Reddit has announced that it will no longer display subscriber counts on subreddit pages, instead focusing on active engagement through new seven-day metrics to provide a more accurate representation of community activity.
The member count, previously located under the subreddit’s bio on desktop and at the top on mobile, is being removed. In its place, users will see two new metrics: the number of unique visitors to the subreddit in the past seven days (based on a rolling 28-day average) and the number of contributions (posts and comments, excluding those removed) made within the same period.
Reddit explained that this change aims to provide a more accurate representation of a subreddit’s activity. The company stated that member numbers “don’t tell the whole story” because many users lurk without actively participating. By emphasizing active participation, Reddit hopes to better reflect the platform’s focus on real-time conversations.
The move is also linked to Reddit’s ongoing efforts to improve moderation. The company believes that allowing moderators to oversee an unlimited number of large communities is unsustainable. The new visitor counts will be used to limit the number of high-traffic subreddits each moderator can manage, capping it at five communities with over 100,000 visitors. Subreddits with fewer than 100,000 visitors will not count towards this limit, and Reddit estimates that this change will affect only approximately 0.1% of active moderators.
While regular users will no longer see the total subscriber count, moderators can still access this information through subreddit insights. The announcement has received mixed reactions, with negative comments appearing on r/modnews. However, some users acknowledge that the new metrics could be useful for gauging a subreddit’s true activity level.
In summary, Reddit is prioritizing engagement metrics over subscriber counts to provide a clearer picture of subreddit activity and to improve moderation practices. The introduction of seven-day visitor and contribution metrics aims to highlight active participation and inform moderation limits for high-traffic communities.
