“Discord” has more meaning to it than a simple disagreement between two people. We now use the name exclusively when talking about a specific online platform.

While the gaming community may have formed Discord, it has become more than a tool for communication. Viewers can now make a living through this peculiar network.

A few years ago, gamers wanted a reliable way to communicate through video and audio with their friends. Many console games already included a multiplayer mode. Though the gamemakers didn’t always think to add live chat functionality. If they did, it was limited to text-only.

Imagine you were playing a first-person shooter game and had to type messages at the same time! If losing doesn’t irritate you, pausing your game every few minutes to message other players will.

Thus, online gamers developed Discord in 2015. Which would become a 15 billion-dollar industry by 2021. Publishers are constantly searching for new platforms to advertise on.

It’s no surprise that many have started using Discord servers for adding their affiliate links. Keep reading if you’re one of these publishers looking for the best ways to make money on Discord!

Opening a Discord Account

Similar chat functions, such as Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network, are dependent on the gaming consoles in which they are used. You won’t be able to join these servers from your laptop. At least not without some serious effort! That’s because they are only meant to be used on those consoles.

Discord doesn’t limit itself to specific consoles. Discord has become much more than a gaming platform. It has become a worldwide forum for any topic.

Discord can be broken down into servers and channels. Within each server, categories organize the various channels.

You can integrate your Discord account with your Xbox Live account. If you’ve got the patience, you can integrate it into your PlayStation account too.

Discord is also available online for you to use through your web browser.

If you prefer apps, you can download Discord on any of your devices.

When you’re a user, you can either join up to 100 different servers or simply start your own Discord server.

If you want to make money on Discord, you’ll need to create your own server. You can even create multiple servers for different advertising needs!

Discord Servers

As a publisher, opening a server is the best way to make money on Discord. “Server” is the fancy name that Discord gave to its chat rooms. A server can be public or private.

A public Discord server allows anyone to join that server.

A private Discord server is invite-only.

Each server can have a maximum of 500 different channels. These channels can be organized into categories. A server can’t use more than 50 categories.

Furthermore, a server can have up to 500,000 members.

But be careful if more than 25,000 users are online at the same time, you’ll need to contact Discord to make enough space available on the server.

Discord doesn’t work like your average social media network. With TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, there’s a lot more room for “posts.” Posts with images and videos in particular.

Discord has threads, which means it’s mostly text or comments. This makes it much harder to advertise on Discord.

It’s already painstaking work to create your server(s) and channels. Then more work to categorize everything. Now you have to figure out how to promote a Discord server. But don’t let that scare you! There are still trustworthy methods you can follow to make the most of your efforts.

Discord Monetization

While servers are free to use and create, there are many ways you can monetize server or channels on Discord. Some common methods to make money on Discord include:

  • Selling products, services, or content;
  • Consultation services;
  • Affiliate marketing;
  • Limiting server access to paying members (monthly or annual subscriptions);
  • Advertising other servers;
  • Sponsorships;
  • Collaborations;
  • Donations.

 
Most of the users making money on Discord sell either products, services, or access to content. Ranging from selling art and clothes to selling graphic design and web development services.

If you’re a good writer with an opinion that viewers want to hear, you can sell your content. Viewers could even come to your server for consultation on various topics.

You’re allowed to advertise whatever product you can think of through Discord. Though it’s best that you keep to the legal stuff! Because of this, Discord is a fantastic platform for affiliate marketing. But we’ll get into that later.

Beyond the content or products you sell, you can earn an income through paid memberships.

There are Discord bots that allow you to kick off any user that isn’t paying a monthly fee. You just need to add your Patreon or similar account where your viewers can pay you through.

There are Discord bots you could use to facilitate payments.

Although not all of these follow the Discord guidelines.

Be careful to follow the TOCs; otherwise, Discord could shut down your server.

Another way to make money on Discord is by advertising other servers

Many users will happily pay another person to do the hard work of promoting Discord servers. Make sure to find a server you know how to promote. There’s nothing worse than trying to advertise products you know nothing about!

It works both ways, though. There are many Discord servers you can advertise on yourself.

There’s an art to knowing how to promote people on Discord. The execution of sponsorships and collaborations requires a fine level of social skills.

Plus, you need creative minds that can find new ways of presenting the same content over and over again.

But the traffic that each server mutually gains from this experience is worth it. It also takes stress off your shoulders when you work together with another server.

A sponsorship refers to a server paying another to promote products and content. Often, sponsorships involve giving the advertiser free product samples.

That way, the advertiser has something to base their reviews on.

A collaboration differs from a sponsorship in that both the servers and advertisers benefit. Each party can advertise the other through posts, sample-gifting, and joint live-streams.

Donations are a fantastic Discord monetization option that should be implemented by default. This allows any user to donate as much as they would like, whenever they can. Donations should go hand-in-hand with any other method you opt for.

On to the next level! By now, you should have implemented your monetization methods within Discord.

Next, you’ll need other places to advertise Discord servers. While it’s great to monetize your Discord account, you need to attract users first.

How are you supposed to build proper revenue if no one can find your server?

How to Promote Discord Servers

The best way to advertise a Discord server is through other platforms. As vast as Discord is, even Discord users might not find your server because of Discord’s limitations.

Using popular social media networks and other platforms greatly increases your potential traffic.

Discord makes this easy for us.

