F5Bot review: what it does, what it costs and its limits

Updated 19 September 2026

F5Bot's own FAQ says it is built for fairly uncommon keywords, and that a very popular brand may need a different tool. If the name you want to watch comes up often, read that line and the daily caps before you sign up.

Redwatcher is a Reddit monitoring tool. Tracks keywords, brand mentions and competitors across the subreddits you choose, scores every match for relevance, and alerts by email, Slack, Telegram or webhook around the clock. From $29/month per project. The F5Bot alternative page puts the two side by side.

What does F5Bot do?

F5Bot sends you an email when a keyword you gave it appears in a new post or comment on Reddit, Hacker News or Lobsters. You type in the words, it checks the three sites every few minutes, and the alert links you to the thread. That is the whole product on the $0 tier. The paid tiers add faster delivery, more keywords, filtering flags, AI filtering, Slack and Discord delivery, RSS and JSON feeds, and an API on the two top tiers.

Its home page lists four uses: brand monitoring, competitor tracking, lead generation, and seeing when your blog post or open-source project is shared. Its FAQ adds a fifth, which is watching for your own website's address being posted. Read from f5bot.com, f5bot.com/faq and f5bot.com/tiers on 18 September 2026.

How does F5Bot work?

F5Bot matches the keywords you add, exactly as typed, against submission titles, URLs and comment bodies on the three sites, every few minutes. Everything below is from f5bot.com/faq and f5bot.com/tiers, read on 18 September 2026.

• Keywords match regardless of capitalisation. There are no wildcards and no regular expressions.
• A keyword can carry flags. whole makes it match complete words only, only-url=/r/name limits it to a subreddit, no-url=/r/name excludes one, no-comments limits it to posts, and no-posts limits it to comments. Filtering flags are a paid feature on every tier above $0.
• Every tier has two daily caps: how many alerts one keyword may send in 24 hours, and how many the whole account may send. A keyword that goes over its cap is switched off until you turn it back on from your account.
• A keyword that is too common is rejected on the $0 tier. Paid tiers remove that restriction.
• Alerts arrive by email on every tier. Paid tiers add scheduled delivery at set times of day, grouping several keywords into one email, and, from $49.99, delivery into a Slack or Discord channel through a webhook URL.
• AI filtering, from $49.99, lets you describe what you want in a sentence instead of a keyword, and the service judges each new post against it.

How do you use F5Bot?

Create an account with an email address, add your keywords, and wait for the first email. That is the three-step setup on its home page, and no card is asked for on the $0 tier.

1. Sign up at f5bot.com with an email address.
2. Add a keyword. Add whole if the word is also part of longer words, and only-url=/r/name for each subreddit you want it limited to. Both flags need a paid tier.
3. Post the keyword in r/test, the subreddit its FAQ points to, if you want to see an alert arrive. The FAQ says to expect the email a couple of minutes later.
4. If a keyword stops sending alerts, check whether it went over its daily cap and was switched off. It stays off until you re-enable it.

Read from f5bot.com, f5bot.com/faq and f5bot.com/tiers on 18 September 2026.

Is F5Bot free?

F5Bot has a $0 tier, and its FAQ says it is intended for personal use. On 18 September 2026 its tier grid, f5bot.com/tiers, gave that tier 5 keywords, 10 alerts per keyword per day and 20 alerts a day in total, delivered within two hours, with ads in the emails. It has no keyword filtering flags, no full post text, no alert grouping, and it rejects common words. Business use starts at $9.99 a month, and the FAQ says the paid plans are what fund the service.

What does F5Bot cost?

$9.99, $49.99 or $214.99 a month, or from $500 a month on a custom plan, on top of the $0 personal-use tier. Paying yearly gives one month free on each paid tier. Read from f5bot.com/tiers on 18 September 2026.

The grid's own footnote says AI filtering includes the first $10 a month of token usage, and that anything you use above that is billed on top of the plan. Read on 18 September 2026.

