International SMM

Discord

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

Overview

Discord is a platform for communities, built as a set of servers with text and voice channels. A post here does not land in any common feed: it is seen by the members of one particular channel on one particular server. That is a fundamentally different distribution model from a social network, and everything else follows from it — from the ways you grow to who the platform pays.

The company describes itself as a platform that grew out of gaming chat: the first version was released in May 2015, and by its own data more than 90% of users play video games. For marketing this means the audience is gathered around interests and shared activities rather than around creators.

The second difference is that Discord pays not content creators but server owners and application developers. The documentation limits the scope explicitly: monetization covers bots and "activities", that is embedded applications, while server subscriptions are a separate product with their own terms. An ordinary account that publishes posts cannot earn money from the platform here.

The third difference is the most detailed public developer documentation in this guide: rate limits, data access requirements and monetization terms are laid out openly, with numbers.

Who's here

The platform reports more than 90 million daily active users and states honestly where the figure comes from: "Discord Internal Data, as of Q4 2025". This is a DAU figure, not MAU, and it cannot be compared directly with the monthly figures of other platforms.

From the same page comes the share of gamers: more than 90% of users play video games, according to a 2025 survey of Discord users. And one more measurement by the platform itself: about 40% of PC gamers launch a game within an hour — averaged across all months of 2025.

At the bottom of the page there is a choice of several dozen interface languages. The interface language of the home page is English.

Getting started

Account and server

The minimum age is set by the terms: a user must be at least 13 years old and no younger than the minimum age set by the law of their country. There is no separate "business account" on the platform — work begins by creating a server with an ordinary account.

A server can be switched into community mode: in the API this is the COMMUNITY flag which, according to the documentation, enables the welcome screen, membership screening, stage channels and the possibility of appearing in the directory. A separate DISCOVERABLE flag means that the server is shown publicly in the directory; the same page lists the VERIFIED and PARTNERED statuses and the ROLE_SUBSCRIPTIONS_ENABLED flag, which governs paid roles.

The entry barrier for new members

A server has a verification level — the setting an owner uses to cut off throwaway accounts. The documentation lists five levels: NONE — no restrictions, LOW — a verified email is required, MEDIUM — the account must be registered for longer than 5 minutes, HIGH — the member must have been on the server for longer than 10 minutes, VERY_HIGH — a verified phone number is required. This is the only built-in barrier against a mass influx of bots, and it is worth configuring before the server goes public.

The application

Creating a bot requires no approval: an application is registered in the developer portal, after which you receive an application ID, a public key and a bot token. The token is shown once and cannot be recovered — only reset. Approval comes later and only for certain permissions: privileged intents must be approved before the application is verified.

What you can publish

Formatted messages. The main rich publishing format is the embed. The documentation sets its limits: the title — 256 characters, the description — 4096, up to 25 fields, a field name — 256, a field value — 1024, the footer — 2048, the author name — 256, and the sum of all these fields across all embeds in a message must not exceed 6000 characters. Exceeding any of these limits produces a request error.

Ordinary message length. The subscription page names an extended limit: Nitro subscribers can write messages of up to 4000 characters.

Files. Upload limits are tied to the subscription: Nitro Basic at 2.99 USD per month allows uploads of up to 50 MB, full Nitro at 9.99 USD per month up to 500 MB.

Mentions. When sending a message through the API, the allowed-mentions list permits no more than 100 roles and no more than 100 users.

Forbidden. The community guidelines name, among other things: harassment and threats; hate speech — expressions that "attack other people or encourage hatred or violence against them" on protected grounds; material involving minors; intimate images without consent; glorification of suicide and self-harm; violence and graphic imagery intended to shock; misleading information that creates a substantial risk of harm — all of it is listed in the community guidelines. An age restriction inside the guidelines: access to sexual material is for 18 and over only.

How to grow

What the platform does not do

Discord promises no organic distribution of posts. The only mechanism of public discoverability named in the documentation is a server appearing in the directory through the COMMUNITY and DISCOVERABLE flags. The requirements for getting into the directory are described in the platform's help centre.

