When Discord let anyone monetize

Discord has a lot of monetization features now. App subscriptions, 3rd party cosmetics and - our topic for today - server subscriptions, and how they fell short of the mark.

What are server subscriptions?

Server Subscriptions are Discord's venture into the creator space, intended to allow creatives to monetize their Discord server similarly to how Patreon works with Discord, granting you roles in return for a monthly payment.

This product had some prestigious launch partners including MKBHD, and was an ambitious strike at the content creator subscription space. But there's a problem, apps like Patreon list Discord as One of the perks but Discord server subscriptions make it markedly, the only perk.

Outside of the standard fare of role attribution, Discord attempted to flesh out this offering to make it more lucrative, with additional emotes (going beyond the normal server emoji limit) for those who subscribe. But role-locking emoji isn't new! It's been allowed in the Discord API since the Twitch integration was added over 2 years ago!

So what does Discord have to offer that's truly unique?

Media channels?

Meet the offspring of Patreon's content feed and Discord's forum channels, Media channels! These were created to cover the need for creators to have a content feed in their community - but they were added very late after the release of Server Subs, and as a glorified forum channel (You can achieve nearly the exact same results with a normal forum channel) is it really a big enough perk or is it too little too late?

What are the restrictions?

The requirements for Server Subs have changed over time, but generally they require you to have a community server in good standing, to be a US resident and to supply US bank account information (for payouts).

The primary restriction here is region locking. Origninally Discord slated a release to other regions including the EU & UK, however this has now been rescinded with no clear plan to release to other regions.

So, if you're not American, how would you use Server Subs?

Server Subs for everyone!

When you sign up for server monetization, Discord creates a special type of application (like a bot) for your server. This is because applications are a critical part of creating SKUs (purchasable items) within Discord. Even Discord Nitro has SKUs and an application it operates from!

At launch, the restrictions for Server Subscriptions were entirely clientside, so to bypass all of these stringent checks & balances, we simply manually create the application ourself with an API call:

POST https://discord.com/api/v10/applications
{
  "name": "role subs subscription monetization",
  "type": 4,
  "guild_id": "TARGET_GUILD_ID_HERE",
  "team_id": "TEAM_ID_HERE"
}

And just like that, we have the backend for our Server Subs set up. From here (or even with the same call that creates our application), we can create & configure SKUs. This, in theory, allows a user to completely bypass all the restrictions of server subs - though it's highly unlikely you'll be able to cash out as you skip setting up your Stripe information. Attempting to move further with this flow now shows some interesting errors - I believe this also permanently broke my testing server.

Discord's penchant for re-use

Discord re-uses applications in many places, this is just one. This has led to plenty of vulnerablities related to creating & altering applications to use features they should not normally be able to. We'll cover this more in detail in a future article. As an interesting tidbit though, now all applications are given a user account, you CAN use a role subs app as a fully functioning, normal application - which has some very interesting results.

The state of Server Subs

So, we've covered what Server Subs are, how they launched, the intent of the product and even a security issue within it. But how have Server Subs fared over time?

Not well.

It seems there is no longer any active development of the product (As of 2024) with existing areas of the product slowly falling into disrepair. Discord has a marketing bit in the server subscriptions page to sell you on using them only...

That's right, Discord's own marketing only lists one server with a public subscription count. Using the tiers below, we can likely deduce that your average subscriber is going to be paying $2.99/mo as the $9.99/mo tier has no tangible additional rewards - which, speaking of, the rewards are incredibly surface level with a single role and channel awarded. No media channels, no deeper rewards.

But this server is partnered & directly endorsed by Discord in-app, so let's check it out! On joining we see this server is your typical LFG server, with many voice channels containing the vast, vast majority of the activity. As for the text channels, I notice a category called AFFILIATES #AD. I got a DM when I joined the server, let's see-

Ah. So this Discord server is advertising affiliates including in an on-join DM. Now, last I checked, Discord wasn't so cool with this kind of behaviour because it compromises their 'No-AD' stance, which I've written about. The server also has ~580,000 members, so that's a 0.02% conversion rate. Patreon touts a conversion rate of 0.5% - 2.5%.

Overall it's not looking so great for this product. Taking a look at the other servers, they seem to have largely stepped away from their Server Subs offering. That one blank server?

{"message": "Unknown Server", "code": 10004}

There WAS a server here at one point - but it's been deleted or otherwise completely removed from being publicly discoverable. The creator hasn't made any posts mentioning it since 2023.

The feature still functions and is usable, so I wouldn't say it's in Discord's feature graveyard yet, but with the sunsetting of the Discord Partner program and the layoff of the community team, I think it's fair to say Discord is stepping away from content creators and towards some new quest... More about that in an upcoming article.