# How to set the relevance score for Reddit alerts

Canonical: https://redwatcher.com/how-to-set-a-relevance-score

**In short**

**Set Redwatcher's relevance score on the 0-to-100 slider in the Scoring section of Setup.**
Start at 70, raise it if too much arrives and lower it if good threads go unsent. Only the threads
that reach the score you set are sent. When a score is wrong, you say what was wrong and it becomes
a rule.

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 score you set starts at 70 on every new
project, which is one set of keywords, subreddits, rules and alert channels with a score of its own.

[Start free](https://app.redwatcher.com/signup) Seven days, no card. From $29 a month after.
[See pricing](/pricing)

## What the relevance score is

The relevance score is a number from 0 to 100 that Redwatcher gives every match. It says how closely
the thread fits what you want to hear about. A match is a new post or comment in one of your subreddits
that contains one of your keywords, and a subreddit is one of Reddit's communities, such as
r/smallbusiness. The score comes with its reasons, written under the thread, so you can read why a thread scored 94.
Every match, sent or not, is listed with its score and reasons in the inbox, the list in the app of
everything the project found.

Two threads can name the same brand and mean different things. In the example below, a thread where
someone is choosing an email tool with the budget stated scores 94, and a job post that names the
brand scores 24, because nobody in a job post is asking for anything you could answer, even though your keyword matched both.

![The Redwatcher inbox for an example project: a thread scored 94, a competitor comparison scored 88, and a job post scored 24 and skipped, each with the reasons underneath](img/product-inbox.png "**Every match carries its score and the reasons for it.** The Relevant, Skipped and All tabs count the threads on each side of the score you set.")

The score is judged against your scoring rules: sentences in your own words, such as *ignore threads
that are just job ads*, that say what you want to hear about and what you do not.

## Step 1: Find where the score threshold is set

The score lives on the Setup screen, the page in the app where a project's keywords, subreddits,
rules and alert channels are edited. Open Setup and go to the Scoring section. The score is a slider
from 0 to 100 that moves in steps of 5, with buttons underneath for 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90. A change is
saved when you let go of the slider.

The first setup, which runs when you create a project, does not ask for a number. Its scoring step,
*How picky should we be?*, asks only for rules, and the project starts at 70. The slider is on the
Setup screen, not in the first setup, because a score is easier to choose once your inbox already has
scored threads to look at.

![Redwatcher's scoring step during setup, asking how picky the scoring should be, with rules written in plain language and two suggested rules to add](img/product-scoring-setup.png "**The scoring step of the first setup.** Rules in your own words, with suggestions drawn from your site.")

## Step 2: Start at 70

Leave the score at 70 for the first few days, because the Setup screen describes the range from 70
to 85 as "A balance between signal and volume." A few days of scored
threads in the inbox then show which way to move it. The table lists the line the screen shows under
the slider for each range, and those lines are the quickest way to see what changes when you raise or lower the score.

| Score you set | What the Setup screen says | What arrives |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 90 to 100 | "Only the strongest matches. You'll hear from us rarely." | Threads that fit what you described almost exactly |
| 70 to 85 | "A balance between signal and volume." | Threads that fit, with fewer passing mentions than at 50 to 65 |
| 50 to 65 | "Anything clearly related, including passing mentions." | More threads, including ones that only mention you |
| 0 to 45 | "Everything that matches a word. Expect noise." | Close to every match of your keywords |

## Step 3: Move the score by what arrives

Raise the score when too much arrives, and lower it when good threads are left unsent. Move it by 5
or 10 at a time, so you can tell which change caused what you see.

On Telegram or Slack, each thread that is sent is one message, and so one notification on your phone.
A lower score means more of those. Email gets one message per check, carrying the threads from that
check, so a lower score makes each email longer. A check is one pass over your subreddits, and
Redwatcher runs them around the clock, multiple times every hour. A webhook, which posts each thread
as data to a URL you give, also gets one message per thread.

## Step 4: Read what stays in the inbox

Everything below the score stays in the inbox and is counted. The inbox's Relevant tab holds the threads that
reach the score you set, Skipped holds the ones below it, and All holds both, each with its count.

The inbox also has its own score filter in the top right, shown as *Score ≥ 70*. That filter changes
which threads you see on the screen and nothing else. What is sent is decided only by the score on
the Setup screen, so moving the inbox filter to look at lower threads leaves your alerts as they were.

Read the Skipped tab once a day in the first week. A good thread sitting there tells you the score is
set too high, or that a rule is missing.

## Step 5: Correct a wrong score into a rule

When a score is wrong, you say what was wrong and it becomes a rule. In the inbox, the flag beside a
thread's score opens the correction, and every alert carries a Wrong scoring link that does the same.
You choose whether the score was too high or too low and write what was wrong in a sentence.

Redwatcher writes your sentence into your scoring rules, re-scores that thread, and judges every later
match against the new rule. The rules made this way are listed in the Scoring section of the Setup
screen, next to the ones you wrote, where you can edit them by hand.

![A thread scored 94 being corrected as too high, and the correction saved as a scoring rule, with the thread re-scored to 38](img/product-scoring.png "**A wrong score, corrected into a rule.** The buyer's budget is under the example vendor's starting price, so 94 was too high. The thread is re-scored to 38 and the rule applies to every later match.")

