What Is R4R? Reddit Personals Explained and Compared

AseeksB publishes this page and makes a personal ads app, which is compared below. Reddit doesn’t pay us, and there are no referral links. Board details and figures are from Reddit’s own pages on October 7, 2026.

Reddit has hosted personal ads since at least 2010, when r/r4r was created. There are now boards for almost every kind of connection: friendship, dating, casual sex, kink, people over 30, people who don’t want children, and most big cities. Here is how they work, what the main boards ask of you, and how they compare with AseeksB.

How Reddit personals work

• Boards. Each personals board is a subreddit with its own rules and its own volunteer moderators. Posts that don’t meet a board’s rules are removed, and Reddit’s sitewide rules apply on every board.
• The title. Most boards ask for your age, a tag like [F4M] and a location, as in “27 [F4M] #Chicago.” The ad itself is free text below it. Adult posts are marked NSFW.
• Reading. Anyone can read most boards without an account. On adult boards, Reddit asks visitors who aren’t logged in to log in or confirm they’re over 18.
• Posting. You need a Reddit account, and each board adds its own requirements: how often you can post, and on some boards a minimum account age or a verification step.
• Replying. On r/r4r, r/dirtyr4r, and r/BDSMpersonals, posts are locked, so there are no public comments. You reply by private message, which needs a Reddit account but not membership of the board. Whether your message gets through depends on the other person’s chat settings. Some city boards allow public comments instead.
• Sorting. Boards open sorted by “Best,” which ranks posts partly by votes. Readers can switch to “New” to see the latest posts first.

What F4M, M4F, and the other tags mean

The tag puts the poster first and the person they’re looking for second. F4M is a woman looking for a man, M4F a man looking for a woman, and F4F and M4M the same within each. Many boards use T for trans, as in T4M, and A (anyone) or R (redditor) when the poster is open to anyone, as in M4A or F4R. The older newspaper and Craigslist versions, like M4W and W4M, are in our Personals Dictionary.

The main r4r boards

These are the three boards people search for most. Figures are Reddit’s own, as shown on each board on October 7, 2026.

r/dirtyr4r and r/BDSMpersonals both warn readers not to hand over personal details to someone they’ve just met, because they can be used for blackmail.

Other personals boards

Figures as shown on each board on October 7, 2026.

Others include r/ForeverAloneDating, r/R4R40Plus, and r/FemdomPersonals.

City boards

Most big cities have an r4r board of their own, some have two, New York has three, and some have none. These are the ones our city guides cover; each place links to its guide.

Weekly visitors as Reddit showed them when we checked each board, October 6 to 10, 2026.

One city, several boards, or none

Reddit personals aren’t one listing. They are hundreds of separate boards, and a post appears only on the board it was posted to. New York has three: r/NYr4r and r/r4rNYC, for everything from friends to soulmates, and r/nycr4r, which describes itself as a hookups board. Some cities split their boards by purpose: Brisbane has r/BrisbaneDating for dates and r/Brisbanensfw for hookups, Austin sends purely sexual posts to r/DirtyAtx4Atx, and Orlando has r/orlandor4r and r/OrlandoCasualR4R. Some places share one board across a whole state or country, like r/Floridar4r, r/ScotlandR4R, and r/R4Rstralia. And some big cities have no board at all: Perth, Manchester, and Birmingham among them, where posts go to the general boards with a location in the title.

Reaching more than one board means posting more than once, in each board’s format and on each board’s schedule. You can search a board by keyword, but you can’t filter posts by age, gender, or distance; where someone is depends on what they typed in the title.

The rules change from board to board

From each board’s rules, checked October 6 to 13, 2026. Rules change, so check the board before you post.

Reddit personals and AseeksB compared

Reddit details are from the three boards above on October 7, 2026; other boards set their own rules.

What Reddit does well

Reddit personals are free, and the biggest boards get thousands of contributions a week. Anyone can read them in a browser without installing anything. There’s a board for nearly every niche, from people over 30 to people who don’t want children, and each one is run by volunteer moderators who remove posts that break its rules.

Why some people post on AseeksB too

Reddit is a public board. AseeksB is a personal ads app where you decide who reads your ad and who can write to you. Here is what that changes.

