How to get your first SaaS customers from Reddit and Hacker News on a budget
By MentionLeads · July 24, 2026 · 7 min read
In short: The cheapest way to get early SaaS customers from Reddit and Hacker News is to monitor specific problem phrases, prioritize posts showing active buying intent, and write useful replies that naturally disclose your product. Start manually with native search, HN search, and a spreadsheet; only pay for monitoring software once checking multiple searches every day becomes tedious. Do not spray links—help solve the stated problem, then offer your SaaS only when it is a credible next step.
The cheap way to get early customers for my saas from reddit and hacker news is not launching one promotional post and hoping it takes off. It is a repeatable conversation workflow: find people already discussing the pain, judge whether they might buy, contribute something useful, and continue the conversation privately only if they invite it. This costs time rather than ad spend and gives you direct language for improving your product, positioning, and onboarding.
What is the cheapest customer acquisition setup for a new SaaS?
Use free search tools and a spreadsheet until the process proves it can produce conversations. Create saved searches around the problem, alternatives, failed solutions, and buying questions your SaaS addresses. Check them once or twice a day, record promising threads, and reply from a real founder account.
| Setup | Best for | Tradeoff |
|---|---|---|
| Native Reddit and HN search | Testing a market for free | Easy to miss threads or find them late |
| Search alerts plus a spreadsheet | Tracking a focused keyword list | Requires daily sorting and follow-up |
| MentionLeads | Monitoring Reddit, X, and Hacker News at higher volume | Costs money, so it is unnecessary for a tiny search list |
A manual setup is often enough for your first few customers. Automation becomes useful after you know which phrases indicate real demand and which ones only create noise.
How do I find people on Reddit and Hacker News who might buy my SaaS?
Search for the language customers use before they know your product exists. Product-category keywords help, but pain phrases and requests for alternatives usually reveal stronger opportunities.
- Search problem phrases such as struggling with, tired of, how do you handle, and is there a tool for.
- Search buying phrases such as looking for, recommendations, alternative to, worth paying for, and what do you use.
- Include competitor names with terms such as expensive, missing, unreliable, cancelled, or self-hosted.
- On Reddit, identify a small set of subreddits where practitioners discuss the workflow rather than broad startup communities.
- On Hacker News, search Ask HN threads, product discussions, and comments mentioning the problem. A thoughtful reply inside an existing discussion can be more credible than a launch post.
Keep a simple sheet with the thread URL, date, platform, pain, intent, response status, and next follow-up. Exclude old threads unless the discussion is still active; arriving early usually matters more than producing a polished pitch.
Which Reddit and Hacker News posts show real buyer intent?
Score the situation, not just the keyword. A person asking for a recommendation with a deadline and a current workaround is more valuable than someone casually debating an industry trend.
| Signal | What it suggests |
|---|---|
| Asking for a tool or recommendation | Direct category demand |
| Complaining about a current product | Possible switching intent |
| Describing a costly manual workaround | Pain exists, but budget still needs validation |
| Comparing prices or features | Active evaluation |
| General opinion or news discussion | Low immediate buying intent |
Prioritize threads where the problem is current, specific, and owned by the person posting. Deprioritize students doing research, hypothetical discussions, abandoned posts, and requests your product cannot honestly satisfy.
What should I write without sounding promotional?
Answer the useful part of the question before mentioning your SaaS. A strong reply usually has four parts: acknowledge the exact constraint, give one practical recommendation, explain a tradeoff, and disclose your connection if your product fits.
- Open with a specific observation about the poster's situation, not a generic compliment.
- Give advice they can use without buying anything from you.
- Mention your product in one or two sentences only after establishing relevance.
- Say clearly that you built it or work on it. Hidden affiliation damages trust.
A practical structure is: based on your stated constraint, I would try this approach first; watch out for this limitation; I built a tool that handles this part if you want to compare it. Do not paste the same response into several threads, force a demo request, or add a link when the product is only loosely related.
Should I use Reddit and Hacker News differently?
Yes. Reddit communities have local rules and distinct norms, so read recent posts and moderator guidance before participating. Some subreddits tolerate disclosed product suggestions in comments, while others remove any self-promotion; useful participation outside your own threads makes your account less transactional.
Hacker News responds better to technical clarity, direct experience, and honest limitations. Avoid sales language and explain how the product works, who it is for, and where it is not a fit. Use Show HN for something people can actually try, but do not treat launch-day attention as a substitute for answering ongoing Ask HN and comment discussions.
How do I turn a helpful comment into a customer?
Do not push every reply into a sales call. If someone asks a follow-up question, answer it in public so other readers benefit. If they request details, offer a short trial, onboarding help, or a direct conversation tied to their stated problem.
Track whether the person replied, visited, signed up, activated, and paid. When someone does sign up, ask what wording or comment caught their attention. That feedback shows which pains and search phrases deserve more monitoring.
Should I automate Reddit and Hacker News lead monitoring?
Automate collection and prioritization, not the relationship. A tool can watch many phrases, remove obvious noise, score likely buyer intent, and prepare a first draft; a human should still inspect the thread, edit the response, and post from their own account.
MentionLeads fits this workflow by finding high-intent conversations across Reddit, X, and Hacker News, scoring them, and drafting value-first replies for you to approve and post. It is a strong option if manual searches are causing slow responses or missed threads. If you only monitor five phrases in two communities, a spreadsheet is simpler and cheaper; this Reddit marketing tools guide can help you compare approaches.
What mistakes make this strategy fail?
- Monitoring broad words such as SaaS, AI, or productivity that produce large amounts of irrelevant discussion.
- Replying to every keyword match instead of filtering for a current problem and plausible buyer.
- Leading with a product link before answering the question.
- Pretending to be an unaffiliated customer or hiding that you built the product.
- Using identical AI-written comments that ignore community context.
- Measuring comment volume instead of qualified conversations, activated users, and paid customers.
The goal is not maximum visibility. It is a small number of relevant conversations where your experience or product genuinely helps.
How should I measure whether this channel is working?
Review results by search phrase and community each week. Track qualified threads found, useful replies posted, responses received, signups, activated users, and paying customers. Also record time spent so a channel producing conversations but no activation does not become an endless founder task.
Separate discovery from conversion. If you find few relevant threads, improve your keywords or communities. If people engage but do not sign up, inspect the offer and landing page; if they sign up but do not activate, the acquisition channel may be fine while onboarding needs work.
Frequently asked questions
Can I promote my SaaS directly on Reddit?
You can mention it where community rules allow and where it directly answers the question. Disclose that you built it, provide useful context, and accept that some communities prohibit promotional links. Consistent, non-promotional participation is safer than creating an account only to post your product.
Is Hacker News good for getting the first SaaS customers?
Hacker News can work well for technical, developer, founder, and business software, especially when you can explain the product with precision. It is less reliable for products unrelated to the audience. Treat it as a place to join relevant discussions and learn, not a guaranteed launch distribution channel.
How much should I spend before this works?
You can start with no software budget by using search, a spreadsheet, and your own time. Pay for monitoring only when you have validated the keywords and manual checking becomes a bottleneck. Your first investment should usually be faster, more thoughtful replies rather than more tools.
Start here
- Write ten search phrases: three pain phrases, three recommendation phrases, two competitor complaints, and two workaround phrases.
- Find five relevant subreddits and run the same searches across Ask HN stories and comments.
- Reply to three current, high-intent discussions with specific advice and transparent affiliation, then track responses and signups for a week.
If daily searching becomes repetitive or you keep finding conversations too late, try MentionLeads to monitor and prioritize relevant Reddit and Hacker News leads while keeping final replies under your control.