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F5Bot alternative · Updated August 2026

F5Bot emails you a keyword. EaseClaw hands you a buyer.

F5Bot is the free tool a lot of founders start with, and it emails you a link every time your keyword shows up on Reddit, Hacker News or Lobsters. One thing changed since founders last recommended it to each other: its free tier now caps at 5 keywords, down from the 200 it used to allow, with a paid ladder above that. EaseClaw is the paid step up: twelve sources, a buying-intent score so only real buyers surface, and a drafted reply for each. Here is the honest comparison, including when you should just keep F5Bot's free tier.

What lands in your inbox
F5Bot

A plain email: your keyword showed up here, plus a link. And that is it.

EaseClaw

A buyer scored 40 or higher, plus a reply drafted in your voice, ready to review.

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F5Bot is still a good tool — but its free tier just shrank

Let us be clear about the part that is still true. F5Bot has been around for years, it is run by a single operator, and it does one thing well: it emails you when your keyword shows up on Reddit, Hacker News or Lobsters. It is fast and quietly reliable. A lot of good founders got their first customers off nothing but F5Bot alerts, and that is a real endorsement, not a backhanded one.

What changed, verified on its own site in August 2026: the free tier that used to allow up to 200 keywords now caps at 5. Above that, F5Bot runs a five-tier paid ladder — Silver $9.99/mo (20 keywords), Gold $49.99/mo (200 keywords), Platinum $214.99/mo (300 keywords), and Diamond from $500/mo for a custom count. Five keywords still covers a genuinely narrow use case for free. Anything wider than that is no longer the free tool it was.

Where free stops being enough

The ceiling is not just scope now, it is also keyword count. F5Bot watches three places and treats every match the same, and its free tier only stretches to 5 keywords. That means the work of deciding who is actually a buyer, and the work of writing every reply, stays entirely with you — on a shrinking free allowance.

  • Only 5 free keywords. Down from 200 as of our August 2026 check — most real businesses need more than that to cover their product, their category and a few competitor names.
  • Three sources only. Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters. Buyers asking on X, Quora, Indie Hackers or the open web are invisible to it.
  • No scoring. A vendor, a tutorial and a genuine buyer all arrive as the same email. You do the sorting.
  • No draft. You open a link and write the reply from a blank box, every single time.
  • Growing that keyword count now costs money. Past 5 keywords you are on F5Bot's own paid ladder — Silver, Gold, Platinum or Diamond — before you have added a single feature EaseClaw includes.
The short version

F5Bot tells you a word was mentioned on three sites, and leaves the judging and the writing to you — free only up to 5 keywords now, down from 200. EaseClaw tells you someone is ready to buy across twelve sources, and writes the reply in your voice. Keep F5Bot's free tier if 5 keywords on Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters is genuinely enough. Move to EaseClaw when you need more keywords, more sources, or the raw hits pile up faster than you can work them.

EaseClaw vs F5Bot

A free alert email against a scored, drafted lead. Same honest rule on sending: the human always does it.

F5BotEaseClaw
PriceFree tier now caps at 5 keywords (cut from 200). Paid tiers run Silver $9.99, Gold $49.99, Platinum $214.99, Diamond from $500 a month.A free plan with no card, then $99 or $199 a month, each with a free seven-day trial. You pay for finished leads, not raw hits.
SourcesThree, and narrow: Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters.Twelve: Reddit, Hacker News, X, Stack Overflow, GitHub, Quora, Indie Hackers, Product Hunt, Trustpilot, Medium, LinkedIn and the open web.
ScoringNone. Every keyword match is emailed to you at equal weight.A buying-intent score from 0 to 100 on each post. Only 40 and above surfaces, so tourists and vendors drop out.
What you getAn email: your keyword showed up here, plus a link. That is the whole thing.A scored buyer plus a reply drafted in your voice, waiting in a dashboard for you to review.
Work left to youEverything. You judge whether the person is a buyer, then write every reply from a blank box, then send.Review and send. The judging and the first draft are already done for you.
For AI agentsNone on the free tier. Higher paid tiers add an API.An MCP server, a REST API and a CLI on every plan, so Claude Code or Cursor can pull and draft leads directly.

Pricing, side by side

F5Bot restructured its pricing since our last check — the free tier dropped from 200 to 5 keywords, and the two paid add-ons became a five-tier ladder. Figures are re-verified on its public site, August 2026.

F5BotEaseClaw
Free / try itFree · 5 keywordsFree plan · no card, or 7 days free on any paid plan (card required)
EntrySilver · $9.99 / mo · 20 keywords$99 / mo · Pro
MidGold · $49.99 / mo · 200 keywords$99 / mo · Pro
HigherPlatinum · $214.99 / mo · 300 keywords$199 / mo · Business
TopDiamond · from $500 / mo · custom keywords$199 / mo · Business

Honest read: F5Bot is priced to be an alert layer, not a lead-finder, but it is no longer free at any real scale — 5 keywords is thin. You are not comparing two price tags for the same job. You are deciding whether raw alerts or scored, drafted leads fit where you are right now, and whether F5Bot's own paid tiers or EaseClaw's are the better next step.

