Discord's New Server Subscriptions Feature: Explained
Discord recently launched their Premium Server Subscriptions Feature. What is this feature? Learn everything there is to know today.
If you live in the US (or use a VPN to appear to live in the US), you will now have access to Discord's Premium Subscriptions feature. What is this feature, you ask? Well, that's why I am here: to explain it to you! So let's go
What is Discord's Premium Subscriptions Feature?
Discord's Premium Subscription is almost like Patreon built into Discord natively. It allows users to pay with IRL money to access exclusive perks and features on the server. These may include exclusive channels, roles or other such perks.
Discord do take a cut of profits made - more on that later - but money earned through this new feature does go to the server owner, who can use it for whatever they please, but nine times out of ten, this revenue earned will likely go back into the server, to improve its features on a daily basis.
This feature is limited to the US only for now though, but will eventually be rolled out to all in the coming months.
This new feature is great for earning revenue in a variety of circumstances. For example, content creators can use it to earn some income to improve their content by allowing fans to pay for exclusive channels to talk with their favourite creator in, for example.
Discord also allow you to add things like exclusive emojis, exclusive channels and loads of other perks for your paying subscribers.
Requirements
To be able to start monetising your community on Discord, you need to meet a few requirements first:
- The server owner must be based in the United States
- Your server has to have a good standing with Discord, meaning no recent Terms of Service or Community Guideline violations
- You must agree to Discord's updated Monetization Terms and Server Subscriptions Policy
How To Set Up Server Subscriptions
To start monetising your Discord server natively, head to the Settings tab of your server and - under the Monetisation category - simply enable Server Subscriptions to begin creating your subscriber offerings.
You can have as many or as little tiers of subscriptions as you like, and the Discord Creator Portal (more on that later) has some great examples of how YouTube creators like Marques Brownlee are using Server Subscriptions. There is a range on price though. Creators can set any price of their choosing within the minimum limit of $2.99 and the maximum limit of $199.99
Cut Rates
As per any subscription-model based service, Discord will take a cut of profits you make on their platform. Discord strive to take only a 10% cut of your earnings. Let's see how that stacks up with other pay-to-access services.
| Site | Creator Split | Company Split |
|---|---|---|
| Whop | 97% | 3% |
| Buy Me A Coffee | 95% | 5% |
| Kofi | 95% | 5% |
| Discord | 90% | 10% |
Patreon's split percentage is quite confusing, so we omitted them from this table for simplicity reasons. They take their cuts depending on how much you make, and I couldn't find any consistent information online.
Discord's Resources
Discord have produced a great bank of resources for Creators, to help them with the new feature. Let's take a look at them, shall we.
Discord Creator Portal
The Discord Creator Portal, in my opinion, can be a useful tool if you can see through the marketing. Discord provide some good tips to help set up a paid community, like "Make sure to commit time to the free members too" - meaning don't spend all your time adding paid features and then eventually end up leaving free members in the dark.
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Discord Creator Quiz
The Discord Creator Quiz allows you to answer three questions and they will provide you will links to useful Creator Portal articles based on your answers.
- Do you have a server built already? Yes or No
After Question 1, users are divided for Question 2 by their answers
| Yes | No |
|---|---|
| How many members does your server have? (Below 100, 100-500, Over 500) | How many followers do you have? (Below 1K, 1k-10K, Over 10K) |
Finally, Question 3 asks what you want to do on Discord (Build a Community, Earn Money or Both).
Then, people who answered Yes to Question 1 can add their server link, and then both the No's and Yes's can input their email. This final step is optional, however and can be skipped. You will then be shown your recommended articles, based on your answerS!
Take the Creator Quiz here:
Blog Post
Finally, Derek Yang, Group Project Manager at Discord wrote a very good article for the Discord blog all about this new feature. It gives you an in-depth look at this new feature, from Discord's point-of-view. I'd recommend going and checking it out to learn more.
Derek Yang
Well, that's it for today's article. I hope you enjoyed reading, and that you learned something new. Have fun earning money from your Discord server, but for now, Epic out ✌️
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