Reddit licenses its content to Google for about $60M a year, and the renewal is in doubt

What was sold

Reddit gave Google access to its content so Google could train its AI models. Reuters reported on February 22, 2024, that the contract was worth about $60 million a year. Reddit and Google did not confirm the price. Reddit said it expanded its partnership with Google, and Google said the expanded partnership "does not change Google's use of publicly available, crawlable content" for indexing, training or display.¹

The $60 million figure came from anonymous sources and has not been confirmed in the sources reviewed. It is best treated as a reported price.¹

How the deal came together

The deal came as Reddit prepared to go public. Reuters reported that Reddit was expected to file for an IPO that week, and that the deal gave the company a new revenue source in an uncertain advertising market.¹ Bloomberg had earlier reported that Reddit signed an AI content licensing deal without naming the buyer, and Reddit executives reportedly told potential investors it was Google.¹

A second deal followed. AI Weekly describes a similar agreement with OpenAI announced in May 2024 and estimated at about $70 million a year, and says both agreements were up for renewal in 2026.² Wells Fargo estimates combined licensing revenue could reach about $550 million on renegotiation, against a current run rate of roughly $130 million, according to the same article.² That is an analyst estimate, not a contract term.

What went wrong or drew pushback

On July 22, 2026, the Wall Street Journal reported that Reddit executives had internally discussed ending Google's access to Reddit content for AI training. AI Weekly says shares fell about 9%, and WinBuzzer says they fell 8%, so reports differ.²³ The articles stress that this reflects internal discussion and not a decision.²

The reason is traffic. Reddit is reconsidering because Google's AI Overviews are reducing the referral traffic that the arrangement was based on, and executives reportedly want "usage-based fees" in any next contract.² WinBuzzer adds that Reddit had pushed for dynamic pricing in 2025 to tie payment more closely to the value Google receives.³ AI Weekly cites a Pew study showing that users clicked traditional search links in about 15% of searches without an AI Overview, 8% with one, and 1% for links inside the summary.²

Reddit's second-quarter 2026 results, reported on July 30, did not settle the question. The Motley Fool reports that Reddit's "other revenue," where data licensing sits, was $43 million, up 24% and about 5% of total revenue of $805 million. Google and OpenAI are the two largest licensing customers, and the deals "could shrink quickly if agreements aren't renewed."⁴ Search referrals were described as "choppy."⁴

I did not find a report of a signed renewal or a confirmed cutoff as of October 22, 2026.

What it means for companies with data

Reddit's deal is the standard example of a platform licensing content to an AI developer, and it shows both sides of the trade. The seller got a large recurring payment and a public signal about the value of its data. It also gave a major search company deeper access to the content that makes up a large share of its own traffic.

For companies with data, three points stand out. First, price terms from one year may not hold at renewal, and sellers are now asking for usage-based pricing. Second, the buyer's other products can change the value of the seller's business. Reddit's concern about AI Overviews is a concern about what the licensed data does to its own distribution. Third, a licensing line can be material but small. Reddit's "other revenue," where licensing sits, was $43 million in the quarter, about 5% of revenue, which limits both the downside of losing it and the leverage it gives the seller.⁴

Most companies do not have Reddit's scale of public content. For a company whose data is private and business-specific, the comparable questions are who may use it, for what, for how long, and whether the price changes with use. See /guides/selling-data-to-ai-companies/.