How is comment karma calculated, and does it differ from post karma?

Comment karma follows the same general principles as post karma: upvotes on your comments increase it, downvotes decrease it, and the relationship is not one-to-one. The same diminishing-returns logic appears to apply, meaning a heavily-upvoted comment does not yield karma equal to its raw vote count. Reddit tracks post karma and comment karma as separate figures within your profile, which allows you to see at a glance whether your reputation has been built more through original submissions or through participation in discussions. In practical terms, the mechanics of comment karma and post karma appear largely equivalent in how votes translate to points. Both categories experience the same algorithm-driven compression at high vote counts, and both are subject to vote fuzzing, which means the number you see displayed next to a comment is not necessarily the precise vote total at any moment. The initial upvote that a comment starts with — your own — does not contribute to your karma, just as with posts. What genuinely differs between the two categories is how they are earned in practice, rather than how they are calculated. Comment karma tends to accumulate more steadily and with less variance than post karma. Successful posts, especially on large subreddits, can award large bursts of karma if they land well, but most posts receive limited engagement. Comments, by contrast, can attract upvotes more predictably, particularly when you contribute helpfully to a thread that is already receiving traffic. A thoughtful answer to a question in a busy discussion can earn dozens of upvotes across many readers over hours or days. Some older accounts also carry a third karma category called "award karma," which was earned in previous iterations of Reddit's award system when giving or receiving certain awards contributed to karma totals. As of 2025, the current award system does not affect karma in any way. Awards exist purely as social signals of appreciation and have no mechanical impact on post or comment karma. If you have an older account, your total karma figure may reflect legacy award karma, which is why Reddit recommends adding post and comment karma separately when determining eligibility for subreddit filters, since those filters use only post and comment karma.