Originally made for gamers to communicate, Discord is now among the most popular social messaging platforms. With over 150 million monthly active users, you have lots of opportunities to earn on the platform. In this post, you will learn how to make money on Discord.
What's in this guide?
Ways to make money on Discord
Here are ways to make money on Discord:
1. Accept donations on Discord
The easiest way to make money on Discord is to get donations from other users. You just have to add a link through which members can pay you.
You can make money on Discord through donations if you’re an important person, company or developer who built a server that provides value to the community you serve.
You can connect a donate bot to the Discord server or add a PayPal link and urge your community members to donate.
Also Read: How to make money on Twitch: 7 Tested and Proven Ways
2. Create a paid membership Discord server
Just like creating a Facebook group, it’s pretty easy and quick to set up a discord server. Making money from it is the issue.
You can start by building a free server and growing it. Once you have an established community (this will take some time), you can build another Discord server from it. However, this will have a paid membership.
Remember that your existing members are the ones you want to convert to paid members, and no sane person will pay for what they already have free access to.
This means you will have to offer paid members a few extra features and perks that won’t be available on the free server. You can make it a monthly, periodic or one-time subscription.
3. Add a members-only area to your Discord server
If you already own a Discord server where you provide guidance, knowledge, tips and useful info to community members, then a members-only area will be a great method to make money on Discord.
If you don’t own a Discord server at the moment, you can consider building one and providing valuable content to all your members for free. With enough effort and time, your Discord server will grow into a big community.
Once that happens, you should add a private area to your Discord server. This members-only area will be for members that are willing to pay.
You will offer extra features to paid members, for instance, something like direct access to you, fast answering of questions, additional guidance, one-on-one chat with members, etc.
Also Read: How to make money on Quora: A Step-by-step guide
4. Advertisements and sponsorships
Brands, businesses, companies, developers, etc are always looking for affordable ways to advertise their products and services. If you own a Discord server with a significant number of members, you can use this method to make money on Discord.
Most advertisers and sponsors will pay you upfront, and you won’t be held accountable if they don’t get any new sales or users from your server. A good way to make money on Discord, right?
5. Affiliate marketing
Here’s another good way to earn money on Discord. Think of it like advertisements and sponsorships that we explained above. However, the amount of money you can earn is not fixed, as it varies depending on your efforts.
The brand/developer/company you’re advertising for will give you a link. That link is your identity, and any sale that comes through it is believed to have come from you.
In other words, you will earn an agreed amount of money on each sale generated through that link.
You may be tempted to show your links to community members as many times, and spam them in the process. They might start leaving before you realize it, so you should not post affiliate links frequently.
Also Read: 27 Best Affiliate Programs
6. Link your website to generate more sale
What many people sometimes forget is that Discord is a social media platform, and not an e-commerce or online shopping site. Not all content, product, and services are suitable for display on the platform.
If you own a website where you sell digital products like ebooks, game mods, in-depth tutorials, and the like, you can make money on Discord by driving viewers to a landing page on your website.
7. Build a Discord bot
Being a product of machine learning and artificial intelligence, Discord bots add more functionality to servers, thereby serving communities better. Building bots is another method with which you can make money on Discord.
You can build a bot that improves your community and receive payments from members before they can use it. Alternatively, you offer a bot that has 2 subscription plans.
One will offer the basic features at zero cost. The other will provide extra and more functional features, but it will cost a small subscription fee.
If you’re a programmer, you can build bots yourself. If you don’t have enough expertise or time, you can hire developers on freelancing sites like Fiverr and Upwork.
Also Read: How to make money on Upwork (Beginners’ Guide)
8. Run competitions on Discord servers
If you have a Discord server centered around gaming, music, videos, etc, you can host competitions and earn money in the process.
Almost everyone likes competitions, especially when the registration fee is just a token. Here’s an example.
Scott owns a Discord server. He hosts a gaming competition for his community members, with the registration fee being 1$. The winner gets $30, the second gets $20 and the third gets $10.
If 100 community members sign up for the contest, that means $100. Scott pays $60 to the winners and keeps the remainder ($40) for himself.
Now that’s just an example. In the real world, you have the potential to make more than 10 times that amount every week.
Conclusion
Discord is a place to speak, chat, hang out, and stay close to your friends and communities. It can also be a very great place to make money online if you know what to do.
You will face some challenges at first, especially when it comes to growing your Discord server. However, you will have a big community with the right strategies and enough time.
You can make money on Discord through advertisements, affiliate marketing, competitions, paid memberships and donations, amongst others.
