Reddit · Restricted verticals · Investing and trading

How brokers, trading apps and wealth managers can advertise on Reddit.

Investment products are a restricted vertical on Reddit, so brokers, trading apps, robo-advisers and wealth managers go through a managed account and a license check per market. This is what gets checked, what you send and how the cost works.

What counts

Reddit treats these as restricted.

Which vertical you are in is settled at step one: banking, insurance, credit, investment and crypto; real-money gambling and lotteries; prescription drugs, telemedicine, devices, pharmacies and clinical trials. Some adjacent products, like basic supplements, fall outside all of this and buy Reddit ads the ordinary way.

Getting verified

How brokers, trading apps and wealth managers get approved, step by step.

Nothing here is a favour or a shortcut. It is the route Reddit provides for licensed advertisers, and it is mostly paperwork done in the right order. The first two steps cost you nothing.

  1. 1ApplyTwo minutes: your vertical, the markets you want, the licenses you already hold, and your site. No license numbers and no documents at this stage.
  2. 2We pre-check you against the license mapFor each market you named, we check the regulator Reddit verifies against and tell you which markets are open to you now, which need a license you do not yet hold, and which are closed whatever you hold. Most applications get that answer within three business days, with a free audit of the opportunity attached. If nothing is open for you, we say so and you have spent nothing.
  3. 3You fill in the document packA short set of forms: legal entity details, the license number and issuing regulator for each market, the landing pages the ads would point to, and the creative you have in mind. A few products, NFTs and some crypto offers among them, add Reddit's own diligence questionnaire.
  4. 4Vertical approval with Reddit's agency teamThe pack goes to Reddit's agency team, who run the vertical approval alongside the account setup. That review is theirs and so is its timing. We submit it, chase it, and tell you where it stands each week.
  5. 5The managed account opensCampaigns run on a managed agency account alongside Reddit's agency team. That is the account type these verticals are approved on, and it is the part most advertisers cannot arrange for themselves.
  6. 6Creative written to the vertical's rulesNo guaranteed returns, no approval promises, no health outcome claims. Every ad is checked against the vertical's rules before it is submitted, so review is a formality rather than a round of rejections.
  7. 7Track and report as usualReddit Pixel and Conversions API, qualified leads, and a weekly scorecard. Approved does not mean unmeasured.

What gets checked

What Reddit and the regulators look for.

Where you can run

Finance and crypto advertising is open in 44 countries.

The main markets and who licenses them. A country not on Reddit’s list is closed, whatever you hold. Last confirmed with Reddit’s agency team .

CountryRegulators
USCFTC, FINRA, FinCEN, NCUA, NFA, OCC, SEC, NAIC, or relevant state licenses
UKFCA, PRA
CanadaFINTRAC, OSFI
AustraliaAPRA, ASIC, AUSTRAC
GermanyBaFin, MiCA
FranceACPR, AMF, MiCA, Orias
NetherlandsAFM, DNB, MiCA
SpainBDE, CNMV, DGSFP, MiCA

Prohibited for core financial and crypto products: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, India, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Turkey and Vietnam. NFT products or giveaways may be possible there, subject to strict legal approval and a diligence questionnaire. All 44 countries →

What it costs

Free to find out. A fixed fee to run.

Campaigns run on a managed agency account alongside Reddit's agency team, who handle the vertical approval with the account setup, targeting and optimisation. You keep full visibility of spend and results, and the ad spend is billed to you by Reddit.

Worth it?

The Reddit opportunity for brokers, trading apps and wealth managers.

Where your buyers talk on Reddit, and what to say →

Start here

Apply for the pre-check. The audit comes with it, free.

The pre-check answers one question: given your licenses and the markets you sell in, can you run Reddit ads at all, and where. We answer that within three business days for most applications. When the answer is yes, an audit of the opportunity comes with it, built the way we build them for paying clients, with Reddit's agency team. There is no fee for either and no commitment at the end of them.

What the audit includes

  • The license verdict, market by market. Which of your products fall in a restricted vertical, which markets are open to you today, which regulator Reddit would check, and what is missing.
  • A community map. The subreddits your buyers are actually in, with deduplicated reach and screenviews for the last 30 days, from Reddit's own planner rather than our guess.
  • Keyword and interest targeting. The search terms and interest categories, grouped the way the campaign would use them.
  • A campaign structure. Objective, geo, flight, and which single conversion the campaign should optimise toward, with the reasoning for choosing that one over the more valuable but rarer action.
  • Three spend scenarios. Reddit's own delivery estimates at each budget: impressions, clicks and conversions, including the smallest spend that can still learn anything.
  • Benchmarks for your category. CPM, CTR, CPC and CPA from recent auction activity, marked clearly as planning benchmarks and not promises.
  • A measurement plan. The conversion events to fire, the Pixel and Conversions API setup, and the CRM field that decides whether the test worked.
  • Four creative directions. Written headlines, body copy and calls to action for each, mocked up as real Reddit ads.
  • Success criteria and one decision metric. What good looks like at day 30, and the single number you judge it on.

About a week from a complete application, and it is yours whether or not you work with us.

No documents yet. Three business days for most applications.

Questions this answers

What people ask before they call.

Can a trading app advertise on Reddit?

Yes, in the listed markets, through a managed account and with the regulator's license for each: FINRA or SEC registration in the US, FCA authorisation in the UK, and so on. Required risk warnings go in the creative. Promises of returns are not allowed.

Can CFD and forex brokers run Reddit ads?

In markets where they are licensed, yes, with the risk warning regulators require for leveraged products. Some markets on Reddit's prohibited list close the vertical entirely, including India, Japan, Brazil and Turkey. The pre-check tells you which of your markets are open.

Can a wealth manager or financial adviser advertise on Reddit?

Yes, with the adviser registration each market requires. In the US that usually means SEC or state registration, and the ad follows the marketing rules that apply to advisers, such as how performance and testimonials may be shown.

Updated

Other restricted verticals

Find out whether brokers, trading apps and wealth managers like yours can run.

Apply for the pre-check and we tell you which of your markets are open, within three business days for most applications. Prefer to talk it through first? Fifteen minutes, no deck, no prep.