Subreddit growth · weekly visitors × contributions
r/FPSAimTrainer draws ~5–6× our traffic because it behaves as the category sub: gear, grip, sensitivity, VOD reviews, 13+ user posts a day. r/aimlab has 11K weekly visitors and 379 weekly contributions on ~3 posts a day (31K members, flat since 2022), four pinned brand announcements — and a 116K-member Discord it never routes here. This plan reallocates the sub around what people actually ask, owns the console-aim conversation KovaaK's can't touch, and adds a coach and progress loop. Everything from the sprint is on this page for review: diagnosis, demand, archive case studies, the r/modhelp SOP check, the adjustable projection model, the 90-day timeline, the owned-audience drip and operating rules. The primary lever is the daily invite loop.
Day-90 weekly visitors vs. 100K goal
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Weekly visitors · day 90
Contributions / week · day 90
Where this cadence settles
Inputs needed for 100K
Live sidebars and r/new feeds, Sep 17 2026
| r/aimlab | r/FPSAimTrainer (KovaaK's) | |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly visitors (sidebar, Sep 17) | 11K | 61K (59K on Jun 12) |
| Weekly contributions (sidebar) | 379 | 1.9K (1.3K on Jun 12) |
| Members | ~31K | ~62K |
| Visitors per weekly post | ~520 | ~670 |
| Contributions per post | ~18 | ~21 |
| User posts / day | ~3 | ~13+ |
| Member growth (GummySearch) | 0.8% / mo | 1.3% / mo |
| Pinned posts | 4, all "Official" brand announcements | 1 mod post asking members for ideas — 73 comments |
| Feed flavor | Bug/Issue, Cheater, Meme, PBs, product news | Gear/Tech, grip, desk height, sensitivity, VOD Review, scenario requests, creator highlights |
| Discord | 116K members · ~14K online | 52K members · ~12K online |
Despite a "KovaaK's only" rule, r/FPSAimTrainer is the general aim-training help desk. Mouse, grip, sens, "what should I train" and VOD reviews are what people type into Google and Reddit search, so it compounds on evergreen discovery traffic. Our feed reads like a support forum — no reason to visit without a problem.
Their one pin is a question to members. Ours are four announcements. User-post volume is what feeds Reddit's home-feed recommendations and search indexing — and that is the traffic engine.
VOD Review flair, highlight clips and named coaches (appearing as GummySearch topics at ~1.5 posts/day) give a reason to return daily. r/aimlab has no equivalent surface — and a 116K Discord that never sends anyone here.
Demand signal (GummySearch): 142 advice requests and 83 solution requests across the audience; "Technique" +550% and "Progress" +150% in r/FPSAimTrainer; "Sensitivity" and "Mouse" trending in both subs. "Aimlabs" as a topic is down 10–19% and "Controller" down 54% in r/aimlab — the console angle is sitting unused.
Reddit-wide, items per day (GummySearch Advanced Search, most recent window)
| Layer | Query | Posts / day | Comments / day | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grievance | "aim assist" | 25 | ~306 | r/CODWarzone, r/FortniteCompetitive, r/modernwarfare4, r/WarDogs, r/FortniteBR, r/Overwatch, r/Marathon |
| Topic | "controller aim" | 1.8 | 9.2 | 55 subs — r/modernwarfare4, r/apexuniversity, r/thefinals, r/FortniteBR |
| Settings intent | "controller sensitivity" | 2.0 | — | r/Rainbow6, r/HaloInfinity, whichever shooter just launched |
| Improve intent | "controller aim" + improve | ~0.4 | — | r/aimlab is already the #1 sub here, then r/OverwatchUniversity, r/FortniteBR |
| Solution intent | "aim trainer" + console | ~0.12 | — | ≈ 1 post/week: r/FPSAimTrainer, r/OverwatchUniversity, r/OWConsole, r/WidowmakerMains, r/XboxSeriesX |
| Benchmark | "aim trainer" (whole category) | 2.4 | — | r/FPSAimTrainer, r/Overwatch, r/aimlab |
Every aim-assist thread is an unfalsifiable debate. A public Controller-vs-MnK challenge task with weekly results posted in r/aimlab turns the reply into one line: "here's what 4,000 people scored on both inputs — add yours." The only move that touches the 300-comments-a-day layer.
"Controller sensitivity" gets as many posts a day as the whole aim-trainer category and spikes at every shooter launch. A cross-game sens converter and a weekly "post your settings, we'll diagnose them" thread is something a game sub can't host and r/aimlab can.
Tracked searches for "controller aim" + improve/tips/settings, "controller sensitivity", "aim trainer" + console/Xbox/PS5. ~4 qualifying posts a day; each reply ends in a specific Aimlabs console task or r/aimlab thread, never the homepage.