What you must not do

The community guidelines explicitly forbid artificial growth techniques: sending unsolicited bulk messages, using spam bots, tools for raiding servers, mass account creation tools and token generators, as well as artificially inflating a server's member count and faking engagement metrics. The platform describes the consequences as a warning, content removal, temporary suspension of access or permanent removal of accounts and servers — depending on the severity of the violation.

Advertising

The platform does have an advertising product — it is called Quests and is mentioned in sections of the site.

Path to monetization

Discord has two different money mechanisms, and they are easy to confuse.

Server subscriptions

This is a product for community owners. According to the platform's announcement, the creator receives 90% of the money collected, the subscription price is set in a range from 2.99 to 199.99 USD, and a server owner may take part if they are located in the United States, with no violations of the terms and guidelines. The same page says the product was available only in the United States at the time of the announcement. The announcement is dated 1 December 2022, and its age has to be taken into account: the details may have changed.

Application monetization

This is a product for developers. The documentation describes two kinds of paid item: one-off purchases — durable ones the user keeps forever and consumable ones that get spent; and subscriptions — per user or for a whole server, where all of its members get access. The "server subscription" model is rare: one member pays, everyone uses it.

The eligibility conditions are given as a list: the application is verified; it belongs to a developer team; the team owner is at least 18 years old; email addresses in the team are verified and two-factor authentication is on; the application uses slash commands or has been granted approved access to message content; terms of service and a privacy policy are published; the name, description and commands contain no harmful wording; a payout method is set up; the monetization terms and the developer policy have been accepted.

The geography and the payout threshold are named outright: paid application features are available only in the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom, and a payout becomes available after the application has earned its first 100 USD; payouts go through Stripe, and only the team owner can set them up.

The practical conclusion: if you run a community from a country outside those listed, you will not get direct payouts from Discord. Earning stays indirect — selling your own goods and services, affiliate programmes, working with advertisers directly.

Tools and automation

Official access

Discord's API is mature and well documented. The overall rate limit is stated openly: up to 50 requests per second per application. There is a separate penalty for errors: 10,000 invalid requests in 10 minutes lead to a temporary block on access, with responses 401, 403 and 429 counting as invalid; 429 responses with the shared scope do not count. The platform warns: "limits should not be hard-coded into an application" — they should be read from the response headers.

Access to data is restricted by privileged intents. There are three of them: member presence, the server member list and message content. From 10 June 2026 the threshold for mandatory review is counted by the number of users: an application seen by more than 10,000 unique users across all servers combined must submit an application; the previous threshold was 100 servers. You are given 90 days from the moment of notification to submit, and access must be re-confirmed annually. The platform advises doing without such access where possible: slash commands replace text commands and do not require privileged intents.

The practical conclusion: plan your architecture so that privileged intents are not needed. An application can be rejected on exactly the grounds that the task can be solved without them.

Third-party services

Here Discord differs noticeably from messengers. The Onlypult platform list names 16 services, and Discord is not among them; in Publer's table of daily limits Discord is likewise missing.

The platform's own practice is different: administration is done with bots installed on the server — well-known examples are MEE6 and Carl-bot.

Limits and rules

Who it's for

It suits projects that have a reason for continuous conversation: gaming communities, product teams, educational programmes, subscriber clubs. The platform's value is in retention and conversation rather than reach: the audience here is concentrated around games, and that is worth bearing in mind when choosing a subject.

It suits tool developers: the documentation is detailed, API access is granted without a review process, and application monetization is described step by step — provided you are located in the United States, the European Union or the United Kingdom.

It does not suit you as a reach channel: a post does not travel beyond the server. It does not suit conveyor-belt scheduling: schedulers such as Onlypult and Publer do not support Discord. And it does not suit community owners outside the United States if the goal is direct payouts from the platform: according to the platform's announcement, server subscriptions are limited to the United States.

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.

Scheduling and publishing:

Customer communication:

Automation:

Social listening:

Other tasks:

Verified data

The checked data this deep dive rests on.

