How to Find the Most Upvoted Unsolved Problems on Reddit (Step-by-Step)

Most people searching for Reddit SaaS ideas type a vague phrase into Google and read whatever listicle shows up first. That gets you someone else's stale research. This is the actual process for finding unsolved, high-upvote problems yourself — the same one worth running on a recurring basis, not just once.

In summary: the fastest way to find unsolved Reddit problems is to combine phrase-based search (targeting how people actually word a complaint, not keyword-stuffed titles) with a manual check of the full comment thread — not just the top comment — to confirm no existing tool has actually closed the gap.

Step 1: Search by phrase, not by topic

People don't title their Reddit posts "SaaS idea: expense tracking for freelancers." They complain in plain language. Searching for how a complaint is actually phrased surfaces far more relevant threads than searching for a business category. The highest-signal phrases to search (on Reddit's own search bar, or via Google with site:reddit.com) include:

• "is there an app that"
• "is there a tool for"
• "why doesn't this exist"
• "I built a spreadsheet to" (a strong signal — they've already built a manual workaround)
• "does anyone know a way to"
• "I wish someone would build"

Step 2: Sort correctly, for the right reason

Reddit's sort options aren't interchangeable — each one answers a different question:

1. Top, past year. Use this to find proven complaints with enough upvotes to matter. This is where "most upvoted" threads actually live.
2. New, within a specific subreddit. Use this every few days inside 3-5 target subreddits to catch a fresh complaint before it's been picked apart by a dozen other searchers.
3. Top, all time. Useful for spotting a category that's been recurring for years — if the same underlying complaint keeps reappearing every 12-18 months across all-time top posts, that's a durable problem, not a fad.

Step 3: Confirm it's actually unsolved — read past the top comment

This is the step almost everyone skips, and it's the one that separates real research from a five-minute skim. A high-upvote thread with a top comment naming an existing tool can mean two very different things:

• Solved: the tool is named, the replies underneath are positive, and no one raises complaints about it. Move on.
• Still open: the tool is named, but replies underneath complain about price, missing features, poor support, or that it "used to work but got worse." This is a live opportunity — the market has demonstrated demand and a solution exists, but it's failing people in specific, listable ways.

Threads with zero credible tool mentioned after real engagement (20+ upvotes, multiple replies) are the cleanest signal of all — a genuinely unsolved complaint.

What's the single best filter for confirming "unsolved"? In summary, the key filter is checking whether replies to a named tool contain complaints — a complaint-riddled existing solution is often a better opportunity than true whitespace, because it proves willingness to pay while showing you exactly what to fix.

Step 4: Cross-check across subreddits before committing

One thread, however high the upvotes, is one data point. Before treating a problem as validated, search the same phrases across at least two or three unrelated subreddits (see our list of best subreddits for SaaS ideas). A complaint that only shows up in one small, niche community is weaker evidence than the same complaint independently surfacing in a professional subreddit, a hobbyist subreddit, and a general small-business subreddit.

Doing this manually vs. continuously

This process works, but it's manual — repeating it weekly across dozens of subreddits doesn't scale for one person. If you want the output without the repeated searching, that's exactly what a continuously re-scored index automates for you, applying the same "cross-subreddit repetition + confirmed unsolved" logic described above.