Honest read: the explicit "is there an aim trainer for console?" question is ~50 posts a year. The wedge isn't finding those people — it's giving the 300-a-day grievance crowd a reason to leave the argument and go do something, and being the answer when they do.
old.reddit sidebars via the Wayback Machine — exact reader counts on the capture date
| Snapshot | r/FPSAimTrainer | r/aimlab | What the feed looked like |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 2020 | 12,644 | — | Pins: community-built Progress Tracker Dashboard + developer-run META LEAGUE Season 3. Feed: "1 Summer of Kovaaks later" progress videos, routine and sens questions. |
| Sep 2021 | 23,551 | — | Valorant-era doubling. |
| Jun / Jul 2022 | 29,545 | 23,003 | Roughly the same size. r/aimlab pin: "Latest patch notes." |
| Mar 2024 | 37,165 | — | |
| May 2025 | — | 26,354 | r/aimlab pins: $100K Logitech G competition (10 comments) + Season 4 battle pass. Feed: PC Bug/Issue, Xbox Bug/Issue, Aim Question, 2–3 posts/day. |
| Aug 2025 | 47,537 | 26,779 | r/FPSAimTrainer pins: dev-posted Benchmark Tracker + patch notes. Feed: Discussion / VOD Review / Highlight / Guide, Voltaic score questions, memes, a 537-comment cheating thread. |
| Sep 2026 | 62K | 31K | r/aimlab +3.8K in three years (~110/mo). r/FPSAimTrainer +31K, fastest stretch the most recent. |
Oct 2024: 14,976 readers. Jun 2026: ~25 posts in 13 hours, almost all "#N — [game] 100%" with a screenshot, flaired Celebrate. No prizes, no dev. A numbered, low-effort, copyable progress format is the whole engine. r/aimlab equivalent: "#N — Master Complete" / "Day N of aim training" with the rank card.
A $100K competition pinned in r/aimlab produced 10 comments because it lived in Discord and asked nothing of Redditors. KovaaK's META LEAGUE and Benchmark Tracker asked for a post and lived on Reddit.
Voltaic benchmarks generate constant "what does this score mean / am I improving too slowly" posts in r/FPSAimTrainer. Aimlabs ranks (Diamond, Master, 72K scores) can do the same if the sub explains and celebrates them.
Cross-referenced against the Subreddit Growth Playbook — 77 threads, 646 comments, Sep 2025–Sep 2026
At 11K weekly visitors r/aimlab sits in the playbook's Tier 3, but the intake test is who writes the posts: a mod-fed feed with four brand pins is the Tier 1 pathology — a Recruit bottleneck — at Tier 3 traffic. The playbook's benchmark for 100K weekly visitors (12–20 posts/day, single sub, tce7lp) matches the ~25 posts/day our sidebar ratios imply.
| Tactic in this plan | r/modhelp evidence | Mods for / against | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daily invite loop — 10 personal modmails/day to authors of controller-aim, sens and progress posts elsewhere | "Highest-leverage tactic"; #1 channel in the 277 → 38K MinimalistPhotography case; GaryNOVA's 7-year routine | 7 / 0 | ✅ Added as the primary lever |
| Weekly settings clinic, leaderboard, monthly Progress Challenge | Scheduled contests, theme days, megathreads sustain engagement from Tier 1 up | 6 / 0 | ✅ Direct match |
| Answer-marketing in game subs, 1-hour SLA | Mention the sub only where it answers the thread; repeated mentions got accounts banned | 8 / 3 | ✅ With restraint: answer first, link only when it is the answer |
| Seeded question posts | Daily mod content is table stakes — but mods at 80%+ of posts is a red flag; save mod posts for slow days | 14 / 0 | ✅ Cut to 2/day, slow-day filler |
| Coaches posting weekly; Redditor role; Progress & PB flair | Reply to every first-time poster, vote on everything, flair contributors so they are visible and rewarded | 5 / 0 | ✅ Match |
| Discord / email drip | A Discord drop took one sub to 5K daily visits and decayed within two weeks — treat as a retention test | — | ✅ Ours is recurring (weekly digest, role, rank-up email), not a drop |
| Eligibility check: awards, category tag, discoverability, active mods | Admin review / category tag is "the only admin lever that works"; a tag landing took one sub from 2.5K to 4.7K daily views | 4 / 0 | ✅ Added to week 1 |
| Sidebar swaps with mid-size neighbours | Cheap; 1M+ subs decline, mid-size say yes | 6 / 2 | ✅ Added to Phase 1 |
| Crossposting leaderboard results | Net negative unless permitted and rare; "they engage in the sub you crossposted to" | 4 / 5 | ⚠️ Changed to comment answers + permitted posts, max 1 per sub per 2 weeks |
| Reddit Ads for the community | Mentioned twice, downvoted, no success reports | 1 / 2 | ⚠️ Downgraded to a two-week retention test; $0 in the conservative case |
| "What KovaaK's can't do" framing | Defining a sub against a competitor earned an admin brigading warning | 0 / 6 | ⚠️ Internal only; never in r/aimlab copy |
| Tier-3 hygiene: Automod, bot apps, civility rule, 3+ mods | Every 10K-visitor thread is about spam and burnout; both documented collapses were quality, not promotion | — | ✅ Added to Phase 2 |
Drag the assumptions. Nothing here counts viral posts, Reddit recommendation lift or creator audience spillover.