About the platform

the first version of Discord was released in May 2015

source, checked 2026-07-28

Who's here

Daily audience. more than 90 million DAILY active users; the source is stated outright: "Discord Internal Data, as of Q4 2025"

Metric: DAU. The platform honestly calls the data internal and dates it

source, checked 2026-07-28

more than 90% of users play video games (according to the platform itself)

source, checked 2026-07-28

more than 90 million daily active users; the origin is stated: "Discord Internal Data, as of Q4 2025"

Re-check of the previous entry: the value and the dating have not changed

source, checked 2026-07-28

more than 90% of users play video games — according to a 2025 survey of Discord users

A clarification of where the figure comes from: this is a survey, not behavioural data

source, checked 2026-07-28

about 40% of PC gamers launch a game within an hour; averaged across all months of 2025

source, checked 2026-07-28

Getting started

an application is registered in the developer portal with no review process; you receive an application ID, a public key and a bot token; the token is shown once and cannot be recovered — only reset

Approval is required only for privileged intents and application verification

source, checked 2026-07-28

Account and access

server member verification levels: NONE — no restrictions, LOW — a verified email, MEDIUM — the account registered for longer than 5 minutes, HIGH — the member on the server for longer than 10 minutes, VERY_HIGH — a verified phone number

The only built-in barrier against a mass influx of accounts

source, checked 2026-07-28

server flags: COMMUNITY — the welcome screen, membership screening, stage channels and access to the directory; DISCOVERABLE — public display in the directory; VERIFIED and PARTNERED — recognition statuses; ROLE_SUBSCRIPTIONS_ENABLED — paid roles

source, checked 2026-07-28

What you can publish

message length — up to 2000 characters

source, checked 2026-07-28

up to 10 formatted embeds can be attached to a message, totalling no more than 6000 characters; inside an embed: a title of 256 characters, a description of 4096, up to 25 fields, a field name of 256, a field value of 1024, a footer of 2048, an author name of 256

Breaking any of these limits produces a "Bad Request" response

source, checked 2026-07-28

the maximum request size when sending a message is 25 MiB; an attachment can carry a description for blind users of up to 1024 characters

This is a limit on the API request, not on uploading through the interface

source, checked 2026-07-28

up to 3 server stickers can be sent in a single message

source, checked 2026-07-28

Text length. The text of a message — "Message contents (up to 2000 characters)". The limits of a formatted embed are set separately: the title 256 characters, the description 4096, the name of a field 256, the value of a field 1024, the text of the footer 2048, the name of the author 256, and "the combined sum of characters in all title, description, field.name, field.value, footer.text, and author.name fields across all embeds attached to a message must not exceed 6000 characters". The description of an attachment (the alternative text) — "max 1024 characters"

2000 characters is the limit named by the developer documentation; the raised limit for the paid subscription is not described in it, and the help centre support.discord.com is closed by a Cloudflare check

source, checked 2026-08-04

Images. A sticker: "the sticker file to upload, must be a PNG, APNG, GIF, or Lottie JSON file, max 512 KiB", "Uploaded stickers are constrained to 5 seconds in length for animated stickers, and 320 x 320 pixels"; Lottie stickers are available only to servers with the VERIFIED or PARTNERED attribute. Emoji: "Emojis and animated emojis have a maximum file size of 256 KiB". For an ordinary image attachment the documentation sets neither formats nor sizes

the Lottie format depends on the status of the server; on emoji — https://docs.discord.com/developers/resources/emoji ; there are no requirements for ordinary pictures in the documentation

source, checked 2026-08-04

"The maximum request size when sending a message is 25 MiB". Per message: "Up to 10 rich embeds (up to 6000 characters)", "IDs of up to 3 stickers in the server to send in the message", and in allowed_mentions no more than 100 role identifiers and 100 user identifiers

a user's file size limit depends on the subscription (a free account, Nitro Basic, Nitro), but the official support.discord.com article about attachments is closed by a Cloudflare check, so the figures are not carried over here

source, checked 2026-08-04

How the money works here

two kinds of paid item: one-off purchases (durable and consumable) and subscriptions — per user or for a whole server, where all of its members get access

