小红书 (Xiaohongshu/RED)

Platform · this deep dive is built from the official pages of the platform itself and of the tools that support it.

Overview

小红书 (Xiaohongshu, literally "little red book"; the international name is RED, and since 2025 it has been written rednote in English-language app stores) is a Chinese platform where users publish 笔记 (biji, "notes"): sets of photographs or a short video with a text description.

The company describes itself this way: "Xiaohongshu is a lifestyle platform that inspires people to discover and connect with a range of diverse lifestyles", and states its mission as "inspire lives" (the official English-language "About" page). The Chinese version of the same page adds that the platform was founded by 毛文超 (Mao Wenchao) and 瞿芳 (Qu Fang) in 2013 in Shanghai (关于我们).

The practical difference from Douyin and WeChat: the centre of gravity here is neither video nor messaging but the purchase decision. The company itself writes that the platform "integrates the authentic content shared by its community with commerce" and has become one of the places people go to choose a way of living (xiaohongshu.com/en). That is where the platform's whole economy comes from: brands come here not for reach but for a recommendation from a real person.

Who's here

The figures below are the company's own claims, not independent measurements.

The official timeline on the English-language site records only two audience milestones: July 2020 — more than 100 million MAU, October 2021 — more than 200 million MAU (Milestones). The official pages give no fresher values. The same place separately states that in June 2018 the company closed a round D at a valuation of more than $3 billion.

The Chinese "关于我们" page gives a different set of figures and dates them explicitly: as of October 2019 the monthly audience "exceeded one hundred million", of whom 70% were born after 1990; the community sees more than 7 billion note impressions a day, of which over 95% is UGC (关于我们). Note this: the first figure carries the date 2019, while the other two have no date on the page.

In the app listing on the Chinese App Store the platform calls itself "3亿人的生活兴趣爱好聚集地" — "the gathering place for the life interests and hobbies of 300 million people"; the same listing shows 20.96 million ratings at an average score of 4.9 and second place in the "Social Networking" category (App Store CN). That is the publisher's marketing wording, not a measured audience.

Languages and countries. The app is declared in eight languages: English, French, Japanese, Korean, Russian, simplified and traditional Chinese, and Spanish; the age rating is 13+, and the publisher is Xingin Information Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd (App Store US). On Google Play the app declares more than 10 million downloads, 193 thousand reviews and an average score of 3.4; the publisher is listed as 行吟信息科技(上海)有限公司 and the age rating is USK 12+ (Google Play). The offices, according to the company, are in Shanghai (headquarters), Beijing and Wuhan (关于我们).

Getting started

Registration and the Xiaohongshu back offices are closed to reading without signing in. What is known:

• the main feed xiaohongshu.com/explore redirected to the sign-in page at the time of our check (/login?redirectPath=…);
• the international web version rednote.com shows the feed without signing in, and its navigation reveals the sections 推荐 (recommendations), 穿搭 (outfits), 美食 (food), 彩妆 (make-up), 影视 (film and TV), 职场 (work), 情感 (relationships), 家居 (home), 游戏 (games), 旅行 (travel), 健身 (fitness), 视频 (video), along with the buttons «发布» (publish) and «通知» (notifications);
• the creator back office lives on a separate domain, creator.xiaohongshu.com, but serves only the title «小红书创作服务平台» — the rest is assembled by a script;
• the open developer platform open.xiaohongshu.com serves an empty app shell.

About the creator back office itself the company says the following: "Xiaohongshu for Creators" is a "one-stop content creation platform for creators and agencies" with tools for managing posts, analytics and content production, as well as the ability to publish video and run live streams (Creators). Agencies are named as a separate category of user of this back office — meaning the platform recognises the model of managing other people's accounts.

The legal entity and registration details: 行吟信息科技（上海）有限公司, registered in Shanghai, ICP number Shanghai ICP 13030189 (contact).

What you can publish

The formats the company names itself: 笔记 (notes) — photos and text, video, live streams and the Hey feature (Creators, About). About live streams the company writes that they produced rapid growth in purchases and virtual gifts and became "a source of dynamic content and a creative channel for transactions" (Creators).

Technical limits — text length, file size, video duration — are not published on any public Xiaohongshu page.

The content rules, on the other hand, are published in full, in the English-language Community Guidelines (Creators). The key requirements for an author:

• Publish only original material based on real experience. The material must come from your own experience or creation, and you must have the right to use it. Republishing requires permission and attribution.
• Disclose sponsorship and the advertising nature of the material. The company frames this as the reader's right to know: users make purchase decisions on the basis of what is published, and transparency is critical. The platform separately asserts that disclosure usually does no harm to an author's reputation, and that sincere authors who disclose their interest more often receive a positive response.
• Do not flaunt wealth. The requirement is worded literally: prosperity comes hard and remains out of reach for many, so when publishing you should consider other people's feelings, avoid extravagance and respect the work of service staff.
• Report violations through the built-in complaint tools — especially if material looks fake or could harm minors.