• You choose who sees your ad. A Reddit post can be read by anyone. On AseeksB, you set each post’s audience by gender and age range, and nobody outside it can see the post or message it. Supporters can add a maximum distance, hide a post from travelers, or allow only Supporters to message.
• One post, one place. There’s no board to pick and nothing to repost elsewhere. Everyone in your audience who searches by category, age, and distance can find your post.
• There’s no profile to dig through. On Reddit, your ad sits under your username, next to everything else you’ve posted. On AseeksB, others see your username, gender, and age, plus your location when you post. Everything else is in the ad.
• The ad is built for personals. Instead of a title format and a text box, the app walks you through the post, step by step (below).
• You search instead of scrolling. Search by category, gender, age, and distance, with the newest posts first. Supporters can also search by kink role.
• Messages stay in the app. Someone answering your post gets one message until you reply, and every first message has a minimum length. Once you reply, the conversation has no limit. Supporters can require a photo in first messages. You can report someone even after they unmatch, and admins actively monitor posts.
• Your ad stays yours to manage. Edit it any time (editing unmatches open conversations), delete it any time, and renew it free every 4 days to bring it back to the top. A free account keeps one active post; Supporters can keep up to 7 and duplicate them.
• No wait to start. You can post as soon as you sign up.

How an AseeksB post is made

1. The rules first. You accept the Post Guidelines before you start.
2. Photos, if you want them. Every photo has to be of you.
3. A category. Short-term or long-term, either one kink-friendly or not, or platonic, or missed connections.
4. Role tags, on kink-friendly posts. Up to 5 of the 90 roles, describing how you identify, not what you’re looking for.
5. Your audience. Choose from 22 gender identities, an age range from 18 to 99, and whether you’re posting as a couple. Supporters can add a maximum distance, hide the post from travelers, or post from another city.
6. Who can message you. Supporters can allow only Supporters to message, or require a photo in every first message.
7. More about you, if you want. Up to 10 interests, up to 10 desires on kink-friendly posts, and tags for drinking, smoking, 4/20, body type, height, education, religion, politics, kids, zodiac, and pets.
8. The words. Write it from scratch, or start from an AseeksB Assist draft and edit it your way. Your first post includes AseeksB Assist; continued access is part of Supporter.

Bottom line

Reddit personals are free, public, and busy, with a board for almost every kind of connection and rules each community sets for itself. AseeksB is for people who want the same directness, an ad in their own words that someone can answer, with control over who sees it and who can write back. You can use both.

Frequently asked questions

What does R4R mean?

R4R stands for redditor for redditor. It is Reddit’s name for personal ads, and for the boards (subreddits) where people post them, like r/r4r. A tag like [F4M] in the title says who is posting and who they are looking for: here, a woman looking for a man.

Which r4r board is the busiest?

Of the personals boards we checked on October 7, 2026, r/dirtyr4r, an adult board, was the busiest, with about 149,000 weekly visitors and 45,000 weekly contributions by Reddit’s own count. r/R4R30Plus had about 86,000 weekly visitors, r/cf4cf about 79,000, r/r4r about 70,000, and r/BDSMpersonals about 46,000.

Is there an r4r board for my city?

Most big cities have one, some have two, and New York has three: see the table of city boards above. Some places share a board for a whole state or country, like r/Floridar4r, r/ScotlandR4R, and r/R4Rstralia, and some big cities, such as Perth, Manchester, and Birmingham, have none. People there post on general boards like r/r4r, with their location in the title.

Can you read Reddit personals without an account?

Yes, for most boards. On adult boards such as r/dirtyr4r, Reddit first asks visitors who aren’t logged in to log in or confirm they’re over 18. Posting and replying need a Reddit account.

How do you reply to a post on r4r?

On r/r4r, r/dirtyr4r, and r/BDSMpersonals, posts are locked, so you reply by private message to the poster. You need a Reddit account but don’t need to join the board, and whether your message gets through depends on the other person’s chat settings.

What do you need to post on r4r?

A Reddit account, plus whatever the board requires. On October 7, 2026, r/r4r required verification to post or comment, r/BDSMpersonals required an account at least 15 days old, and r/dirtyr4r’s rules listed no account requirement. Each board also limits how often you can post: once a day on r/r4r, once every 12 hours on r/dirtyr4r, and once every 7 days on r/BDSMpersonals.

Is there an alternative to r4r?

Many people use more than one place. Our comparison of Craigslist Personals alternatives checks six personal-ad sites, including Reddit r4r. AseeksB, which publishes this page, is a personal ads app for iOS and Android where you choose who can see each post and who can message you.

Is AseeksB free?

Yes. AseeksB is free to download and free to post on, with all key features free. A free account keeps one active post and can renew it every 4 days. Supporter is an optional upgrade that adds up to 7 active posts, advanced search, search by kink role, traveling mode, and more control over who can message you.