A server subscription is a rare model: one person pays, everyone gets access

source, checked 2026-07-28

paid application features are available ONLY to developers in the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom; for other countries the platform promises to open them later

A direct geographical restriction on monetization, stated by the platform itself

source, checked 2026-07-28

Payout minimum. a payout becomes available after the application's first 100 USD of revenue; payouts go through Stripe and only to the owner of the developer team

source, checked 2026-07-28

Who is admitted. monetization eligibility conditions: a verified application belonging to a developer team; the team owner is at least 18 years old; email in the team is verified and two-factor authentication is on; the application uses slash commands or has been granted access to message content; terms of service and a privacy policy are published; a payout method is set up; the monetization terms and the developer policy have been accepted

Nine conditions: the longest eligibility list among the platforms in the project

source, checked 2026-07-28

monetization covers bots and "activities" (embedded applications), but not ordinary user accounts

The platform pays application DEVELOPERS, not content creators

source, checked 2026-07-28

Creator's share. "server owners can set up their Server Subscriptions how they like while taking home 90% of the money they earn" — 90% to the creator. The subscription price is set by the owner: "Subscriptions can range from $2.99 - $199.99 in price"

the share is named by the platform itself in the launch announcement; the announcement does not break down the additional deductions of the payment systems

source, checked 2026-08-04

How they pay. Payouts go through Stripe: "Only the owner of the team can enable payout settings"; for Server Subscriptions, bank details and an identity document must be provided to Stripe

the only payment intermediary named is Stripe

source, checked 2026-08-04

Where it is available. Server Subscriptions: the US only — the server owner must be located in the US. Premium Apps: "Premium Apps is not currently available outside of these regions" — the US, the EU and the UK, "These features will be made available to more regions soon"

the geography of the two programs differs and in both cases is narrow

source, checked 2026-08-04

paid application features are available only in the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom; a payout opens up after the application's first 100 USD of revenue, payouts go through Stripe and are set up only by the team owner

Re-check: the terms have not changed

source, checked 2026-07-28

Who is admitted. Server Subscriptions: the server owner must be located in the US; "Your server has a good standing with Discord, meaning no recent Terms of Service or Community Guideline violations"; the updated Monetization Terms and Server Subscriptions Policy must be accepted. Premium Apps (app monetization): "App must be verified", "App belongs to a developer team", "Team owner must be at least 18 years old", "Team must have verified emails and 2FA set up", links to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

the conditions were assembled from Discord's announcement and the developer documentation; the help articles creator-support.discord.com and support.discord.com are behind Cloudflare bot protection ("Just a moment... Enable JavaScript and cookies to continue", HTTP 403)

source, checked 2026-08-04

Payout minimum. For app monetization: "Once your app has made its first $100 it will become eligible for payout" — the first threshold is 100 USD

the threshold for Server Subscriptions is published in the help centre creator-support.discord.com, which is behind bot protection; only the Premium Apps threshold is confirmed

source, checked 2026-08-04

Server Subscriptions (paid subscriptions to a server), Server Shop for server owners and administrators, Premium Apps (app monetization by developers)

the names were assembled from Discord's announcement and the documentation; the description of Server Shop could not be read — the help article is behind bot protection

source, checked 2026-08-04

server subscriptions: the creator receives 90% of the money collected, the subscription price is set in a range from 2.99 to 199.99 USD, and a server owner located in the United States may take part

SOURCE DATED 01.12.2022 — almost four years old as of the check date. This is the only official page about the terms that could be opened: the help centre is closed with code 403

source, checked 2026-07-28

Nitro Basic — 2.99 USD per month with file uploads of up to 50 MB; Nitro — 9.99 USD per month with uploads of up to 500 MB

The first Discord subscription prices in the database

source, checked 2026-07-28

up to 4000 characters per message, access to 200 servers, 2 boosts and a 30% discount on additional boosts, 3 Nitro guest passes, custom and animated emoji everywhere

