Teardown No. 67 · Reddit

Blocked on more than 20 Reddit accounts, now 2 or more customers a month: how Pietro Montaldo scores threads out of 25

Pietro Montaldo uses two Claude skills in Claude Cowork to find Reddit threads worth commenting on each week. The first skill builds a sheet of subreddits with each community's rules. The second skill runs every week, pulls posts through Apify and scores each post out of 25 on whether the product or service can really add value in that thread. It keeps the best 3 threads per community and writes a brief and a first draft for each one. Nothing posts automatically, and he says the setup brings in 2 or more customers a month for his training business after he got blocked on more than 20 accounts last year.

Pietro Montaldo · pietromontVerified Oct 29, 2026Markdown copy

The problem

He writes, “Last year I went deep into the Reddit rabbit hole.” The result, in his words: “I got blocked on more than 20 accounts but learned a ton of stuff.” His current setup is meant to surface a short weekly list of threads where he should comment. He says readers can adapt the same logic “to find leads and get cited by LLMs.”

The blueprint (as he describes it)

  1. Give both skills the business context. He bakes eight answers into the skills: what you sell, who buys it (role, industry, size), what it does not do, and where your buyers are, with any local rule or price point. The list continues with five to fifteen phrases buyers type into Google, your honest alternatives (including free ones and doing nothing), whether you are the founder, an employee or a customer, and anything the comments must never say. He adds that a blog “helps a lot.”
  2. Skill 1: build the community sheet. This skill is optional and runs a few times a year. It searches Reddit from five angles: the buyer’s job title, their problem in their own words, the product category, the tools they already use and the moment they start looking. It comes back with 12 to 20 candidates, then stops. It reads each community’s rules page and condenses it, self promotion first. It flags karma gates and account age gates and writes everything into one spreadsheet.
  3. Read rules pages with Claude in Chrome. He says Reddit blocks most automated reading and a real browser gets through. He points Claude in Chrome to old Reddit.
  4. Cut to the top communities. He reviews the results and keeps only the top 3 or top 5. The sheet needs columns for subreddit and URL, members, rules, where the rules came from and the date read, whether the skill picked it or he added it himself, and why. “That rules column drives every decision the second skill makes.” If he cannot fill it in for a community, that community stays out of the sheet. If you already know your communities, he says to build the sheet by hand and go straight to skill 2. He re-runs this step every few months because “Rules change and communities go cold.”
  5. Connect Apify. “Apify does all the Reddit reading.” It is a marketplace of small scrapers, and the skill points at a Reddit one. You install the Apify connector from Cowork’s connector list on desktop Claude and log in once. The free plan is fine, and nothing needs setting up inside Apify.
  6. Skill 2: the weekly run. A scheduled task runs it every week. He does Sundays. In order, it reads the rules column before looking at a single post. It pulls 2 feeds per community, newest posts and top posts of the week. It scores every post out of 25 on one question: “can your product/service really add value in this thread?” It keeps the best 3 per community and drops the rest. It writes a brief and a draft for each kept post that follow that community’s rules. He uses Opus 5 for this skill and says “The difference shows.”
  7. Weekly output. One Excel file with three tabs:
    • Top posts: score, why it was picked, a brief, a draft, plus keywords, GEO angle and rules risk.
    • Summary: one row per community, the runners up, and the weeks where nothing qualified.
    • Run info.
  8. Write comments for search and AI answers. He says Reddit threads rank high in Google and get quoted back inside AI answers. “You are trying to be the answer that gets surfaced.” His rules: frame the problem, then go deep. Work the search terms in, then narrow them with a region, a regulation or a price range. Keep it scannable with short paragraphs, single dash bullets and 120 to 200 words. Answer the next question too. “One mention in five comments is roughly what keeps an account looking like a person rather than a channel.” He also includes examples of his own comments so Claude can copy his style.
  9. Stop at the draft. “Build it so it stops at the draft.” The system never touches his account. He opens the file, edits the drafts so they sound like him, and posts them himself.
  10. Stay near the free tier. Apify gives $5 of free credits a month with no card. He estimates about 25 cents per community per week, covering both feeds and four runs a month. 2 communities cost around $1.65 a month, 5 around $4, and 10 around $8. “Five a week is the ceiling on free.” He says to check Apify’s pricing page, since the $5 was true when he wrote the guide.

Stated results

  • Last year: “I got blocked on more than 20 accounts” while learning.
  • Now: “The setup I run now brings in 2 or more customers a month for my training business.”
  • Comments posted, karma, traffic and LLM citations: None stated.

Caveats

  • This is his own newsletter, and it promotes his paid course cohort “Claude for Non-Technical Operators” (25% off, starting September 29) and several free live workshops. He also has a book, “Building Claude Skills”, on Amazon.
  • The full step-by-step guide and the skill files are for paid subscribers. This teardown covers the public portion only.
  • 355 people signed up for a live workshop on this build. That is workshop demand, not a result of the system.
  • He does not say how many comments produce the 2 or more customers a month, or how the customers are attributed.
  • He suggests the comments can help you “get cited by LLMs”, but he states no citation results.
  • The Apify cost figures are his estimates, and he says the $5 free credit was true when he wrote the guide.
  • Handles: X @pietromont, LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/pietromontaldo, YouTube @PietroMontaldo (verified 2026-10-29: linked as his own profile links on substack.com/@pietromontaldo). Bluesky, Threads, Instagram, Mastodon, TikTok: not verified, not tagged.

FAQ

Does Pietro Montaldo’s Reddit system post comments automatically?

No. He builds it so it stops at the draft. He edits each draft himself and posts it himself.

How does the weekly skill choose which Reddit threads to comment on?

It pulls newest posts and top posts of the week for each community. It scores every post out of 25 on whether the product or service can really add value in that thread, and it keeps the best 3 per community.

What does it cost to run?

He says Apify gives $5 of free credits a month, and each community costs about 25 cents per week. He estimates around $1.65 a month for 2 communities, around $4 for 5 and around $8 for 10.

How many comments does he post to get his customers?

The source does not say. He states 2 or more customers a month for his training business but gives no comment counts.

Sources

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