On Monday, Reddit introduced a contributor programme that pays users with genuine, real money in exchange for their false internet points. Eligible users can now convert their Reddit gold and karma into fiat currency (not cryptocurrency), which will be distributed once per month.
So far, the Reddit contributor programme is limited to anyone over the age of 18 in the United States who may verify their identity using Persona and Stripe. Accounts must have been active for at least 30 days, and only posts that are safe for work can be monetized.
This feature was discovered in an APK takedown by a reverse engineer roughly two months ago, according to Android Authority.
The amount of money a user can earn is determined by their Reddit karma (the number of upvotes they receive). To withdraw money, redditors must earn at least 10 gold in a 30-day period – if they don’t, the balance rolls over. Users with between 100 and 4,999 karma will be paid $0.90 every 1 gold. You can earn $1 per gold if you have accumulated more than 5,000 karma.
Twitter (formerly known as X) has started a similar creator monetization programme in which some authors can receive ad revenue depending on the impressions generated by their postings. However, there are fears that programmes like these could encourage spamming posting, sometimes known as “engagement bait.”
Reddit is also updating its gold giving method. Users could previously purchase coins, which could then be used to purchase gold or other awards, which could subsequently be awarded to high-quality posts. However, Reddit retired the honours and coins system in order to make gold more accessible. You can now buy gold by long-pressing the upvote symbol in the app or hovering over it on desktop – prices start at $1.99 for one gold and go up to $49.00 for 25 gold. So, if top users receive $1.00 per gold, Reddit keeps around half of the money. While these capabilities will be available on the app first, they will not be available on the web until later this year.
These new payment programmes come at a time when Reddit is in turmoil, with segments of its user base staying hostile due to controversial API changes that make it unaffordable for many developers to expand on Reddit. Following these modifications, popular third-party apps such as Apollo, Reddit is Fun, ReddPlanet, and Sync have been discontinued.