Idea checked

A service that monitors Reddit and forums for people asking to buy custom software

There is clear demand for monitoring Reddit/forums for buyer intent, and a crowded but fragmented set of small tools already exists.

Confidence: medium — The signals include several first-hand HN posts and intent snippets, plus multiple small competitor projects and a few tool roundups. There are no strong download or revenue numbers for this exact niche, so the read is directional rather than precise.

78 signals collected
12s to run
2026-08-02

hackernews 17
github 15
githubissues nothing found
discourse 9
intent 2
stackexchange nothing found
registries 16
tavily 9
devto 10

2 sources came back empty — what that means

githubissues searched, nothing relevant found
stackexchange searched, nothing relevant found

Treat the report as weaker where a source is missing. Nothing here was substituted from somewhere else to fill the gap.

Interest over time From data

Hacker News stories mentioning monitors reddit forums, by year — 8 in total, currently rising.

0 2021
0 2022
0 2023
1 2024
5 2025
2 2026

This counts discussion on Hacker News, not global search demand. For developer tooling the two move together; for a local service business they do not.

Who is already building this From data

Needle is a live product with 2 HN points that searches Reddit, Hacker News, GitHub, and forums in one place, and the author says it is used to find potential customers, discover competitors, monitor keywords, and spot emerging problems.
- hackernews Show HN: Needle – Search Reddit, Hacker News, GitHub and Forums in One Place 2026-03-09
ForumScout is a live product with 6 HN points and 4 comments; it notifies users when chosen keywords are mentioned on any forum or Twitter thread.
- hackernews Show HN: Track live mentions of any keyword on any forum + Twitter 2024-07-23
SubSparks is a live solo-built product with 4 HN points that turns Reddit pain points into SaaS ideas.
- hackernews Show HN: SubSparks – I built an AI to turn Reddit pain points into SaaS ideas 2025-06-07
Replai is described as an AI tool that finds ideal customers on Reddit automatically and does smart monitoring of posts and comments.
- tavily I built an AI tool that finds your ideal customers on Reddit automatically
The market is also already covered by commercial tools like KWatch.io, Buska, Redreach, Syften, Brandwatch, SnitchFeed, Xpoz, Talkwalker, and Mention in comparison articles, with examples including Syften at $29+/mo and Xpoz offering 100K results per month on a free tier.
Open-source and side-project competitors exist too, such as ScraperDash, brand-sentiment-platform, customer-discovery-agent, and pss, all built to monitor Reddit, forums, and other social sources.

What people actually say From data

One builder said they were tired of spending weeks browsing Reddit threads, analyzing competitors, and hunting for user pain points instead of building.
- hackernews Show HN: I built a daily inspiration platform for indie developers 2025-07-14
Another said they kept jumping between Reddit, Hacker News, GitHub, and forums to understand what people were saying about problems and products.
- hackernews Show HN: Needle – Search Reddit, Hacker News, GitHub and Forums in One Place 2026-03-09
A user asking about automated social listening said the goal was to catch posts where people are actively asking for services you provide, but that current tools either create too much noise, miss buyer-intent posts, or break.
- hackernews Has anyone automated social listening for Reddit/LinkedIn/ with decent accuracy? 2025-12-09
A forum post on Reddit monitoring tools called out buying intent explicitly, saying these tools find people asking for tools, vendors, or workflows.
- tavily 13 Best Reddit Monitoring Tools in 2026 for Real-Time Alerts
A forum user said they had not been able to find anything in the forum or on Reddit or other sites, which pushed them to create an account and ask for help.
- discourse Trying to configure a climate control automation with Flair Smart Vents 2023-10-14

