Discord has become one of the most popular communication platforms for communities of all sizes, from small groups of friends to large gaming communities. But did you know that you can monetize your Discord server?
With the right strategies and tools, you can turn your server into a source of income and even a full-time business. In this blog, we will explore various ways to monetize your Discord server, including selling products, offering exclusive content and perks, and accepting donations.
We will also discuss best practices for monetizing your server while still maintaining a positive and engaging community for your members.
First, we will define what Discord is and why it has become so popular. Then we put together five solid ways to start monetizing your Discord server. Furthermore, we try to answer the question of how Discord makes money. We close with a note on how we as VyHub can help you to monetize your Discord server.
Definition of Discord and Its Popularity
Discord is a popular online platform that allows you to communicate over voice, video, and text. Discord was started in 2015 started as a communication platform for gamers. However, it spread quickly around other communities from education to elderly homes. Users can join or create servers, which are organized into channels for different purposes. Discord enables users to talk and hang out with their friends and like-minded people in a fun and easy way.
The popularity of Discord lies in the organizational structure of the platform. Most of us know the irritation that arises from having 5 different group chats all with the same people. All more or less about the same subject. The discord server provides an opportunity to put all these chats into one server with different channels. Although it is still possible to directly message people in person. You can also hang out with each other in a lounge.
With groups, you can easily control the access of your users to certain channels or features. This layers Discords communication channels very well and does not require other external communication tools. Furthermore, Discord has options to stream, plan video calls, and, listen to Webhooks and offers a fully accessible API for your Discord bot.
With Discord bots you can fully customize your server with events and commands. The last point is something we from VyHub are very happy with. If that would not be possible we from VyHub would not be able to help you guys out with our software.
4 Ways to Monetize Your Discord Server
Yeah yeah, nice technical story, but, did you know that you can also make money from your Discord server? Yes, you heard that right. Discord provides several opportunities for server owners to monetize their servers. We will explore several options in this part of the blog. Hopefully, we can give you some inspiration to make some money for your gaming community.
Charge a Membership Fee
You spend hours monitoring and managing your community and look at what you have built. Charging a membership fee is one of the most common and effective ways to monetize your Discord server. This means that you require your members to pay a monthly or annual fee to access your server and its benefits. Charging a membership fee can help you generate a steady and predictable income from your Discord server, as well as increase the perceived value and quality of your community. It’s a nice “threshold” to keep the trash out.
How to Set up a Discord Membership Fee with VyHub
First, integrate VyHub into Discord, one of the advantages of Discord is that it works with different groups. In the coming fee integration, I will use an example of 4 levels, namely:
- admin: This person has all permissions in the group and can access all functions of the server.
- moderator: Members of this group have access to fewer functionalities than the admin. However, more than the user group.
- user: This member has only access to the basic communication channels.
- aspiring member: This is someone who signed up, but did not pay a membership fee. These members have no permission, therefore, they are not part of your community yet.
First, you have to create these groups in Discord Then, you will recreate these exact groups in VyHub.
What is important when creating these groups is creating the right group mapping. Group mapping defines the relationship between groups in VyHub and Discord.
Finally, you can sell the Group Membership as a part of a package in your VyHub shop.
Set up a Discord Store
Another easy way to make money on Discord is by selling products or services to users. Also, you can create a shop on Discord using a SaaS like VyHub, Woocommerce, or Shopify. This enables you to sell digital or physical products directly to your Discord server users. How would that work? Setting up a donation store.
First, Decide what you are going to sell. Of course, the items or services have to connect to your community, otherwise, you are wasting your time and their time. Examples of products you can sell are:
- NFTs (digital art)
- Membership
- (Digital) courses
- Software Products
- Other online, and offline stuff.
Then, set up your Discord store, you are free to choose any platform you want.
Finally, you set up the payment gateways and search for a yacht somewhere in a place sunnier than your current whereabouts.
Become an Affiliate Partner
Although it might not seem obvious, you as a community owner are the ideal partner for many businesses. Since you already gathered a specific group of people around you, your community is a good choice to sell products to.
Why would someone put thousands of dollars in Google Adds if the group that he wants to reach is already available in your hands? Furthermore, you can both profit from the turnover that their new clients generate.
With affiliate programs, you receive a (small) commission on every sale the users make through your link. So if you promote your products the right way, this can easily add up to thousands of dollars a month.
VyHub has an affiliate program as well, this program will give a 25% infinite recurring customer value. Everyone with a VyHub account does directly have an affiliate link. If you want to earn some extra money, reach out to your network and start with the VyHub affiliate program today.
Discord Sponsorships
The sponsors work along the same line as affiliate partners work. Since you have a network that the sponsors/ affiliates could benefit from there is an opportunity for collaboration. These following questions, you can ask yourself to determine what a good sponsor would look like would be for you.
- Who would be my potential (perfect) sponsor? This can help you narrow down what type of person/ organization you are looking for.
- What kind of deal/ partnership can you offer? You can create customizable sponsorship packages that cater to different budgets and goals. This allows your sponsors to choose a package that aligns with their marketing goals and provides you with more opportunities for extra opportunities for discord monetization.
- What kind of sponsored events can I organize? This not only generates income but also increases engagement and builds a sense of community among your members.
- How can I integrate sponsored content? Integrate sponsored content, such as product reviews or shoutouts, into your server’s content. This should be done in a way that doesn’t compromise the server’s authenticity.
- How can I measure the results of the campaigns? Measure and report on the results of your sponsorships, such as impressions, clicks, or conversions. This will help sponsors evaluate the effectiveness of their investment and increase the likelihood of future collaborations.
How Does Discord Make Money?
Well now, we know how we can make money. However, how does Discord make money? Since users do usually not pay for Discord, there are other ways in which they make money. We made a small outline of the three methods of how Discord makes a living.
Premium Features
We already spoke about Discord Nitro, which is a monthly subscription that gives users access to additional features), server boosting (which allows servers to have more emojis and larger file uploads), merchandise, and server boosting.
Partnerships
Some big companies have partnerships with Discord. Such as Xbox. Partnerships allow Discord to make a different exclusive offering to its users.
Discord Ads
Discord shows ads on its website and its app. Furthermore, Discord has sponsored servers. Discord is paid to create promoted servers for third parties to promote certain things.
Wrap-Up
In this guide, we have explained what Discord is and what the possible ways of monetizing it are. VyHub supports you in a lot of these ways, so why not give it a try? Whether you are looking for ways to monetize your game server, or just need a management tool to get a better grip on your community. The best part, VyHub is free to use for your purposes and can save you a lot of headaches.