Is F5Bot free? Yes. F5Bot has a free plan with no time limit and no credit card, and it has been running since 2017. But "free" comes with a short list of conditions that decide whether it will actually work for you: five keywords, a cap on daily alerts, a delay of up to two hours, and a rule that the free plan is for personal use only. Here is what you get, what you do not, and what to try if you hit the wall.
What the free plan includes
According to F5Bot's account tiers page, the free plan gives you:
- 5 keywords, checked across Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters
- 10 alerts per keyword per day, and 20 alerts a day in total
- Email alerts, which can arrive up to 2 hours after F5Bot finds a match
- 7 days of match history
- Basic filtering flags
That is enough for a hobby project with an unusual name. If you made a small browser game called something nobody else uses, five keywords and an email is a perfectly good setup.
What the free plan leaves out
The same page lists what is locked:
- Common words. The free plan only accepts less common keywords, to keep alert volume down. If your game is called "Drift" or "Orbit", it may be refused.
- Advanced keyword filtering, such as excluding words or requiring a second one.
- Full post text in the email; you get an excerpt.
- Ad-free emails.
- RSS, Slack, Discord, AI filtering and the API, which start on the paid tiers.
And the rule that matters most if you sell anything: the free plan is marked personal use only.
What the paid plans cost
| Plan | Price | Keywords | Alert delay | Use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 5 | Up to 2 hours | Personal |
| Silver | $12.99/mo | 20 | Up to 5 minutes | Personal, non-commercial |
| Gold | $49.99/mo | 200 | Instant or scheduled | Professional |
| Platinum | $214.99/mo | 300 | Instant or scheduled | Agencies |
So for a studio or a small company, the real entry price for F5Bot is $49.99 a month.
A free-to-try alternative: AyeWatch
If the free plan is too narrow, or your game's name keeps colliding with ordinary words, AyeWatch is the option worth trying next. It works differently: rather than matching a keyword, you describe what you want in a sentence, such as "Reddit posts from players talking about my game, its bugs or its updates; skip posts about the word in other contexts". AyeWatch reads each new post and only alerts you when one fits.
What you get:
- Free Preview with three lifetime monitoring runs across up to three topics and no card. It is a trial rather than a permanent free plan, so use it to test your noisiest keyword.
- Pro at $9 a month for up to 50 monitors checked hourly, with no contract or cancellation fee.
- More places to look. Reddit plus X, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok, specific web pages, and internet topics. For a game, YouTube and TikTok are often where players show it off.
- Alerts on your phone. AyeWatch runs on web, iOS and Android, and push notifications work on every plan. Each alert has a short summary so you know whether the thread is praise, a bug report or a question.
When F5Bot free is still the right answer
Keep F5Bot's free plan if your keyword is distinctive, you mostly care about Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters, and a slightly late email is fine. It costs nothing and AyeWatch does not list Hacker News or Lobsters as monitor types, so many people run both.
Quick answers
Does F5Bot ever expire? No. The free plan is described as free forever.
Can I use F5Bot free for my company? Its tiers page marks the free plan as personal use only, and Silver is non-commercial too.
Is there a free F5Bot alternative? Google Alerts is free but covers Google results, not Reddit threads specifically. AyeWatch is free to try through its preview, then $9 a month.
If you want the detailed feature comparison, AyeWatch keeps one at AyeWatch vs F5Bot.