Changing the score and writing a rule work differently. A new score applies to every thread. A rule
changes the score of one kind of thread, such as job posts or buyers below your price, and leaves the
others as they were.

## What a good first week looks like

A good first week ends on a score where the threads that arrive are worth opening and the Skipped tab
holds nothing you would have wanted.

Day one is often quiet. Redwatcher reads new threads from the moment setup finishes, so the first
scores come from threads posted after that.

When a thread is on the wrong side, correct it before you move the score.

## What to do when nothing arrives, too much arrives, or good threads score low

When nothing arrives, look at the Skipped tab and lower the score if good threads are there. When too
much arrives, correct the threads that should not have been sent before you raise the score.

**Nothing arrives.** If the Skipped tab is empty too, the score is not the cause: the subreddits are quiet or the keywords are too
narrow, and the Stats screen in the app shows how many posts and comments were read in each subreddit.

**Too much arrives.** If the threads that should not have been sent share one word, such as *hiring*, add it to the words to ignore, which drops every thread containing it before it is
scored. Raise the score after that if the volume is still too high.

**Good threads score low again and again.** The rules do not yet say what you want. Correct one as too
low and write what made it worth sending.

[Start free](https://app.redwatcher.com/signup) Seven days, no card. From $29 a month after.
[The full setup guide](/how-to-set-up-reddit-alerts)

## What it costs, and whether there is a free way

Redwatcher has no free plan: it costs $29 a month per project for 25 keywords and 25 subreddits, $49 for 50 of each, and
$89 for 100 of each, and every project starts with a seven-day trial that takes no card. Scoring, your
own rules and corrections are on every plan, with no charge per mention, and the score can be changed
as often as you like. Every competitor you track counts as one keyword, and team members are free.
To do it for free, you search the subreddits yourself and judge every thread by hand. Prices from [redwatcher.com/pricing](/pricing), read on 3 October 2026.

## How this guide was checked

Redwatcher wrote this guide about its own product. On 3 October 2026 we read the prices on
redwatcher.com/pricing and the app's own code for the score: its range of 0 to 100, its steps of 5,
the buttons for 50 to 90, the starting value of 70, that a change is saved when the slider is
released, the line the Setup screen shows for each range, that the inbox's score filter does not
change what is sent, that the first setup does not ask for a score, and what a correction writes into
the scoring rules. The screenshots are
Redwatcher's own screens with example data, and the scores in them belong to that example. We did not
read any Reddit page for this guide, because the score is a Redwatcher setting. We did not measure how many threads arrive at each score, because that depends on your keywords
and subreddits.

## Relevance score settings: questions people ask

### What is a relevance score on a Reddit alert?
A relevance score is the number from 0 to 100 that Redwatcher gives each keyword match. It says how
closely the thread fits what you want to hear about, and the reasons are written under it. Only the
threads that reach the score you set are sent to email, Slack, Telegram or webhook. Matches below it
stay in the inbox, where they are counted and can still be read.

### What score should I start with?
Start at 70, which is the value every new Redwatcher project begins with. The Setup screen describes
that range as "A balance between signal and volume." Leave the score there for a few days, read what
arrives and what was skipped, and then move it by 5 or 10 at a time in whichever direction the inbox
shows you need.

### Does a lower relevance score send more alerts?
A lower score sends more threads, because more matches reach it. On Telegram, Slack and webhook each
thread is one message, so a lower score means more notifications. Email gets one message per check,
carrying the threads from that check, so a lower score makes each email longer. Raising the score
sends fewer threads and keeps the rest in the inbox.

### What happens to threads that score below the setting?
Threads below the score you set are not sent. Redwatcher keeps them in the inbox under the Skipped
tab, with their score, their reasons and a count, so you can see how much was held back. A skipped
thread can be corrected as scored too low, and the correction becomes a rule for every later match.

### Can I set a different score for each keyword?
Redwatcher has one score per project, which applies to every keyword in it. A rule written in plain
language can raise or lower the score of one kind of thread, such as posts naming a competitor. To give a separate
set of keywords its own score, put them in a second project, which has its own plan from $29 a month.

### Where do I change the score after setup?
The score is changed in the Scoring section of the Setup screen, on a slider from 0 to 100 in steps of
5, with buttons for 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90. A change is saved when you let go. The score filter in the
inbox only changes what you see on that screen, not what is sent.

/how-to-get-reddit-notifications-for-keywords | How to get Reddit notifications for keywords | Keywords, subreddits, the score, and the app that notifies your phone.
/how-to-write-reddit-monitoring-rules | How to write Reddit monitoring rules | The sentences the score is judged against, and how to word them.
/how-to-set-up-reddit-alerts-in-slack | How to set up Reddit alerts in Slack | One message per thread in the channel you pick.
/reddit-alerts | Reddit alerts | What a scored alert contains, and the four places it can go.
/reddit-keyword-alerts | Reddit keyword alerts | What counts as a keyword, spellings, and words to ignore.
/pricing | What it costs | The plans, what each one includes, and how keywords and subreddits are counted.

---

*Reddit is a trademark of Reddit, Inc. Redwatcher is not affiliated with or endorsed by Reddit, Inc.*

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