Should I pay for Reddit mentions to get cited by AI?

No — buying Reddit threads and upvotes to win AI citations is the new link farm, and it will end the way paid links did: filtered, and with the sites that relied on it holding the bag. A citation surface you can buy is a citation surface that gets discounted.

The tactic is also more fragile than it looks: AI systems increasingly cross-reference claims across multiple surfaces, so a manufactured Reddit consensus that contradicts everything else about your brand reads as a flag, not a win — and communities punish brands caught faking it.

The durable version is unglamorous: participate genuinely where your customers already are, earn real third-party validation, and make your own site directly citable. Authentic presence is the only kind that survives the filtering.