The 4000-character limit applies to subscribers; the base limit is not named on this page

source, checked 2026-07-28

Limits and restrictions

the overall limit is 50 requests per second per application; without an authorization header the limit is counted per client address. Interaction endpoints do NOT fall under the overall limit

The platform openly admits that a large application may find it impossible to stay within this limit, and invites it to ask for an increase

source, checked 2026-07-28

10,000 invalid requests in 10 minutes lead to a temporary block on API access; responses 401, 403 and 429 count as invalid

A separate limit that does not coincide with the rate limit: what is punished is not speed but the share of errors

source, checked 2026-07-28

in a message's allowed mentions — no more than 100 roles and no more than 100 users

source, checked 2026-07-28

bulk deletion accepts from 2 to 100 messages at a time

source, checked 2026-07-28

up to 50 requests per second per application; limits should not be hard-coded — they should be read from the response headers

Re-check: the value has not changed

source, checked 2026-07-28

10,000 invalid requests in 10 minutes lead to a temporary block; responses 401, 403 and 429 count as invalid, but 429 responses with the shared scope do NOT count

A clarification of the previous entry: the exception for shared had not been recorded before

source, checked 2026-07-28

Named by a number. Word for word: "All bots can make up to 50 requests per second to our API. If no authorization header is provided, then the limit is applied to the IP address. This is independent of any individual rate limit on a route." A proviso: "Interaction endpoints are not bound to the bot's Global Rate Limit". The limits by route: "Per-route rate limits exist for many individual endpoints, and may include the HTTP method (GET, POST, PUT, or DELETE)", and their values are returned in the headers X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining, X-RateLimit-Reset, X-RateLimit-Bucket. The gateway: "Apps can send 120 gateway events per connection every 60 seconds, meaning an average of 2 commands per second"

The numbers are taken from the Rate Limits page and from the Gateway page of the documentation for developers. Discord deliberately does not publish the values for individual routes: they are learnt only from the response headers

source, checked 2026-08-04

Described in detail. Word for word: "In the case that a rate limit is exceeded, the API will return a HTTP 429 response code with a JSON body. Your application should rely on the Retry-After header or retry_after field to determine when to retry the request." A separate limit on invalid requests: "IP addresses that make too many invalid HTTP requests are automatically and temporarily restricted from accessing the Discord API. Currently, this limit is 10,000 per 10 minutes. An invalid request is one that results in 401, 403, or 429 statuses." And an explanation: "Large applications, especially those that can potentially make 10,000 requests per 10 minutes (a sustained 16 to 17 requests per second), should consider logging and tracking the rate of invalid requests to avoid reaching this hard limit"

Discord calls this prohibition a "Cloudflare ban": it is the address that is restricted, not the account. The X-RateLimit-Scope header in the 429 response shows which limit exactly has been triggered: user, global or shared

source, checked 2026-08-04

Discord does not publish a daily limit on messages. The documentation directly renounces constant numbers: "Because rate limits depend on a variety of factors and are subject to change, rate limits should not be hard coded into your app. Instead, your app should parse response headers to prevent hitting the limit, and to respond accordingly in case you do". The only daily limit named by a number relates not to messages but to the starting of connections: "The session start limit for these bots will also be increased from 1000 to max(2000, (guild_count / 1000) * 5) per day"

Discord counts the limits by routes of the call and requires that they be read from the response headers rather than stored in the code. The help centre for users (support.discord.com) answers 403 to a request without a browser, so there is nothing with which to check the limits of the interface

source, checked 2026-08-04

Only the limits for programs are named by a number. Word for word: "All bots can make up to 50 requests per second to our API"; "Apps can send 120 gateway events per connection every 60 seconds, meaning an average of 2 commands per second. Apps that surpass the limit are immediately disconnected from the Gateway. Similar to other rate limits, repeat offenders will have their API access revoked". Discord does not publish a limit on a human's private messages