People asking to be sold to From data

There is direct intent to find buyer-demand posts, with one person saying they want to catch posts where people are actively asking for services they provide without spamming or low-quality scraping.
- hackernews Has anyone automated social listening for Reddit/LinkedIn/ with decent accuracy? 2025-12-09
A buyer-intent use case is spelled out in a tool comparison: finding people asking for tools, vendors, or workflows.
- tavily 13 Best Reddit Monitoring Tools in 2026 for Real-Time Alerts
Needle explicitly says people use it to find potential customers.
- hackernews Show HN: Needle – Search Reddit, Hacker News, GitHub and Forums in One Place 2026-03-09
ForumScout says that if you own a SaaS, you can get notified when someone mentions a relevant term and offer them a follow-up.
- hackernews Show HN: Track live mentions of any keyword on any forum + Twitter 2024-07-23
I did not find a clear explicit willingness-to-pay quote for this exact service in the signals.

Where the opening is Model estimate

The model's read of the signals below — not something anyone measured.

The signals suggest a gap in accuracy: people complain that existing tools produce too much irrelevant noise, miss real buyer-intent posts, or break under automation.
- hackernews Has anyone automated social listening for Reddit/LinkedIn/ with decent accuracy? 2025-12-09
There is a gap around low-noise detection of people asking for custom software specifically, not just generic brand mentions or keyword alerts.
- hackernews Has anyone automated social listening for Reddit/LinkedIn/ with decent accuracy? 2025-12-09
- tavily 13 Best Reddit Monitoring Tools in 2026 for Real-Time Alerts
The data does not show a clear gap in sources, because existing tools already cover Reddit, HN, GitHub, Twitter, forums, and niche communities.
The strongest possible wedge is probably workflow, not coverage: better filtering, lead qualification, and routing to the right founder or sales pipeline.

How big the market might be Model estimate

The model's read of the signals below — not something anyone measured.

This looks like a real niche with enough pain to support a small SaaS, but the signals do not prove a large market on their own.
The fact that several independent tools and clones exist suggests buyers are already paying for social listening, lead-gen, or intent detection in some form.
The market is probably broader than custom software leads because the same tooling also serves brand monitoring, competitor tracking, and customer discovery.

What could go wrong Model estimate

The model's read of the signals below — not something anyone measured.

Noise and false positives are a known problem, and one user said current tools either return too much irrelevant noise or miss buyer-intent posts.
- hackernews Has anyone automated social listening for Reddit/LinkedIn/ with decent accuracy? 2025-12-09
Platform dependence is a real risk because several products rely on Reddit and forums, and the signals include complaints about Reddit-related access and app changes in general.
There is already competition from both commercial tools and many small side projects, so differentiation will be hard.
Scraping and automation can break or get blocked, which is implied by the user saying tools break when they try to automate intent detection.
- hackernews Has anyone automated social listening for Reddit/LinkedIn/ with decent accuracy? 2025-12-09

What to do this week Model estimate

The model's read of the signals below — not something anyone measured.

Start with one narrow promise: detect posts where someone is asking to buy custom software, and ignore generic mentions and brand chatter.
- hackernews Has anyone automated social listening for Reddit/LinkedIn/ with decent accuracy? 2025-12-09
- tavily 13 Best Reddit Monitoring Tools in 2026 for Real-Time Alerts
Test against a small set of sources first, probably Reddit plus a few high-signal forums, because coverage is already crowded and the real issue appears to be precision.
Build a review queue with human-confirmed labels before adding more automation, since the main complaint is missed intent and noisy output.
- hackernews Has anyone automated social listening for Reddit/LinkedIn/ with decent accuracy? 2025-12-09
Pre-sell to founders and agencies already using Reddit for lead gen by showing a feed of real matched posts, not just keyword alerts.

Domain names From data

Checked live against the registry, built from the subject of the idea rather than the first words of the sentence. A literal check is a fact; a brandable suggestion would be noise.

monitorsreddit.com available
monitorsreddit.io available
monitors.com taken
getmonitors.com taken

Interest over time From data

Who is already building this From data

What people actually say From data

People asking to be sold to From data

Where the opening is Model estimate

How big the market might be Model estimate

What could go wrong Model estimate

What to do this week Model estimate

Domain names From data

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