F5Bot vs RedShip in 2026: free unscored alerts vs a scored inbox with a 7-day campaign pass
F5Bot emails you for free the instant your keywords appear on Reddit, Hacker News, or Lobsters, with no ranking attached. RedShip charges from $15 for a one-time pass and attaches a 0-100 relevance score plus SEO detection to every post it finds.
F5Bot
RedShip- F5Bot is free indefinitely. RedShip has no free tier, but offers a $15 one-time seven-day pass as its lowest-cost option, alongside $29/month and $79/month subscriptions.
- RedShip scores every discovered post from 0 to 100 for relevance. F5Bot delivers every keyword match unranked, leaving prioritization entirely to the person reading the alerts.
- RedShip includes SEO opportunity detection, flagging Reddit posts that already rank on Google. F5Bot has no equivalent feature and treats every platform match the same regardless of its reach beyond Reddit itself.
- F5Bot monitors Reddit, Hacker News, and Lobsters. RedShip is Reddit-only but adds AI-generated reply suggestions, which F5Bot does not offer at any tier.
- F5Bot delivers alerts within minutes as they happen. RedShip delivers a daily digest, trading alert speed for a filtered, scored inbox that is easier to act on once a day.
- F5Bot gates its REST API to the $58.33/month Ultra plan. RedShip gates API access to its $79/month Company plan, the most expensive tier either tool offers.
F5Bot and RedShip both watch Reddit for opportunities, but they hand you very different output. F5Bot is a raw feed: every keyword match becomes an email within minutes, unranked, unscored, and free, across Reddit, Hacker News, and Lobsters. RedShip is a curated one: every discovered Reddit post gets a 0-100 AI relevance score plus a flag for whether it is already ranking on Google, delivered as a daily digest rather than a stream of individual emails. RedShip has no free tier, but its $15 seven-day pass is one of the few time-boxed options in this category, a real alternative to F5Bot's always-free model for anyone running a short campaign rather than ongoing monitoring. The choice comes down to whether you want every mention with no editorial filter, or a ranked shortlist you pay for.
The tools at a glance
F5Bot
Know within minutes when your brand gets mentioned on Reddit, Hacker News, or Lobsters
F5Bot is a keyword alerting service, nothing more. Add your brand, product, or competitor terms, and it watches every post and comment across Reddit, Hacker News, and Lobsters, sending an email within minutes of a match. It has run since 2017, which is a meaningful track record for a monitoring tool people depend on to actually deliver.
The free tier is not a limited trial. It requires no credit card and covers the core job of real-time mention alerting. Paid tiers add advanced filtering by subreddit and co-occurring terms, RSS and JSON feeds, and on the Ultra plan, AI semantic alerts that match intent described in plain language, plus a full REST API with webhook delivery and Slack or Discord routing.
What F5Bot does not do is rank what it finds. Every match arrives with equal weight, so a low-signal mention and a genuine sales opportunity land in the same inbox, and it is on you to sort them. There is also no SEO angle: F5Bot treats a Reddit thread the same whether or not it ranks on Google.
| Feature | Free $0 | Power $14.17/mo | Ultra $58.33/mo | Enterprise Contact |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Platforms covered | Reddit, HN, Lobsters | Reddit, HN, Lobsters | Reddit, HN, Lobsters | Reddit, HN, Lobsters |
| Advanced filtering | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AI semantic alerts | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| REST API & webhooks | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Slack & Discord routing | No | No | Yes | Yes |
RedShip
AI Reddit monitoring with scored opportunities and SEO-intent detection
RedShip attaches a 0-100 AI relevance score to every Reddit post it discovers, turning monitoring into a ranked list instead of a raw feed you have to sort through by hand. Its SEO opportunity detection identifies posts already ranking on Google, framed as a two-for-one: engaging with a top-scored thread builds community presence and touches organic search visibility at the same time.
Pricing is built around how long you actually need coverage. The $79/month Company Plan scales to 15 keyword slots and API access, the $29/month Founder Plan suits a solo operator, and the $15 one-time seven-day pass is genuinely unusual in this category, most Reddit tools assume an open-ended subscription, and it fits a product launch or single campaign audit without a subscription lingering afterward.