A separate policy is devoted to intellectual property (the document is dated 16 June 2021). It states that the copyright in content created and published belongs to the user, but that when reposting to other platforms the user must comply with the terms of service and the community standards (Intellectual Property Protection Policy). The same document lists the four instruments governing the protection of rights: the Terms of Service, the Community Standards, the Community Convention and the guide to complaints about intellectual property infringement.

How to grow

Advertising

The company describes its advertising side this way: Xiaohongshu "acts as a bridge between consumers and brands" and has become a "core channel for brands to connect with their target audience"; among the advertiser categories named are cosmetics, fashion, everyday consumer goods, consumer electronics and cars (Business).

Specific formats are not listed on the public page — instead there are three case studies: Cartier's integration into search on 520 (the Chinese Valentine's Day) in 2021, an Under Armour campaign with offline yoga, and the "She's Mercedes" project in the 2020 Christmas season (same source). There are no rate cards or minimum budgets on the open part of the site.

The ad manager is called 聚光 (Juguang) and lives on the domain ad.xiaohongshu.com; the page serves only the name — the content is assembled by a script and requires signing in.

Working with creators: 蒲公英 (PGY)

The official platform for brands working with bloggers is the PGY Platform (from 蒲公英, pugongying, dandelion), on the domain pgy.xiaohongshu.com. The company describes its functions this way: various partnership formats geared to marketing objectives — live shopping streams, sponsored posts and offline events; an end-to-end service from selection to settlement; choosing bloggers by various metrics; secure online settlements; synchronised communications and the ability to use the content created in other advertising formats (Business). The back office page itself serves only the name «小红书» — everything else is behind a login.

The algorithm

The company does not publish the mechanics of its recommendations. The only official statement on the subject is a line in the timeline: in January 2016 Xiaohongshu began applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to distribute the growing volume of content (Milestones). There are no ranking factors in the primary sources.

Path to monetization

Xiaohongshu does not describe any direct payouts to authors for views on its public pages. The confirmed ways of receiving money are as follows.

Brand deals through PGY. The company calls it outright a platform "empowering brands to work with influencers" with transactions conducted securely online (Business). The entry thresholds, the platform's commissions and the payout rules sit inside the back office behind authorisation.

Live streams. The company reports that both purchases and virtual gifting grew rapidly in live streams (Creators). The rates, the platform's shares and the withdrawal terms are not published.

E-commerce. The company describes its e-commerce as a closed loop "brand → key consumer → buyer" and calls Xiaohongshu Mall a place to "discover products, inspire other users, and make every purchase worth sharing"; offline formats are mentioned separately — pop-up shops and fashion salons with sales during live streams (Business). The Chinese version of the "About" page additionally names the company's own marketplace, 福利社 (关于我们).

Virtual currency. The app sells 薯币 (shubi): 42 coins for $0.99, 105 for $1.99, 210 for $3.99, 350 for $6.99, 476 for $9.99, 686 for $14.99, 1386 for $29.99, 3626 for $74.90, and 10,486 for $219 (App Store US). This is the platform's income; what share reaches the author is not stated publicly.

Corporate accounts. The Chinese "关于我们" page describes a separate unit, 企业号, which "brings together the company's resources from community marketing to closing the deal", helping a brand run the full cycle inside Xiaohongshu (关于我们).

Tools and automation

The official API

Xiaohongshu has an open platform, open.xiaohongshu.com, but the page serves an empty app shell, and the server returns the same shell for any address on that domain, including a deliberately non-existent one. The set of API methods, the access rights and the call limits are not described on any open page.

There is one piece of indirect evidence that an integration model exists: the company names agencies as a separate category of user of the creator back office and describes content management and analytics as its functions (Creators).

The platform's back offices

There are five official domains that answer a request: the creator back office creator.xiaohongshu.com («小红书创作服务平台»), the ad manager ad.xiaohongshu.com («小红书聚光»), the blogger collaboration platform pgy.xiaohongshu.com, the commerce back office ark.xiaohongshu.com («小红书千帆») and the seller portal school.xiaohongshu.com («小红书电商学习中心»). The content of all five is assembled by a script and requires signing in.

Third-party services

There are plenty of claims online about third-party schedulers supporting Xiaohongshu, but the API descriptions in them are blog rehashes rather than platform documentation.

