Reddit's Ad Revenue Is Growing Faster Than Other Social Media Platforms

A report shows Reddit is making money fast from advertising revenue.

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• Reddit's ad revenue is growing faster than any other social media platform, according to EMARKETER.
• A new report says Reddit's user base is expanding due to its unique "social" feel.
• Still, advertisers face challenges on Reddit due to the site's unique communities.

A new report shows that Reddit's ad revenue is growing faster than any other social media platform. Still, advertising on the app isn't as easy as it seems.

The report from EMARKETER says that Reddit's year-over-year ad revenue will grow by more than 30% this year, according to its estimates. EMARKETER is a digital marketing research company owned by Business Insider parent company, Axel Springer.

The highest ad revenue growth among social media platforms following Reddit came from TikTok with 25% and Instagram with 15% year-over-year growth, according to the report.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has said that Reddit is one of the few places left on the internet that allows people to hold communal conversations with each other. Huffman said at a Wall Street Journal event in October that Reddit posts are valuable for search engines and AI because they contain a wealth of "colloquial words about pretty much every topic" that are constantly updated.

Analysts from EMARKETER said in the report that Reddit's user base is growing, partly because it is one of the few social media platforms that still feels "social."

"That's a big reason why it's one of the only social platforms seeing time spent gains in 2025, per our forecasts," the report says.

However, while the social feel of Reddit is attracting swaths of new users, it could make it hard for advertisers to come across as relatable on the site. The report notes that Reddit users "typically don't want brands in their conversations, especially ones that aren't upfront about who they are."

Some advertisers have found ways to integrate into Reddit communities, including by creating employee accounts. User KiethFromSonos, a Sonos employee who asked to join the Reddit community r/Sonos, gradually earned a place in the community, the report says.

Reddit is also giving advertisers tools to make it easier for them to have an organic presence on the website, the report says. In March of last year the company created Reddit Pro, a platform that gives advertisers analytics, insights, and publishing tools, and earlier this year Reddit announced a new format that lets advertisers promote upcoming AMAs.

When reached for comment on Friday, a Reddit spokesperson directed Business Insider to the company's quarter four earnings report. Reddit COO Jen Wong said in an earnings call on February 12 that the company saw "broad growth" across advertising verticals, with 10 of its 15 verticals growing by over 50% year-over-year. Wong said the areas that saw the most growth were finance, retail, auto, pharma, gaming, and tech.

"We continue to focus on: one, driving performance of our ad solutions across objectives; two, improving usability for our advertisers and productivity for our sales force; and three, offering our advertisers Reddit-unique solutions and ad formats," Wong said on the call.