• by Colin Kirkland , September 25, 2023

As part of its new contributor program, Reddit is pledging to award its users actual money for the “karma” and “gold” internet points they have accumulated. The platform also announced that it will be replacing its previous Reddit Gold system with new ways of celebrating fellow redditors.

“Fake internet points are finally worth something! Now redditors can earn real money for their contributions to the Reddit community, based on the karma and gold they've been given,” the company wrote on Monday in a blog post.

Eligible creators will now be able to convert their gold and karma (how many upvotes creators receive on a post) into money that is paid out once per month.

The program is currently available to users in the United States. They must be over 18 years old, able to verify their identity via Persona and Stripe and have had their account for over 30 days. Only safe-for-work posts can be monetized.

“Top contributors make top dollar,” the company wrote. “The more karma and gold contributors earn, the more money they can receive.

To cash in, redditors need to earn at least 10 gold within a 30 day period or else their balance rolls over. Redditors with anywhere between 100 and 4,999 karma will receive $.09 per 1 gold. Once a creator earns over 5,000 karma they are able to earn $1 per gold.

Reddit has also decided to officially change its system for awarding creators gold.

“Many don't appreciate the clutter from awards (50+ awards right now, but who's counting?) and all the steps that go into actually awarding content. Second, redditors want awarded content to be more valuable to the recipient,” the company wrote in July. “It’s become clear that awards and coins as they exist today need to be re-thought, and the existing system sunsetted.”

“Rewarding content and contribution (as well as something golden) will still be a core part of Reddit,” the company added.

Now, two months later, that day has finally come. Reddit has done away with its additional awards, like silver, platinum, ternium, argentium etc. including awards created specifically for individual subreddits.

Under the new system, users can buy gold by long-pressing an upvote button (on mobile) or hovering over it on desktop. The company is also introducing six options to award gold. For $1.99, users can buy one gold. The price increases incrementally up to $49 for 25 gold.

The new gold system began rolling out Monday and will be available on Reddit's native mobile apps in select communities. The feature will become available on the web “later this year.”