Is EaseClaw actually right for you?

Switch to EaseClaw if…
  • Your F5Bot alerts have become a firehose and you want the real buyers pulled out for you.
  • You want an intent score doing the first pass, so you stop reading matches that are not buyers.
  • You’d rather review a drafted reply than write every one from a blank box.
  • You want buyers beyond three sites, on X, Quora, Indie Hackers and the open web.
  • You’ve already outgrown F5Bot’s 5-keyword free tier and don’t want to fund its paid ladder just to get more keywords.
  • You want your AI agent (Claude Code, Cursor) to pull and draft leads over MCP on any plan.
Stick with F5Bot if…
  • 5 keywords on Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters genuinely covers your whole watchlist.
  • The volume is light enough that sorting the buyers yourself is no burden.
  • You like writing every reply yourself and do not want a draft.

If that is you, F5Bot is a genuinely good, free tool, and we’d rather you keep it than pay us for something you do not need yet.

Getting started takes about two minutes

Where F5Bot asks you to type in the keywords to watch, EaseClaw reads your site and proposes them for you:

  1. Paste your website. EaseClaw reads it to work out what you sell and who your ideal buyer is.
  2. Confirm the keywords and sources. It proposes buyer-intent phrases; you approve or edit, and pick which platforms to watch.
  3. Review your first leads. The agent scans, scores, and drafts. You read the leads and send the replies you like.

Questions

Is EaseClaw a good F5Bot alternative?
It depends on what you want, and it is worth knowing that F5Bot just got a lot less generous for free. As of August 2026 its free tier caps at 5 keywords, down from the 200 it used to allow, with a five-tier paid ladder (Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond) above it. If 5 keywords covering Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters is genuinely enough, F5Bot is still hard to beat on price. EaseClaw is the paid step up for people who need more than that: it watches twelve sources, scores each post from 0 to 100 for buying intent so only real buyers surface, and drafts the reply in your voice. F5Bot tells you a word was mentioned. EaseClaw tells you someone is ready to buy, and writes the reply.
Is F5Bot really free?
Only up to a point now, and that point shrank. F5Bot's free tier used to allow up to 200 keywords; as of our August 2026 check it caps at 5. Above that it runs a paid ladder: Silver at $9.99 a month (20 keywords), Gold at $49.99 (200 keywords), Platinum at $214.99 (300 keywords), and Diamond from $500 a month for a custom count. For a single-digit number of keywords, the core alert email still costs nothing. For anything more, you are now paying F5Bot too — we would rather flag that change plainly than repeat a stale 'generously free' pitch.
What does F5Bot not do that EaseClaw does?
Two things, on top of the price change above. First, scoring: F5Bot emails every keyword match at equal weight, so you sort the buyers from the noise yourself, and the noise grows as you add keywords. EaseClaw rates each post for buying intent and only shows you the ones above the floor. Second, drafting: F5Bot hands you a link and stops, so every reply is yours to write. EaseClaw drafts a reply in your voice from a profile of what you sell. It also watches twelve sources instead of three.
Why pay for EaseClaw when F5Bot has a free tier?
F5Bot's free tier is thinner than it used to be — 5 keywords, down from 200 — so many businesses will outgrow it faster now, keyword-wise, than before. Even within that limit, F5Bot's free tier is a fine fit right up until the alerts pile up faster than you can read them, or you notice most of them are not buyers, or you want coverage beyond three sites. At that point you are paying with your evenings, or now with a Silver/Gold/Platinum upgrade to F5Bot itself. EaseClaw's intent score does the first pass of judgement, and the draft gives you a running start on a wider net. If 5 keywords still covers you, stay on F5Bot's free tier.
Which sources does each tool watch?
F5Bot watches three, and they are good ones: Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters. That narrow focus is part of why it stays fast and free. EaseClaw watches twelve: those plus X, Stack Overflow, GitHub, Quora, Indie Hackers, Product Hunt, Trustpilot, Medium, LinkedIn and the open web, with Hacker News, Stack Overflow and GitHub included free on every plan. If your buyers only ever post on Reddit and Hacker News, F5Bot already covers you.
Will EaseClaw post or reply for me?
Never. EaseClaw finds the lead, scores it and drafts a reply, then it stops. You read the draft, edit it and send it yourself. There is no feature anywhere in the product that posts, sends or messages a person. F5Bot never posts either; it only emails you a link. On the sending question the two tools agree completely: the human always presses send.
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When the alerts pile up, get the buyers.

Paste your site, and your agent watches twelve sources, scores each post by buying intent, and drafts the reply. You always press send.

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Written by Pritesh Mann, founder of EaseClaw, who uses the product daily to find EaseClaw’s own customers. F5Bot facts are drawn from its public site. Last updated August 2026.