Reddit ads vs Facebook ads comes down to one honest question: do you need to reach a very specific niche, or do you need to reach a lot of people cheaply? Facebook is the reach machine. Reddit is the niche scalpel. They're built for different jobs, and picking wrong wastes money fast.
The core difference
Facebook (and Instagram, same ad system) has enormous reach and detailed behavioral targeting. Almost every adult is on it, and the algorithm is very good at finding people likely to act. That's why it's the default for local businesses.
Reddit is smaller and organized by interest. People gather in subreddits — r/homeimprovement, r/smallbusiness, r/woodworking — and you can advertise directly into those communities. If your customer lives in a specific niche, you can reach exactly them. If you sell something broad and local, that precision doesn't help you much.
What they cost
- Facebook: CPMs commonly $8-$18 depending on your area and audience. Deep targeting, huge inventory, easy to start with $10-$20/day.
- Reddit: Often cheaper CPMs, sometimes $3-$10, but smaller audiences and a crowd that's more skeptical of ads. Minimum daily spends apply per campaign.
Reddit's cheap clicks look attractive until you remember the audience is small and hard to sell to.
Reddit's real catch: the audience hates ads
Redditors are famously ad-resistant. A salesy ad gets mocked in the comments — publicly, under your ad. What works there is genuinely helpful, straight-talking content that respects how the community talks. If you can't write like a real person who knows the topic, skip it.
That's also Reddit's strength. When your offer truly fits a niche — a specialized tool, a B2B service, a hobby product — you're talking to people who actually care, and the low competition can pay off.
Facebook's real catch: everyone's there, so are your competitors
Reach is easy on Facebook. Standing out is not. Ad costs have climbed and the feed is crowded. You win with a sharp offer and creative that stops the scroll, not by just "boosting a post."
For most local service businesses — cleaners, contractors, salons, detailers — Facebook is the better bet simply because your customers are there and the targeting can be pinned to your service area. Reddit rarely helps a plumber.
Which one for you
- Local service business: Facebook, almost always. Reach and geo-targeting beat niche precision.
- Niche product or B2B: Reddit is worth a test, especially if there's an active subreddit full of your buyers.
- Tight budget and broad offer: Facebook, so your money reaches enough people to learn from.
You don't have to choose forever
Plenty of businesses run Facebook as the workhorse and test Reddit for one specific product line. Just don't split a small budget across both on day one — you'll learn nothing from either. Start with the one that matches your customer, prove it works, then expand. Deciding how to divide money once you're ready is its own skill, and we walk through it in our guide on how to split your ad budget across platforms.
The trap with both is the same: it's not the platform that fails, it's mediocre creative and no follow-up on the leads. If you want the targeting, the writing, and the optimization handled for you, that's the work Arbor does when we manage your campaigns. And if you just want to see where your business stands online first, the free SEO and AI score is a no-obligation place to start.