The distinction is important: the numbers relate to an app's calls to programmatic access, not to a user's messages in the interface. The limits of the interface lie in the help centre, which is closed by a 403 answer

source, checked 2026-08-04

For rate limits the path is named directly: "If you are experiencing repeated Cloudflare bans from the Discord API within normal operations of your bot, you can reach out to support to see if you qualify for increased global rate limits. You can contact Discord support using https://dis.gd/rate-limit". The procedure for appealing account restrictions lies in the help centre on support.discord.com, which answers 403

This is not an appeal against a punishment but a request to raise the limit for an app. There is nothing with which to check the appeal against a block of an account: the help centre is closed by protection from robots

source, checked 2026-08-04

Restrictions

from 10 June 2026 the threshold for mandatory review is counted by NUMBER OF USERS rather than servers: if an application is seen by more than 10,000 unique users across all servers combined, it must apply for access to privileged intents. The previous threshold was 100 servers

The platform gives the consequence: a bot in 50 large servers will cross the threshold, while in 200 small ones it may not

source, checked 2026-07-28

access, once granted, must be RE-CONFIRMED ANNUALLY through the developer portal; you are warned about the deadline in advance. While the review is in progress the application keeps working with the intents it requested

The permission is not perpetual: this is a rare case in the registry — most platforms grant access once

source, checked 2026-07-28

the platform advises NOT to request access to message content: the recommended replacement is slash commands, which do not need privileged intents. Applications are rejected if the task can be solved without such access

source, checked 2026-07-28

at least 13 years old and no younger than the minimum age set by the law of the user's country

source, checked 2026-07-28

access to sexual material is for 18 and over only

source, checked 2026-07-28

harassment and threats; hate speech on protected grounds; material involving minors; intimate images without consent; glorification of suicide and self-harm; violence and graphic imagery intended to shock; misleading information with a substantial risk of harm

source, checked 2026-07-28

unsolicited bulk messages, spam bots, tools for raiding servers, mass account creation tools, token generators, artificially inflating a server's member count and faking engagement metrics are all forbidden

A direct ban on fake metrics at the level of the community guidelines

source, checked 2026-07-28

measures: a warning, content removal, temporary suspension of access, permanent removal of accounts and servers — depending on the severity of the violation

source, checked 2026-07-28

three privileged intents: member presence, the server member list, message content

source, checked 2026-07-28

you are given 90 days from the moment you are notified that the threshold has been crossed to submit an application

A new field: previously the threshold was recorded but not the deadline

source, checked 2026-07-28

Moderation

«You may appeal the decision directly in the Discord app by going to User Settings > My Account > Standing > selecting the violation you want to appeal > pressing on Let us know» (verbatim). For EU users an alternative dispute resolution procedure (DSA) is mentioned.

source, checked 2026-08-07

the terms and disputes are governed by the law of the United States and the State of California; non-arbitrable disputes are heard exclusively by the court of New Castle County, Delaware, and by no other. For consumers in the European Union it is stipulated that this does NOT affect their mandatory rights under local law

A third kind of arrangement: not country sections and not sections by service, but a "except where prohibited by applicable law" clause that applies by default

source, checked 2026-07-28

additional terms for individual products and services TAKE PRECEDENCE over the general ones where they diverge

The third platform in the registry with this arrangement, after WeChat and Reddit

source, checked 2026-07-28

explicitly excluded from mandatory arbitration are: individual claims in a US small-claims court, disputes over trade secrets, over piracy and over unauthorized use of the services; in mass arbitrations either party may withdraw from the procedure and go to court

source, checked 2026-07-28

an account may not be transferred, sold or licensed without written permission; accounts inactive for more than two years may be terminated; the platform has the right to reclaim usernames without notice

source, checked 2026-07-28

API access

monetization in the API is described by three kinds of object: SKU (what is being sold), Entitlement (whether the user has access) and Subscription (a recurring payment)

source, checked 2026-07-28

Languages

the interface language of the home page: en

The language is taken from the markup attribute, the versions from hreflang

source, checked 2026-07-28

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