Limits and rules

Content rights. The copyright in what is published belongs to the user; at the same time the rights to the brand, the app, the software, the design and derivative imagery belong to the company, and the marks «小红书» and Xiaohongshu may not be used without permission — including in regions where the trademarks are not yet registered (Intellectual Property Protection Policy).

Minors. The company declares "even higher standards of privacy and safety" for anyone under 18 (Privacy Protection). At the same time the app's age rating in the App Store is 13+ (App Store US), and on Google Play it is USK 12+ (Google Play).

Data. The company declares the user's right to access their data, correct and delete it, withdraw consent and delete the account, promising that after deletion all personal information will be erased or anonymised (Privacy Protection). On Google Play the developer states that data is not shared with third parties, that data is encrypted in transit and that deletion can be requested; at the same time location, personal data and seven further categories are collected (Google Play). In the App Store the same publisher discloses a broader set: purchases, search history, identifiers, precise and approximate location, contact details, the address book and user content, with identifiers marked as used for tracking across other companies' apps and sites (App Store US). The two disclosures diverge from each other.

Jurisdiction. The operator is 行吟信息科技（上海）有限公司, ICP number Shanghai ICP 13030189 (contact), which means the platform operates within the legal framework of the PRC with all the content requirements that follow.

Who it's for

Xiaohongshu suits brands in categories where the purchase decision is made through someone else's experience: cosmetics, fashion, everyday consumer goods, electronics, cars — the company itself names these categories among its advertisers (Business). The logic here is not reach but seeding a recommendation: the end-to-end path from a blogger's note to a purchase is described by the platform as its core product.

It suits authors willing to publish personal experience and disclose commercial integrations: disclosing sponsorship is not a recommendation but a direct requirement of the community rules (Creators).

It does not suit you if you need predictability: the platform has no public documentation on formats, limits, rates or payout thresholds — all of that sits behind authorisation in Chinese back offices. Planning a budget and a production process from open sources will not work.

Tools for this platform

The list is built from the tools' own facts: every line is a tool's statement that it supports the platform, with the source named. A tool missing from the list only means we have no such statement.

Social listening:

• Brandwatch — states support; source, checked 2026-07-28
• Meltwater — states support; source, checked 2026-07-28

Verified data

The checked data this deep dive rests on.

About the platform

the platform describes itself as follows: «3 亿人的生活经验，都在小红书» — «the life experience of 300 million people is on Xiaohongshu»; the heading: «你的生活兴趣社区» («the community of your life interests»)

The platform's own claim, not a measurement by an independent source

source, checked 2026-07-28

the operator: 行吟信息科技（上海）有限公司, address 上海市黄浦区马当路388号C座 (Shanghai), telephone 9501-3888; the copyright notice reads 2014-2026

source, checked 2026-07-28

founded in August 2013 in Shanghai as a UGC community about shopping abroad; August 2014 — the launch of e-commerce; January 2016 — the start of applying AI and machine learning to content distribution; June 2019 — the «Inspire Lives» mission

source, checked 2026-07-28

the platform was founded by 毛文超 (Mao Wenchao) and 瞿芳 (Qu Fang) in 2013 in Shanghai; the offices are Shanghai (headquarters), Beijing and Wuhan

The Chinese «关于我们» page

source, checked 2026-07-28

the app's publisher is Xingin Information Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd (行吟信息科技（上海）有限公司); iOS 13.0 or newer is required and the build is 468.8 MB

source, checked 2026-07-28

Who's here

the official timeline records two milestones: July 2020 — the monthly audience passed 100 million; October 2021 — it passed 200 million

We found no fresher values on the platform's official pages

source, checked 2026-07-28

the platform reports more than 7 billion note impressions a day, of which over 95% is UGC

These two figures carry NO date on the page: what period they relate to is unknown

source, checked 2026-07-28

as of October 2019 the monthly audience passed 100 million, of whom 70% were born after 1990

The figure is explicitly dated October 2019 by the source and is plainly out of date

source, checked 2026-07-28

on Google Play the app declares more than 10 million downloads, 193 thousand reviews and an average score of 3.4; the publisher is listed as 行吟信息科技(上海)有限公司 and the last update date is 27 July 2026

source, checked 2026-07-28

Getting started

the home page routes publishing to a separate creator centre on the domain creator.xiaohongshu.com; in the navigation it is called 创作中心

The source given is the page we READ (the home page with the link), not the page behind the link: the domain creator.xiaohongshu.com itself answers identically for any address, and nothing can be verified through it

source, checked 2026-07-28

the creator back office is described as a «one-stop content creation platform for creators and agencies»: tools for managing posts, analytics, content production, publishing video and running live streams

