Upvote Picks

Data study

What 233,272 Reddit comments reveal about what people actually buy

Most "best of" lists are guesses. We did the boring version instead: scanned 322,253 Reddit posts, collected 233,272 comments from 45 communities, and extracted 38,049 product mentions from them. Here is what those mentions actually say. Every number on this page is a raw count from that corpus, not an estimate. Journalists and writers are welcome to cite it.

Data last refreshed June 25, 2026. Updated as the corpus grows.

322,253 Reddit posts scanned
233,272 comments collected
38,049 product mentions extracted
45 communities
359 products with enough evidence to recommend

Finding 1

Reddit recommends far more than it warns

Of 36,379 clearly-directional mentions, 34,437 were endorsements and 1,942 were warnings. That is 95% positive, or about 17.7 endorsements for every warning. The internet's reputation for negativity does not hold up when people talk about gear they own: they mostly tell each other what to buy, not what to avoid.

95% endorsements 5% warnings

Finding 2

The most-mentioned products are boring and durable

The leaderboard is not gadgets. It is durable, boring stuff: pans, pliers, a toothbrush, a blender, a pressure cooker. The names that top it are the things people use constantly and keep for years, and a pair of Knipex pliers shows up so often it rivals anything in the data, which says a lot about who turns up to recommend things.

Finding 3

Kitchen and tools are where Reddit talks most

By mention volume, two categories pull away from the rest. Kitchen and tools each carry more owner discussion than audio, tech, or anything else. That is partly why our deepest guides start there.

Finding 4

One community dominates the conversation

r/Tools alone accounts for 8,783 product mentions, far ahead of any other community. After it, the conversation spreads across frugal, car, audio, cooking, and buy-it-for-life rooms.

Finding 5

The products that show up everywhere

A few items get recommended in communities that have nothing to do with each other. Blackout curtains tops this list, appearing across 8 distinct subreddits. When a product earns praise from people who agree on nothing else, that is the strongest signal in the data.

Finding 6

The most-defended cheap upgrade is a bidet attachment

Among sub-$50 items, nothing comes up more than a bidet attachment, with 217 mentions, often in threads that had nothing to do with bathrooms. It is the clearest example of the pattern across this whole dataset: the purchases people defend hardest are cheap, boring, and used every single day.

How to cite this

Use the data freely