you will be banned."
r/printondemand 52.6K members · ~7 posts/day
Allowed with conditionsYes, you can promote your product in r/printondemand, because the sidebar says, "Self promotion is fine, and perfectly acceptable." But it comes with limits: "please don't make a ton of thread with products," "You can start a thread on your shop, and it's preferred that you keep that one updated with anything new," and Rule 1 says, "No spam" and "Make the content worth reading."
Participate first, promote rarely
Promotion here is heavily restricted or the rules leave it unstated. Build a presence by being useful; an occasional relevant mention may survive, a pitch will not.
r/Entrepreneur 5.2M members · ~9 posts/day
Strictly limitedNo, you generally cannot promote your product in r/Entrepreneur. Rule 1, "No promotion, sales, or solicitation," says, "Do not use this community to sell, promote... or drive traffic to your profile, company, or external content," and adds that "Free offers and promotions belong only in the designated weekly threads."
r/smallbusiness 2.5M members · ~70 posts/day
Strictly limitedYou generally cannot promote your product in r/smallbusiness. The rules say "No business promotion posts are allowed" and the public description says "This sub is not for advertisements!" There are narrow exceptions: you can use the weekly "Promote-your-business thread only," and you can mention your business in a relevant reply when it is relevant to the conversation and not used repeatedly or abusively for promotion.
Don't promote here
These communities ban promotion outright. Still worth being present as a genuine participant: buyers read these threads, and so do the AI models answering their questions.
r/marketing 2M members · ~2 posts/day
Promotion bannedNo, you cannot promote your product in r/marketing. Rule 1, "Advertising, Self-Promotion, & Spam (Permanent Ban)," says, "We have a zero tolerance policy to Advertising, Self-Promotion, & Spam." Rule 7 also says low quality content includes "a poor attempt to shill or sell a product or service" and "a few sentences with a link to their blog," which will be removed.
r/ecommerce 661.2K members · ~11 posts/day
Promotion bannedNo, you cannot promote your product in r/ecommerce. Rule 1, "No Soliciting, Promotion, or Direct Soliciting via DM," says, "Do not solicit, promote, or attempt to acquire personal or private contact with users in any way," and says violating posts or comments will be removed and users banned without warning. Rule 2 also bans external links to services, blogs, videos, courses, or websites, except for the stated site review exception.
r/shopify 366.5K members · ~13 posts/day
Promotion bannedNo. The subreddit description says it is a "promotion-free sub," and Rule 4, "Soliciting, Promotion, or Direct Soliciting via DM," says "This is not the place to promote yourself or services to the members here." The sidebar and submit page also ban "spamming, content marketing, advertising, promotions, or soliciting of any kind," and Rule 6 says external links and content marketing are not allowed.
r/dropship 355.9K members · ~2 posts/day
Promotion bannedNo, you cannot promote your product in r/dropship. Rule 2 says, "Do not promote your website, blog, YouTube channel, Discord server, software, agency, service, social media account, or project without moderator approval," and Rule 4 says, "r/Dropship is not a marketplace." The rules also ban referral links, affiliate links, hidden promotions, and selling products or services.
Get the threads, not just the subreddits
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