How Discord Makes Money

What does Discord do?

Discord is a platform for real-time text, voice, and video communication that allows users to create or join community servers organized around shared hobbies or pastimes. Users and server administrators can personalize their spaces with custom bots, emojis, notifications, and other automations to create unique and customized environments.

Discord has evolved from its gaming origins by consistently introducing new features and functionalities based on user feedback, so its platform has adapted to a wide range of communities and expanded its potential reach to new users. Discord caters to smaller, more private communities, which is a shift from the broad, often overwhelming nature of traditional social media.

Discord tends to appeal to users seeking deeper connections with other users who are aligned on similar topics of interest. Discord text channels are dedicated spaces for text-based conversations where users can share files, links, and media, while its voice channels allow users to join and talk with multiple people simultaneously, similar to a group phone call. Users can also host video calls, share their screens with others, or direct message one or more friends through Discord.

How does Discord make money?

Discord relies on several other sources to generate revenue. Discord primarily makes money through its premium subscription service, Discord Nitro. This subscription is available in a standard Nitro subscription and a cheaper Nitro Basic tier. It provides perks such as custom emojis, larger file upload limits, animated avatars, profile customization, and high-resolution streaming for users.

Discord also makes money from advertisements. In 2024, Discord introduced a new advertising model called Quests, which offers users in-game rewards for streaming promoted video games. This system is similar to a task-and-reward model and aims to integrate advertising more organically into the platform's gaming-focused ecosystem.

Server boosts are another major revenue stream for Discord, where users can pay to boost their favorite servers to unlock perks like better audio quality, more custom emoji slots, and higher server upload limits for that server. Discord's largest server is the official Midjourney server, which is a community for an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered text-to-image tool with nearly 20 million members globally as of 2025.

Discord acts as a distribution platform for some game developers, so they take a small commission on game sales made through the platform, too. Other revenue sources for Discord include the sales of its own branded merchandise and other in-app items like animated stickers, collaborations with other businesses and brands on revenue-generating projects, and ticket sales to virtual events.

Recent developments

One of the biggest developments that many stock investors have been watching for is an initial public offering (IPO) announcement from Discord. There is no official or confirmed date for Discord's IPO, though speculation has suggested it could happen in late 2025 or early 2026.

The company is reportedly in the early stages of discussions with investment bankers such as JPMorgan (JPM +0.54%) and Goldman Sachs (GS -0.10%) in preparation for a potential public listing. The exact timing will depend on market conditions, Discord's financial readiness, and the completion of steps like filing registration paperwork with regulators.

Co-founder Jason Citron stepped down as CEO in spring 2025 to become a board member and advisor. He was replaced by Humam Sakhnini, a veteran of Activision Blizzard and King, in a move that could potentially pave the way for the company to go public.

Discord has also continued its push to be an all-purpose communication platform. That said, as of 2025, gaming remained the platform's primary use case and identity, with 74% of traffic coming from desktop users who likely use the app while playing PC games.

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