If F5Bot's firehose became unreadable.
F5Bot is genuinely great, free, reliable, fast. The problem is it has no opinion about which of the 80 daily matches actually represent a buyer. Heardley pulls the same Reddit data, runs each thread through an LLM scoring pass (0-3 intent), categorizes by type (pain / comparison / recommendation / complaint), and ships a single 9am digest of only the high-intent ones. Plus a reply linter that keeps your account safe and a competitor intelligence module. $9/month, BYOK.
Where Heardley beats F5Bot, and where it doesn't.
Pick F5Bot if 5 alerts/day. Pick Heardley if 50+.
F5Bot wins when you're tracking a small handful of specific high-signal keywords (your brand name, your founder name, a unique product term) where every match is genuinely relevant. It's free and it works. No reason to pay $9 to replace that.
Heardley wins when you're tracking broader categories (your industry, competitor names, problem phrases) and getting buried in 50-100 unfiltered matches a day. The intent scoring + categorization is the difference between "I'll get to my F5Bot folder Sunday" and "5 high-intent threads landed in Slack this morning, I'll reply to two."
What F5Bot users actually ask before adding Heardley.
How is Heardley different from F5Bot?
Same data source, plus an LLM filter on top, 0-3 intent scoring, category sorting, reply linter, competitor intel. F5Bot ships every match; Heardley ships only the ones worth your reply.
F5Bot is free, why pay $9?
If F5Bot's volume is manageable, don't. If you're triaging 80 alerts a day to find 5 real ones, that's where the $9 buys back time.
Can I use both together?
Yes, F5Bot for instant pings on tight brand keywords, Heardley for the wider net that needs filtering.
Does Heardley cover HN or Lobsters?
No, Reddit only. Keep F5Bot for HN/Lobsters; they coexist fine.
What's the actual LLM cost?
$2-$5/month for heavy use on OpenRouter's paid models. Free on the free tier. Set your model in Settings.
Is there a free option?
No free trial. First scrape on every account is included for preview. Hosted is $9/month or $54 lifetime.
Try it.
If F5Bot's inbox folder is read-status: 412, that's the gap Heardley fills.