It offers a function for connecting your social media accounts to your Discord server. Discord offers integration between itself and:

  • Reddit;
  • Steam;
  • TikTok;
  • Twitter;
  • PlayStation Network;
  • Spotify;
  • Xbox Live;
  • Facebook;
  • GitHub;
  • Twitch;
  • YouTube.

 
You can even enter your PayPal information and connect your account for simple payments. Discord still loves and hasn’t forgotten about its gamers.

There is still account integration with Battle.net, Epic Games, League of Legends, and Riot Games, too.

Whatever social media account you use to advertise your server, make sure to monetize it too. There can’t be too many streams of income, right?

Many popular networks have built-in monetization methods. Apps like TikTok and Instagram allow account monetization when you meet certain requirements. For example, having a certain number of views on your videos or a large number of subscribers.

On top of these built-in options, you can also use other platforms to monetize less popular accounts.

ConvertSocial is one of these platforms that monetizes other social media networks and messaging apps.

ConvertSocial connects you with brands in need of advertising.

All you need to do is generate links with ConvertSocial, add them to any of the following accounts, and you can begin advertising:

 
Beyond social media accounts, there are websites that will help advertise your server. You might need to have some advertising material for them to use—banners, videos, posts—but they will get the job done.

Some popular websites include:

  • Disboard;
  • Disforge;
  • Top.gg;
  • Discord Street;
  • Discord Servers.com.

 

Discord Advertising Bots

While browsing through Discord channels and forums, you may have come across the term “bot” a few times. That’s because Discord has a multitude of bot add-ons for various functionalities. From helpful bots that kick out non-paying users to bots that overload servers.

There’s a bot for almost anything on Discord, if you look hard enough!

Most Discord bots are used for either marketing management or advertising. Though you don’t have to limit yourself to these. You can even find a bot that plays a song whenever someone joins your server.

The following are some of the best bots to start off with. You can easily add any of these or other bots of your choosing. Just search for a bot through Discord or Google Search. Then you can “add” or “invite” the bot to your Discord server.

MEE6 offers a bunch of different tools, but its main purpose is server moderation.

You define the guidelines, and MEE6 will deal with users who break them in whichever way you’ve specified. You can penalize users by muting them or by completely banning them from the server. Depending on the extent to which they’ve broken the guidelines.

You may have heard of QuillBot or even used it before. But did you know that it’s actually a Discord bot? Well, it is.

QuillBot was originally made as a bot that paraphrases any piece of text you enter. This saves you from having to compare the text and manually change duplicate phrases. The biggest benefit of a paraphraser is SEO optimization. The more unique your text is, the higher it will appear in Google search results.

Arcane is a Discord bot that sets up a level and reward system within your server.

You might have a sea of viewers, but there are definitely some more loyal than others. Arcane opens the opportunity to reward users who have reached a specific “level.” The rewards can be special privileges, merchandise, or even actual prizes.

Whichever Discord advertising bots you decide to put in place, it’s vital that they follow Discord’s TOCs.

Certain bots, while you are still able to add them to your server, will very quickly get you banned. You could lose your entire channel and all your followers if you aren’t careful!

Discord Affiliate Marketing

Discord affiliate marketing is no different from any other form of affiliate marketing. Excepting for the fact that it happens through Discord servers.

The best way to start affiliate marketing on Discord is to pick an exciting niche. This can be anything you want to advertise.

But make sure it is something you actually have an interest in. Otherwise, you might find yourself giving up and losing all your hard work.

Affiliate marketing works very simply. The affiliate network provides unique referral links to each of their advertisers. These links connect any viewer interaction to a specific advertiser. When a viewer clicks on an ad and buys a product through a referral link, the advertiser is compensated.

The niche you choose should be a passion or area of interest that you have. The best advertisements come from those who enjoy the content they’re advertising.

If you love gaming, find an advertiser who needs to market gaming consoles and the newest releases. If you’re a coder at heart, there are millions of web development advertisers who need advertising.

Once you’ve decided on the type of niche you want to advertise in, you can start looking for an advertiser within that. Consider the following factors when deciding on an advertiser to partner with:

  • Audience size and reach;
  • Server capabilities;
  • Ad quality;
  • Product usefulness and durability;
  • Communication skills;
  • Commission rates.

 
Finding an advertiser by yourself isn’t worth the extra effort. Rather, go through a platform like Admitad Partner Network.

This is a great network that connects publishers in need of cash with advertisers willing to pay. Admitad offers any publisher the chance to market for big-name brands, such as:

 

Join Partner Network Now!

The Bottom Line

While there are an array of options for you to make money on Discord, it can be very limiting. If it wasn’t for the history and attachment the gaming community has to Discord, it wouldn’t be as popular as it is today. As a publisher, or anyone trying to make money online, you need to expand your reach as far as possible.

The best way to make money on Discord is to stop limiting yourself to a single platform.

Why stop at Discord?

Why not put the same effort and content into your Instagram account?

Or your YouTube channel?

There are endless opportunities to make money online. Discord can only give you a small taste of the revenue you could earn.

A few decades ago, they didn’t even have the Internet to look up a celebrity’s name. Let alone build an entire career out of it. Our generation has taken the Internet for granted. But the few who see the true potential can benefit tremendously. All you need to know is where to put your effort. Then you keep working for as long as you want to earn money every month!