The daily digest format trades speed for signal: rather than an email the moment a match appears, RedShip batches results once a day, sorted by score. That works well for teams checking in once daily but is a real difference from F5Bot's minute-by-minute delivery for anyone who needs to catch something the moment it posts.
| Feature | 7-Day Pass $15 one-time | Founder Plan $29/mo | Company Plan $79/mo |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI relevance scoring | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| SEO opportunity detection | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| AI reply suggestions | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Email and Slack alerts | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Webhook delivery | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Keyword slots | 3 | 5 | 15 |
| API access | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | F5Bot | RedShip |
|---|---|---|
| Primary function | Keyword mention monitoring and alerting | Scored Reddit monitoring with SEO detection |
| Platforms covered | Reddit, Hacker News, Lobsters | Reddit only |
| Free tier | Yes, genuinely functional, no credit card required | No |
| Relevance scoring | No, every match delivered unranked | Yes, 0-100 score per post |
| SEO / Google-ranking detection | No | Yes, core feature |
| AI reply suggestions | No | Yes (manual post, not auto-posted) |
| Alert delivery | Email within minutes (all plans), Slack/Discord on Ultra | Daily digest, plus email, Slack, and webhook |
| One-time / short-campaign pricing | No, subscription or free only | Yes ($15, 7 days) |
| API access | Yes, REST API on Ultra plan | Company plan only ($79/mo) |
| Starting price | Free | $15 one-time |
Which should you choose?
F5BotRedShipRedShipF5BotRedShipF5BotRedShipThe real difference is what happens after the alert lands. F5Bot hands you everything, unfiltered, the moment it happens, and free, so the cost is your own time spent triaging. RedShip charges for the alternative: a daily list already sorted by a 0-100 score with a Google-ranking flag attached, which is worth paying for once your keyword volume gets high enough that reading every F5Bot email stops being practical. Neither tool is wrong for its price point. A team with a handful of keywords and no urgency around SEO angle gets full value from F5Bot's free tier. A team drowning in low-signal matches, or running a short campaign that does not justify a monthly subscription, gets more out of RedShip's scoring and its $15 pass.
Bottom line
Start with F5Bot if your keyword volume is manageable and you do not mind sorting matches yourself, since the free tier genuinely works and covers Hacker News and Lobsters that RedShip does not touch. Choose RedShip's $15 seven-day pass for a single product launch or campaign window, or its $29/month Founder Plan once volume grows enough that a 0-100 relevance score and a daily digest save more time than they cost. Running F5Bot as a permanent free baseline and reaching for a RedShip pass only during specific campaign windows is a reasonable way to get both without paying for overlap.
Frequently asked questions
Does F5Bot score or rank mentions the way RedShip does?
No, F5Bot delivers every keyword match as an equal-priority email alert with no relevance score attached. RedShip assigns a 0-100 AI relevance score to each discovered post, letting you sort by opportunity quality instead of reading every mention in the order it arrives.
Is RedShip's 7-day pass a better deal than F5Bot for a short product launch?
For a short, contained campaign, RedShip's $15 seven-day pass can be the more practical choice since it includes AI scoring and SEO detection for a fixed one-time cost with no ongoing subscription. F5Bot is free indefinitely, so it remains the cheaper option in absolute terms, but it will not score or flag Google-ranking posts the way RedShip does during that same window.
Does RedShip monitor Hacker News or Lobsters like F5Bot does?
No, RedShip monitors Reddit only. F5Bot covers Reddit, Hacker News, and Lobsters, so anyone who specifically needs alerts from Hacker News or Lobsters would still need F5Bot regardless of which tool they use for scored Reddit monitoring.
How does RedShip's SEO opportunity detection work compared to F5Bot?
RedShip identifies Reddit posts that are already ranking on Google for relevant queries and flags them so engagement doubles as both community presence and organic search visibility. F5Bot has no equivalent feature and treats every keyword match the same regardless of whether the underlying thread ranks anywhere on Google.
Which tool delivers alerts faster, F5Bot or RedShip?
F5Bot delivers alerts within minutes of a new post or comment matching your keywords, while RedShip batches results into a daily digest. F5Bot is the faster option for anyone who needs to catch a mention the moment it happens rather than once a day.
Do I need RedShip's API access or is F5Bot's enough for my dashboard?
Both tools gate API access to their top paid tier, F5Bot at $58.33 per month on Ultra and RedShip at $79 per month on the Company plan, so the choice comes down to whether you also need RedShip's relevance scoring and SEO detection in that data feed or just raw keyword matches from F5Bot, which is the cheaper of the two API options.