Reddit Lead Intent Scoring: How to Rank Every Mention by Purchase Readiness

Most Reddit monitoring setups create alerts, not leads. A ping that says someone mentioned “project management software” in r/projectmanagement tells you almost nothing. Joke? Homework? Ready to buy this week?

Lead intent scoring answers one question: how ready is this person to buy? Everything else is a teaching comment or ignore.

This page is only the model. Sentiment vs buying language is covered in sentiment vs intent. The 30-day system that uses the score is the lead generation playbook.

Direct Answer: Rank Reddit mentions from 0–100 using five signals: question/recommendation language, competitor + pain in the same breath, timeline words, budget talk, and team/company context. Have humans work scores above about 60. Automate the math so a 50-mention day does not become a two-hour triage. ReddWise applies this style of ranking so your dashboard is a queue, not a firehose.

The 0–100 spectrum

| Score | Meaning | Example | | --- | --- | --- | | 0–20 | Noise or homework | “What is a CRM?” | | 21–40 | Awareness | “I’ve heard HubSpot is popular” | | 41–60 | Research | “Notion vs Linear for a 12-person team” | | 61–80 | Active buying | “Jira alternative, budget around $50/user” | | 81–100 | In motion | “Migrating off Asana next week, anyone on ClickUp?” |

Below 60: skip, or leave a short educational reply if it builds karma in a home subreddit. Above 60: a human should see it the same day.

The five signals

1. Question and recommendation shape
“Looking for,” “recommend,” “anyone use,” and a real question mark beat a rant with no ask.

2. Competitor + pain
“Sick of Asana’s pricing” is not a brand mention. It is an open door.

3. Timeline
“This week,” “need by Friday,” “starting evaluations” should add a large bonus. Reddit opportunities rot in hours.

4. Budget
“Under $100/month,” “we have budget,” “free tier is too limited” are buying vocabulary.

5. Org context
“My 10-person startup,” “company of 50,” “my team” beat personal-hobby phrasing for B2B.

A simple version you can implement in a spreadsheet or a script:

score = question_base + competitor_bonus + urgency + budget + team_factor

Cap at 100. Do not pretend the weights are science until you compare them to actual DMs.

How ReddWise uses the idea

ReddWise scores incoming mentions and surfaces the high-intent slice. The point is not a magic number. The point is that a founder spends 15 minutes on real threads instead of two hours on keyword coincidences.

Growth plans start at $39/month; Professional is $99/month if you track more workspaces. You still write the comment. Scoring without a human is how you recreate spam.

What to do when the score is high

Once a post is above ~70:

1. Read the whole thread (60 seconds)
2. Answer their scenario first
3. Name your product as one option
4. Add a fact, link to a genuine resource, or a caveat

The public goal is a DM. Closing lives in converting Reddit signals. If you are wiring this into an AI draft queue, see the AI SDR pipeline.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is intent scoring the same as sentiment analysis? No. Sentiment asks whether they like you. Intent asks whether they are in-market. A furious competitor rant can be score 90. A glowing off-topic joke can be score 10. Details in sentiment vs intent.

What score should an SDR actually touch? Start at 60 and raise it if the queue is still noisy. Lower it only if you have spare founder time and the category is tiny.

Can I do this in a spreadsheet? Yes, up to a few dozen mentions a day. After that you need software. That is the build vs buy line.

Will a high score make a promotional comment OK? No. High intent means the topic is right. You can still get removed for links, banned words, or a new account. Check rules first.

Does ReddWise publish the exact formula? Treat vendor scores as a ranking, then calibrate against your CRM. Your winning phrases will not match another company’s.

Stop triaging junk alerts. See high-intent Reddit mentions in ReddWise.