SparkToro shows you where buyers are. dist0 shows you what they’re saying.
SparkToro is upfront research: a map of every channel your audience uses. dist0 is the Reddit signal layer for one of them — it reads Reddit daily and turns real threads into buyer pains and competitor mentions, delivered as a brief to email and Slack.
SparkToro
Audience research
You describe an audience
Type a topic, keyword, website, or social account — or describe it in plain language.
It returns one research report
The websites, podcasts, channels, subreddits, and search terms that audience pays attention to.
You read where to invest
Channels ranked by affinity, plus demographics. Then you act on the findings yourself.
dist0
Semantic understanding
You paste your URL
dist0 reads your site and builds its memory.
It reads every post
Understands intent, not just words.
It delivers what matters
Pains, competitors, content ideas, threads to reply to.
02 side-by-side
Where each tool fits, feature by feature.
Feature
SparkToro
dist0
Price
SparkToroFree / $50 Personal / $150 Business / $300 Agency · free tier, no card
dist0$19 Starter / $49 Pro · 14-day trial, no card
Where it looks
SparkToroThe whole web — websites, podcasts, YouTube, subreddits, social accounts, and search terms
dist0Reddit only — but it reads every post in a small set of watched communities
How it decides what matters
SparkToroBlends clickstream, search, and public social-profile data to rank what an audience pays attention to
dist0An AI reads every post against your project memory — what dist0 learned about your product, competitors, and buyer from your site
What you set up on day one
SparkToroDescribe an audience by topic, keyword, site, or social account — or in plain language
dist0Paste your URL — dist0 reads your site, builds your project memory, and suggests the subreddits
Watches over time and delivers on a schedule
SparkToroNo — it’s on-demand research you run when you need it, not ongoing monitoring
dist0Scheduled briefs by email and Slack — twice a week on Starter, daily on Pro
Surfaces the exact posts showing buyer intent
SparkToroAudience-level demographics, affinities, and contact data — not individual posts showing intent
dist0The real Reddit threads where your buyers describe a pain or name a competitor — every signal links to its source thread
Feeds signals into your own AI tools
SparkToro“Take Action” AI marketing advice on higher tiers; no drafted messages
dist0Every buyer pain and competitor mention, with its source thread, ready to feed into your own AI tools
dist0No — but it groups buyer pains and competitor mentions into share-of-voice across your watched subreddits
Reports and exports you can hand off
SparkToroLists, CSV and spreadsheet exports, contact data, and white-label PDFs
dist0A short market brief by email and Slack — buyer pains and competitor mentions, each linked to its source thread; no research reports
Maturity
SparkToroLive since 2020 · profitable, founded by Rand Fishkin
dist0Beta since May 2026
03 which one, when
Which one should you pick?
01
Pick dist0 if Reddit is already a channel you work.
SparkToro tells you Reddit is worth your time, then leaves the day-to-day to you. dist0 is the signal layer for that day-to-day: it reads the subreddits your buyers use, turns each post into buyer pains and competitor mentions grouped into share-of-voice, and sends a short brief to your email and Slack. SparkToro is the map; dist0 is the ongoing read.
Reads every post in a small set of watched communities, not just keyword matches.
Briefs arrive on a set rhythm — twice a week on Starter, daily on Pro.
The real threads where your buyers describe a pain or name a competitor — every signal links back to its source Reddit thread.
02
Pick SparkToro if you’re still choosing channels.
Before you commit to Reddit, SparkToro tells you whether your audience is even there. It maps where any audience pays attention across the whole web — websites, podcasts, YouTube, subreddits, social accounts, and search terms — and ranks each by affinity. It’s the right first step for go-to-market strategy, and dist0 doesn’t replace it.
Covers the whole web, not one platform — so you can weigh Reddit against every other channel.
Affinity scores, demographics, and influencer lists to guide where you invest.
Live, profitable, and proven since 2020 — with a free tier to start.
03
Pick dist0 if you want the buyer pains you can act on, not just a map.
A research report ends at “here’s where your audience is.” dist0 starts there and keeps going — it reads the subreddits your buyers use and turns each thread into a buyer pain or a competitor mention you can act on today, grouped into share-of-voice. Every signal links back to its source Reddit thread, and you can feed the signals into your own AI tools.
Buyer pains: each signal is a real Reddit thread where your buyer describes a problem — you read it in the brief and open the source thread in one click.
Competitor mentions: every time a rival comes up, grouped into share-of-voice so you see who owns the conversation.
Your own tools: feed the signals into your own AI tools and take it from there.
Not really — they do different jobs. SparkToro is audience research: it maps where any audience pays attention across the whole web, so you can decide which channels to prioritize. dist0 is the Reddit signal layer for one channel: it reads Reddit on a schedule and turns real threads into buyer pains and competitor mentions, grouped into share-of-voice, delivered to your email and Slack with every signal linked to its source thread. If your question is “where should I invest,” that’s SparkToro. If it’s “what are my buyers saying on Reddit this week and who are they comparing me to,” that’s dist0.
SparkToro covers the whole web. Why does dist0 only do Reddit?+–
Because they sit at different stages. SparkToro is upfront strategy — it compares every channel so you can pick where to spend your time. dist0 is execution after that choice: it reads every post in a small set of subreddits, which is how it catches people describing a problem without naming a product, and turns those into buyer pains and competitor mentions, each linked to its source thread. dist0 can’t tell you about podcasts, YouTube, or LinkedIn — that’s SparkToro’s job. Once Reddit is on your list, dist0 is built to work it.
Can dist0 tell me which subreddits my audience uses, like SparkToro?+–
Partly, and differently. SparkToro ranks the subreddits an audience over-indexes on as one part of a full report — useful for deciding whether Reddit is worth it at all. dist0 auto-picks a few subreddits from your website to start watching, then reads them in depth and lets you adjust the list by chatting with the Slack bot. If you want the full affinity-ranked list to study, that’s SparkToro. If you want a working set of communities read for you day after day, that’s dist0.
Should I buy both?+–
For a deliberate community-centric motion, yes — and it’s a clean split. Use SparkToro first to find and rank the channels worth investing in, and to confirm your audience is actually on Reddit. Then bring in dist0 to do the ongoing Reddit read: watch the communities and turn threads into buyer pains and competitor mentions delivered to your inbox. They overlap little — SparkToro ends at a channel map, dist0 ends at a market brief of what your buyers are saying, each signal linked to its source thread.
Which one is cheaper?+–
They aren’t comparable on price, because they buy different things. SparkToro runs from a free tier up to $300/mo for cross-web audience intelligence. dist0 is $19/mo Starter or $49/mo Pro for ongoing Reddit monitoring that turns threads into buyer pains and competitor mentions. SparkToro is a periodic research purchase — many teams subscribe for a month, pull the reports, and pause. dist0 is a steady subscription because the value is in watching the same communities over time.
dist0 is in beta. Is it ready to depend on?+–
Be clear-eyed about it. SparkToro is the mature, proven choice — live since 2020, profitable, and generally available. dist0 has been in beta since May 2026, so treat it as an early-adopter tool, not core infrastructure. The 14-day trial with no card makes it low-risk to pilot: paste your URL, see the briefs of buyer pains and competitor mentions it produces for your communities, and decide from there. For upfront audience strategy, lean on SparkToro.
05 the move
SparkToro finds the channel. dist0 works it.
Once Reddit is on your list, paste your URL and dist0 reads it for you — buyer pains and competitor mentions grouped into share-of-voice, each linked to its source thread and delivered to email and Slack. 14-day free trial.
