r/ycombinator

Y Combinator

News and discussion around startups and applying to Y Combinator. In 2005, Y Combinator created a new model for funding early stage startups. We invest $500,000 in every startup and work intensively with the founders for three months. For the life of their company, founders have access to the most powerful community in the world, essential advice, later-stage funding and programs, recruiting resources, and exclusive deals.

Members: 206,969
Created: 2011
Posts a day: 1
Avg comments, top posts this week: 14

r/ycombinator is a Reddit community with 206,969 members, created in 2011. It averaged about 1 new posts a day over the last month. This week's top posts had a median score of 21 and an average of 14 comments each. Build, investors and startups are the words that show up most in recent titles. This month's top posts went up most often around 21:00 UTC, and most often on a Friday.

Only approved members can post in r/ycombinator.

Data checked October 18, 2026 · Open on Reddit

What people ask

183With software creation easier than ever, what’s the 'next thing'?179 comments · September 27, 2026
121Is luck required to build a successful startup?80 comments · September 30, 2026
37How do you guys find pain points?35 comments · October 15, 2026
22How do you interpret “I could build that in five minutes” when selling developer tools?30 comments · October 12, 2026
14Should I build or should I spend more time on customer research?28 comments · September 18, 2026
21Should you pretend your product exists?23 comments · September 25, 2026

Common words in titles

build 3
investors 3
startups 3
advice 2
startup 2
went 2
working 2

Best time to post

21:00 UTC · 3 top posts
19:00 UTC · 2 top posts
14:00 UTC · 2 top posts
Friday · 6 top posts
Monday · 5 top posts

These are counted from the timestamps of this month's 23 top posts. They show when popular posts went up and don't guarantee reach.

Rules

Read the stickied post at the top of the sub.
Don't be a jerk.
Use the search before making a new post.
Use the megathreads for feedback and application discussions.
No self promotion.
No hiring or co-founder search posts.
No memes, politics, or shitposts.
No solicitation of surveys, DMs, external groups, etc
No AMAs.
No discussions about VCs or other accelerators.

How to post in r/ycombinator without breaking its rules

Similar subreddits

r/startups · 2,141,488 members
r/YCombinatorResources · 2,593 members

Member growth

We started recording r/ycombinator member counts on October 18, 2026. Growth will show here once we have a few weeks of history.

Get this data from the API

Every number on this page comes from ChatterAPI's Reddit endpoints and is refreshed about once a week. You can pull the same data for any subreddit from your own code or AI agent.

curl "https://chatterapi.com/v1/reddit/subreddits/ycombinator" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CHATTERAPI_KEY"

{
  "data": {
    "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/ycombinator/",
    "name": "ycombinator",
    "nsfw": false,
    "title": "Y Combinator",
    "createdAt": "2011-04-11T22:53:14.000Z",
    "description": "News and discussion around startups and applying to Y Combinator.\n\nIn 2005, Y Combinator created a new model for funding early stage startups. We invest $500,000 in every startup and work intensively with the founders for three months. For the life of their company, founders have access to the most powerful community in the world, essential advice, later-stage funding and programs, recruiting resources, and exclusive deals.",
    "subscribers": 206969
  },
  "credits": {
    "charged": 2
  }
}

Recorded response, October 18, 2026, trimmed.

Free subreddit stats tool API reference All subreddits we track

Questions about r/ycombinator

How many members does r/ycombinator have?

r/ycombinator had 206,969 members when we last checked on October 18, 2026.

How active is r/ycombinator?

Based on its newest posts, it got about 1 new posts a day over the last month. This week's top posts averaged 14 comments each.

When is the best time to post in r/ycombinator?

This month's top posts in r/ycombinator went up most often around 21:00 UTC, and most often on a Friday. That's when popular posts were published, so use it as a starting point, not a rule.

Can I get r/ycombinator data through an API?

Yes. Call GET /v1/reddit/subreddits/ycombinator for members, rules and description, and GET /v1/reddit/subreddits/ycombinator/posts for its posts. Each call costs 2 credits, and new accounts get 100 free credits.