How to read this: inputs → user posts/day → the weekly-visitor level that cadence supports (three subs measured: 3/day ≈ 11K, 13/day ≈ 61K, 12–20/day ≈ 100K) → convergence toward it. The presets differ in execution intensity — 10 vs 20 vs 50 invites a day, 3 vs 5 vs 8 coaches — and in the conversion rates we cannot measure until week 3. Drag the inputs to see what 20 or 50 DMs a day buys.
Each input becomes user posts per day. Cadence sets where weekly visitors settle (three subs measured); visitors then converge toward that level. Contributions are posts × 18 (measured).
Unmeasured until the invite log and Mod Insights fill in. Presets bracket them; the day-60 review replaces them with actuals.
| Week | Dates | Phase | Invites sent | User posts/day | Contributions/wk | Weekly visitors | Settles at | Key action |
|---|
Three phases, 1-week sprints. Tick items off as you go — checkmarks stay on this device.
Traffic sent to a support forum bounces. The flair overhaul and pinned community question are what let every later lever compound.
The people who will make r/aimlab a category sub are already posting controller-aim, sens and progress content in other subs. The SOP's most-repeated tactic is to invite them one at a time; our tracked searches find them daily. Answer-marketing and the leaderboard convert grievance and settings intent, and every reply ends at a result in r/aimlab — never the homepage.
Ads point at the leaderboard post, not the site, so spend buys visitors who return. Seeding tapers as organic volume takes over — expect a small dip in week 9 and hold the line.
Aimlabs already owns the audience KovaaK's built its subreddit from. Today the flow runs the wrong way.
Its Discord (52K members, ~12K online) and subreddit (62K) are roughly the same size and the sub is treated as the place results live: the developer pins a community Benchmark Tracker and patch notes, ran a recurring META LEAGUE from 2020, and the current pin asks members for Steam-achievement ideas (73 comments). Sidebar links out to the sens converter, wiki and Discord, but competitive results, VOD reviews and progress posts happen on Reddit.
Discord is 116K members (~14K online at a time), 2.2× KovaaK's — yet r/aimlab is half the size of r/FPSAimTrainer. The r/aimlab banner sends Redditors to Discord ("join and earn special roles"), the $100K Logitech competition lived in Discord and drew 10 Reddit comments, and aimlabs.com lists Reddit last in the footer. The owned audience exists; nothing routes it here.
| Touch | Channel | When | What | Conservative yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| D1 | Discord | Wk 2, then permanent | Create #r-aimlab feed channel: webhook auto-posts every new r/aimlab thread (MonitoRSS). Pin a "results live on Reddit" message in #vod-review, #settings and #looking-for-group pointing to the matching flair. | 150 visits/wk |
| D2 | Discord | Wk 2, weekly (Fri) | "This week on r/aimlab" — top 3 threads + the settings-clinic result, posted in #announcements. Same digest goes to email. | 150 visits/wk |
| D3 | Discord role | Wk 3 | Grant a Redditor role (colour + emote) to anyone who links their Reddit account or posts a screenshot of their r/aimlab post; role = entry to the monthly Progress Challenge. | +10 posts/wk |
| E1 | Email (trigger) | Wk 4 | Rank-up / season-end email: "Post your rank card — #N Master Complete" with a pre-filled Reddit submit link (title + Progress & PB flair). One click, screenshot attached. | 100 visits, 5 posts / 1K sends |
| E2 | Email (monthly) | Wk 5, Wk 9, Wk 13 | Monthly digest to opted-in list: leaderboard standings, best VOD review, settings-clinic winners. Every link lands on a thread, never the homepage. | ~0.5% of list / send |
| G1 | In-game | Wk 6 with leaderboard | Post-task share card for the Controller-vs-MnK challenge with "Share to r/aimlab" as the first option; Aimlabs engineering item, biggest single lever. | Counted in leaderboard line |
| T1 | Telegram | Only if a channel exists | Aimlabs has no public Telegram; do not build one for this. If regional communities run Telegram groups, mirror D2 there. | 0 in model |
Rule for every touch: the destination is a specific thread or flair, and the ask is a post, not a join. Flip the r/aimlab banner so Discord is offered as the chat layer and Reddit as the record. Model default: 500 visitors/week from all owned channels combined, 2% of them posting — ~0.4% of the Discord alone.
Client owner (Keanu / Valeria / Rangga) runs seeding, answer-marketing, coach recruiting and the Friday weekly report, sent whether or not there is a call. Paul and Alex run ads from week 7. Daily 10-minute check-in, 1-week sprints, monthly Aimlabs call with the big report.
Traffic without contribution volume does not compound. If any trips, double the invite loop and pause ads until fixed: