Reddit Moderator Workload Calculator

1. Choose whether your volumes are per day or per week.
2. Enter each volume from your own mod queue, mod mail and Mod Insights. Then enter the minutes one action takes you.
3. Add the number of active moderators and the hours each can give per week.

Reddit moderator workload is the time a mod team spends keeping a community running. Most of it comes from the moderation queue and mod mail.

Reddit Help describes the Needs Review queue as a central listing of content that needs review by you and your fellow moderators. It includes user reports and filtered posts and comments. Each item can be approved, removed or marked as spam.

Mod mail adds to the load. Reddit Help says the New folder holds unread or unanswered messages, and a separate folder holds ban appeals.

Reddit expects the work to get done. Rule 4 of the Moderator Code of Conduct asks moderators to check the mod queue and mod mail regularly, and to recruit moderators when they notice a need.

This page does not judge a team. It adds up minutes, so the team can see the size of the job.

The calculator multiplies each volume by its minutes per action and adds the four results.

1. It multiplies reports, filtered items, mod mail and other actions by your minutes for each.
2. It adds the four products. Daily volumes are multiplied by 7.
3. It divides by 60 to give hours per week.
4. It divides those hours by the hours your team has, to give the load.

The page supplies no times of its own. Reddit publishes no standard minutes per action, so every timing is yours.

Example values only. A community sees 40 reported items, 120 filtered items, 10 mod mail conversations and 6 other actions per day. Five moderators can each give 4 hours a week.

208 minutes a day is 1,456 minutes a week, or 24.3 hours. The team has 5 x 4 = 20 hours. The load is 121.3%, so the team is 4.3 hours short each week.

At 4 hours each, the work needs 7 moderators. Reports are the largest task at 38.5% of the minutes.

Report Volume

Reports rise with traffic and with heated threads. In the example, reports alone take 80 of 208 minutes a day.

Your Minutes per Action

Timings move the total as much as volumes do. Cutting report handling from 2 minutes to 1 drops the example to 19.6 hours a week.

Filters and Automation

Reddit Help says automod can filter content for review, remove posts by keyword and flag possible spammers. Filters change which items reach a person, so re-count your volumes after changing them.

Bulk Actions

The mod queue supports bulk actions. Clearing several items at once lowers your minutes per item.

How Evenly Work Is Shared

Per moderator hours assume an even split. Team Health in Mod Insights shows the real count of actions by each moderator.

Some tools print a burnout score or a workload grade. A measured total and a score rest on different things.

The older version of this page used default times and a burnout score. Neither had a source, so both are gone. It also cut all work by an automation percentage, which hid mod mail and ban work that automation does not do.

Load above 100% is not a diagnosis. It is a plain statement that the work is larger than the hours offered. Add up shift lengths with the time calculator.

Before Recruiting

The moderators needed figure gives a number to recruit toward. Reddit Help points to recruiting as the response when a team notices a need.

After Changing Filters

Run the numbers before and after a new filter or rule. If reports fall from 40 to 25 a day, the example drops from 24.3 to 20.8 hours a week.

Planning for Growth

Project membership with the subreddit growth calculator, then re-enter higher volumes here.

Reviewing a Busy Event

Enter the volumes from one heavy day to see the hours it took. Posts shared in from other communities can be reviewed with the crosspost impact calculator.

1. Counting Every Post and Comment

Moderators do not review all content by hand. Count the items that reach the queue, not everything published.

2. Using Borrowed Timings

Minutes per action differ by community and by moderator. Time ten of your own actions and use the average.

3. Counting Inactive Moderators

A name on the mod list is not an hour of work. Enter only moderators who work the queue.

4. Mixing Daily and Weekly Numbers

Daily volumes with the weekly toggle give a total that is 7 times too small.

5. Forgetting Mod Mail

Ten conversations at 5 minutes each is 50 minutes a day in the example. That is almost a quarter of the work.

6. Reading Load as a Verdict on People

The load compares minutes with offered hours. It says nothing about how any moderator feels.

The arithmetic is exact for the numbers you enter. The result is only as good as your volumes and timings.

It varies by community, and Reddit publishes no average. Multiply your queue volumes by your own minutes per action to get a figure for your team.

Divide weekly moderation hours by the hours each moderator can give, and round up. A 24.3 hour workload at 4 hours each needs 7 moderators.

In Mod Insights. Reddit Help says the Reports and Removals section shows posts and comments published, removed and reported, with trends over time.

Content that needs review. Reddit Help says Needs Review includes user reports and filtered posts and comments. Other views cover reported, removed, edited and unmoderated content.

It can change what reaches people. Reddit Help says automod can filter content, remove posts by keyword and send mod mail alerts. It cannot see duplicate content or act on old content.

No standard time exists. Reddit publishes none, and it differs by community. Time ten of your own reviews and enter the average.

Use Team Health in Mod Insights. Reddit Help says it lists total actions for each moderator, split by approvals, removals, mod mail and other actions.

Reddit lists under-moderation as a breach of Rule 4 of the Moderator Code of Conduct. Its example is reports left unreviewed so that rule-breaking posts stay up.

The work is larger than the hours the team offered. In the example, 24.3 hours against 20 hours is a load of 121.3%.

No. The maths runs in your browser and nothing is sent to us. Save keeps a result only in this browser.

• Moderation Queue: Needs Review, reports, filtered content and actions (Reddit Help, read 2026-10-02; opens in a browser, blocks automated checks).
• Mod Insights: Team Health and Reports and Removals (Reddit Help, read 2026-10-02; opens in a browser, blocks automated checks).
• Moderator Code of Conduct, Rule 4: Be Active and Engaged (Reddit Help, read 2026-10-02; opens in a browser, blocks automated checks).
• Automoderator: what it can and cannot do (Reddit Help, read 2026-10-02; opens in a browser, blocks automated checks).
• Mod mail folders (Reddit Help, read 2026-10-02; opens in a browser, blocks automated checks).