Agencies are named as a separate category of user of the back office — the platform recognises the model of managing other people's accounts

source, checked 2026-07-28

Business terms

in June 2018 the company closed a round D at a valuation of more than $3 billion

The company's own claim in its timeline

source, checked 2026-07-28

the PGY (蒲公英) platform for brands working with bloggers: partnership formats are live shopping streams, sponsored posts and offline events; an end-to-end service, blogger selection by metrics, secure online settlements and reuse of the content created in other advertising formats are declared

The pgy.xiaohongshu.com back office serves only the name and requires signing in

source, checked 2026-07-28

e-commerce is described as a closed loop «brand — key consumer — buyer»; Xiaohongshu Mall is named, along with offline formats such as pop-up shops and fashion salons with sales during live streams

The Chinese «关于我们» page additionally names the company's own marketplace, 福利社

source, checked 2026-07-28

the platform's official back offices: creator.xiaohongshu.com (小红书创作服务平台), ad.xiaohongshu.com (小红书聚光), pgy.xiaohongshu.com (蒲公英), ark.xiaohongshu.com (小红书千帆), school.xiaohongshu.com (小红书电商学习中心)

The content of all five is assembled by a script and requires signing in; only the titles served were checked

source, checked 2026-07-28

Content

the feed's sections: 推荐 (recommendations), 穿搭 (outfits), 美食 (food), 彩妆 (make-up), 影视 (film and TV), 职场 (work), 情感 (relationships), 家居 (home), 游戏 (games), 旅行 (travel), 健身 (fitness), 视频 (video)

The set of sections is visible in the home page navigation

source, checked 2026-07-28

alongside the feed of posts there are live streams (直播) and a separate RED video section

source, checked 2026-07-28

the formats the company names itself: 笔记 (notes — photographs and text), video, live streams and the Hey feature

There are no technical limits on text length, file size or video duration on the public pages

source, checked 2026-07-28

Promotion

the only official statement about the algorithm: in January 2016 the company began applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to distribute the growing volume of content

The platform does not publish its ranking factors

source, checked 2026-07-28

Advertising

the ad manager is called 聚光 (Juguang) and lives on ad.xiaohongshu.com; the page serves only the name, and the content is assembled by a script and requires signing in

The formats, minimum budgets and moderation rules have not been verified

source, checked 2026-07-28

the company names as its advertisers brands in the categories cosmetics, fashion, everyday consumer goods, consumer electronics and cars; specific formats are not listed on the public page — instead there are case studies of Cartier (2021), Under Armour and «She's Mercedes» (the 2020 Christmas season)

There are no rate cards or minimum budgets on the open part of the site

source, checked 2026-07-28

How the money works here

the company reports rapid growth in purchases and virtual gifting in live streams

The company publishes no rates, platform shares or withdrawal terms

source, checked 2026-07-28

Pricing

the virtual currency 薯币 is sold in packs: 42 coins for $0.99, 105 for $1.99, 210 for $3.99, 350 for $6.99, 476 for $9.99, 686 for $14.99, 756 for $14.99, 1386 for $29.99, 3626 for $74.90, 10,486 for $219

What share reaches the author is not stated publicly

source, checked 2026-07-28

Restrictions

age rating: 13+ in the App Store and USK 12+ on Google Play; at the same time the company declares heightened standards of privacy and safety for anyone under 18

The second rating is confirmed by the listing https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xingin.xhs&hl=en ; the statement about minors — https://www.xiaohongshu.com/en/privacy_protection

source, checked 2026-07-28

the community rules require: publishing only original material based on your own real experience, and obtaining permission with attribution when republishing; disclosing sponsorship and the advertising nature of material; not flaunting wealth and considering other people's feelings; reporting violating content through the built-in complaint tools

Disclosing a commercial interest is a direct requirement, not a recommendation

source, checked 2026-07-28

Legal

the platform's registration number is Shanghai ICP 13030189

Given in the footer of the English-language site together with the notice Copyright © 2021 Xiaohongshu

source, checked 2026-07-28

an intellectual property protection policy dated 16 June 2021: the copyright in content created and published belongs to the user, while the rights to the brand, the app, the software and derivative imagery belong to the company; the marks «小红书» and Xiaohongshu may not be used without permission, including in regions where the marks are not yet registered

Four governing documents are listed: the Terms of Service, the Community Standards, the Community Convention and the guide to complaints

source, checked 2026-07-28

the company declares the user's right to access their data, correct and delete it, change or withdraw consent and delete their account, promising that after deletion all personal information will be erased or anonymised

source, checked 2026-07-28

Languages

the app is declared in eight languages: English, French, Japanese, Korean, RUSSIAN, simplified Chinese, Spanish, traditional Chinese

The source is the app listing, filled in by the publisher

source, checked 2026-07-28

Catalogue section: all similar See also: catalogue index · region: China · scheduler comparison · find by situation · platform restrictions