What are F5Bot's limits?

Popular keywords, according to its own FAQ. The FAQ, f5bot.com/faq, read on 18 September 2026, says: "F5Bot is designed to alert you about fairly uncommon keywords or phrases. If you're trying to monitor a very popular brand, this might not be the right tool for you." The rest of the list is from the tier grid, f5bot.com/tiers, and the FAQ, read the same day.

• On the $0 and $9.99 tiers, F5Bot sends every keyword match without judging it. If the keyword appears, you get the email, and it is up to you to open the thread and decide whether it matters. From $49.99, AI filtering judges each post against a description you write, and that tier allows two descriptions.
• The daily cap per keyword switches the keyword off. 10 alerts on the $0 tier, 30 at $9.99, 100 at $49.99. Past that, the keyword stops until you turn it back on.
• Faster alerts cost more. Within two hours at $0, within five minutes at $9.99, instant from $49.99.
• Slack and Discord start at $49.99, and that tier gives you one channel. The $214.99 tier gives you three.
• The tier grid lists one keyword limit and one daily cap per keyword, with no separate numbers for Reddit, Hacker News or Lobsters.
• Email is the only way alerts arrive on the $0 and $9.99 tiers. RSS and JSON feeds start at $49.99, and a webhook or the API at $214.99.

Is F5Bot worth it?

If you want to watch one uncommon word for a personal project, and a two-hour wait and ads in the email do not bother you, the $0 tier is what F5Bot says it is for. For a business term, a brand name or a product that people mention often, three things get in the way: the daily caps, the fact that it sends every match without judging it, and its own FAQ saying it is not the right tool for a very popular brand.

What should you use instead of F5Bot?

Redwatcher, if you want the match judged before it reaches you. It watches the subreddits you choose for your keywords, brand and competitors, scores every post and comment from 0 to 100 with the reasons written out, and sends only the matches that score above the level you set. There is no daily cap and no per-keyword cap, alerts arrive at the same speed on every plan, and email, Slack, Telegram and a signed webhook are included on every plan. Price is per project: $29 a month for 25 keywords and 25 subreddits, $49 for 50 and 50, and $89 for 100 and 100.

Redwatcher monitors Reddit only, and it has no $0 tier: the trial is seven days with no card, then $29 a month.

Read from f5bot.com/tiers and redwatcher.com/pricing on 18 September 2026.

The F5Bot alternative page goes through the same choice row by row and says which one to pick. The ranked list covers the other tools people move to.

What other questions do people ask about F5Bot?

What does F5Bot do?

F5Bot emails you when one of your keywords appears in a new post or comment on Reddit, Hacker News or Lobsters. You add the words, it checks the three sites every few minutes, and each email links to the thread. Its home page lists brand monitoring, competitor tracking, lead generation and tracking your own content as the uses. Read from f5bot.com on 18 September 2026.

How does F5Bot work?

F5Bot matches the keywords you add, exactly as typed and ignoring capitalisation, against submission titles, URLs and comment bodies on Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters, every few minutes. Flags such as whole, only-url and no-url narrow a keyword on paid tiers. Every tier caps how many alerts a keyword may send per day, and a keyword over its cap is switched off until you re-enable it. Read from f5bot.com/faq on 18 September 2026.

How do you use F5Bot?

Sign up at f5bot.com with an email address, add a keyword, and wait for the first email. Its home page describes those three steps and says no card is needed on the $0 tier. To limit a keyword to one subreddit, add the only-url=/r/name flag, which needs a paid tier. To see an alert arrive, its FAQ suggests posting your keyword in r/test, the subreddit it points to, and expecting an email a couple of minutes later. Read from f5bot.com and f5bot.com/faq on 18 September 2026.

Is F5Bot free?

F5Bot has a $0 tier that its FAQ says is intended for personal use. On 18 September 2026 its tier grid at f5bot.com/tiers gave it 5 keywords, 10 alerts per keyword per day, 20 alerts a day in total, delivery within two hours, ads in the emails, and no filtering flags, full post text or alert grouping. It also rejects common words. Business use starts on the $9.99 tier.

