We originally published this article in 2014, check out some more updated statistics directly from Reddit as of 2021 here. Also, read our blog post from February 2021 titled “Why Your Brand Shouldn’t Use Reddit” to get our take on why brands need to change their view on what they can “get” out of Reddit.
A 2011 survey by reddit and 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center both confirm reddit’s predominantly young adult male demographics. However, these trends don’t necessarily apply to all of the 400k+ subreddits within reddit, as there do exist subreddits targeted toward female and slightly older audiences.
Post Contents
- 2014 Reddit Media Kit
- 2011 Reddit Survey
- 2013 Pew Survey
- Differing Subreddit Demographics
- Subreddit Surveys
1. 2014 Reddit Media Kit
In mid-2014, reddit posted traffic and demographic information to their media kit page, shown below.
TRAFFIC
March Unique Visitors: 114 million
March Pageviews: 5.6 billion
March Avg. Time Spent Per Visit: 14 min.
(Source: Google Analytics, 2014)
AUDIENCE
Median Age: 35.20 years
Media HHI: $67,973.30
M/F: 63.7/36.3
(Source: Nielsen @plan 2014 Q1)
2. 2011 Reddit Survey
In September 2011, reddit announced the conclusion of a demographics survey that began in July 2011. The data was publicly released, and supported prior speculations of the average redditor being “a 20-something American male,” but also provided data about education, marital and relationship statistics. Below are results for the 20,978 U.S. respondents to the survey (there were 11,778 other respondents who didn’t list their current country of residence as U.S.).
Gender
Male — 78%
Female — 21%
Age
Under 18 — 7%
18 – 24 — 49%
25 – 34 — 35%
35 – 44 — 7%
45 – 54 — 2%
55 or above — 1%
Marital Status
Single — 32%
In a relationship — 30%
Engaged — 4%
Married / domestic partnership — 19%
Forever alone — 15%
Employment
Student — 39%
Not employed — 9%
Freelance — 5%
Full-time — 46%
Education
Some high school — 6%
High school degree or equivalent — 8%
Some college — 33%*
Trade degree — 1%
Associate degree — 5%
Bachelor degree — 35%
Graduate degree — 12%
(*The high percentage of “some college” is likely because 39% of redditors listed employment as “student”)
3. 2013 Pew Survey
In July 2013, the Pew Research Center published results from a nationally representative (U.S.) phone survey on reddit demographics. It too confirmed the high representation of young adult males on reddit: “young men are especially likely to visit [reddit]. Some 15% of male internet users ages 18-29 say that they use reddit, compared with 5% of women in the same age range and 8% of men ages 30-49” and also that reddit “is much more common among urban and suburban residents than among those living in rural areas.”
The 2013 Pew survey method differed significantly from the 2011 reddit survey in that it involved a random sampling of American phone numbers, regardless of whether the respondents used reddit or not, whereas the 2011 reddit survey was only completed by reddit users. Below are the results from the 2013 Pew survey.
4. Differing Subreddit Demographics
The primarily young adult male demographics of reddit don’t hold true for every one of reddit’s 400k+ subreddits, as there are many subreddits that specifically target non-male and non-young adult audiences. Below are some examples of subreddits whose target audience differs from reddit’s young adult male demographics.
Non-Young Adult Male Targeted Subreddits
Name |
Subscribers |
Description |
165k |
“Thoughtful content — serious or silly — related to gender, and intended for women’s perspectives.” |
|
150k |
Makeup tutorials, product recommendations, related musings and more. |
|
128k |
Questions for women about behavior, anatomy, habits or anything else. |
|
40k |
Fitness-related content for female redditors. |
|
30k |
“A place for discussions for and by lesbians.” |
|
13k |
Transgender news, issues and discussions. |
|
12k |
“A community for redditors that are starting to get that ‘get off my lawn’ feeling whenever they check their front page.” |
|
3k |
“For people who are mature and / or over 30 and tired of all the crap posts by kids in reddit.” |
|
2k |
redditors looking to meet other redditors over the age of 30. |
5. Subreddit Surveys
Occasionally subreddits will run demographics and interests surveys to give the community a better idea of its makeup, especially because the majority of reddit users are anonymous, and there’s no profile section for users to describe themselves. Searching reddit for “r/[subreddit name] survey results” will likely return survey results for that subreddit (e.g. “r/Europe survey results”), although the specific syntax sometimes varies.
Related posts:
- [PDF] Respectful Reddit Marketing
- Reddit Case Study: Crypt Of The NecroDancer
- Reddit Case Study: World Of Warplanes’ Missed Opportunity
- Reddit Case Study: AR500 Armor
- Reddit Case Study: The Growing Haworth Chairs Thread
- Reddit Case Study: New Belgium Brewing’s Snapshot Wheat
- Reddit Case Study: Nissan And Amazon’s Big Box
- Reddit Case Study: Newcastle Brown Ale Super Bowl Campaign
- Reddit Ad Targeting And Relevancy
- Reddit’s Efforts Toward A Positive Advertising User Experience
- Some Reddit Research And Analytics Tools
- Reddit’s Vigilante Marketing Police: HailCorporate