How much does F5Bot cost?

$9.99 a month for Silver, $49.99 for Gold, $214.99 for Platinum, and from $500 a month for Diamond, with a $0 personal-use tier below them. Yearly plans are $109, $549 and $2,364, and each of them gives you one month free. AI filtering on Gold and Platinum includes $10 a month of usage and bills anything above that on top. Read from f5bot.com/tiers on 18 September 2026.

Does F5Bot monitor Reddit comments?

Yes. F5Bot's FAQ says it scans both submissions and comments, and a keyword can carry the no-comments flag to match posts only or the no-posts flag to match comments only. The FAQ says it searches submission titles, URLs and comment bodies, so a keyword may match in a URL or a title without appearing in the body text. Read from f5bot.com/faq on 18 September 2026.

Can F5Bot send alerts to Slack?

Yes, from the $49.99 Gold tier, which includes one Slack or Discord integration, set up by pasting a webhook URL on the account page. Platinum at $214.99 includes three. The $0 and $9.99 tiers are email only. RSS and JSON feeds also start at $49.99, and the API and outgoing webhooks at $214.99. Read from f5bot.com/tiers on 18 September 2026.

Can F5Bot watch only certain subreddits?

Yes, with the only-url=/r/name flag on a keyword, repeated once per subreddit, and the no-url=/r/name flag to exclude one. F5Bot's FAQ notes that combining only-reddit with only-url matches all of Reddit, because any only- flag that applies makes a match valid. Keyword filtering flags need a paid tier, from $9.99. Read from f5bot.com/tiers on 18 September 2026.

What happens when an F5Bot keyword goes over its daily cap?

The keyword is switched off. Each tier caps how many alerts one keyword may send in 24 hours, 10 on the $0 tier and 30, 100 and 500 on the paid tiers, and how many the whole account may send. A keyword over its cap stops until you re-enable it from your account. In the same paragraph, F5Bot's FAQ says it is designed for fairly uncommon keywords or phrases. Read from f5bot.com/tiers and f5bot.com/faq on 18 September 2026.

Is F5Bot good for monitoring a popular brand?

F5Bot's own FAQ says it may not be: "If you're trying to monitor a very popular brand, this might not be the right tool for you." A brand mentioned more than 10 times a day goes over the $0 tier's cap and the keyword switches off, and every alert that does arrive is a plain keyword match, so you decide whether the thread matters. Redwatcher scores each match first and has no cap, from $29 a month. Read from f5bot.com/faq and f5bot.com/tiers on 18 September 2026.

What is F5Bot's AI filtering?

A paid feature, from the $49.99 tier, that matches on a description written in plain language instead of an exact keyword, so you can ask for "people looking for a new email tool" and the service judges each new post against it. Gold allows two such filters and Platinum five. The first $10 a month of AI usage is included and the rest is billed on top of the plan. Read from f5bot.com/tiers on 18 September 2026.

Who runs F5Bot?

F5Bot LLC, which has run the service since 2017 according to its own site. The FAQ says it began as a tool its developer made for personal use and then shared, with the $0 tier kept for personal use and the paid plans funding the service. The home page says it sends over 430,000 alerts a day, which is F5Bot's own figure. Read from f5bot.com on 18 September 2026.

What is the difference between F5Bot and Redwatcher?

F5Bot sends every keyword match by email, caps how many a keyword may send per day, and covers Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters, from $0 for personal use and $9.99 for business. Redwatcher covers Reddit only, watches the subreddits you choose, scores every match from 0 to 100 before sending it, has no daily alert cap and no per-keyword cap, and includes every alert channel on every plan, from $29 a month per project. Read from f5bot.com/tiers and redwatcher.com/pricing on 18 September 2026.

Redwatcher is not affiliated with F5Bot.