Ultimate Discord Statistics for 2024

Jason Citron and Stanislav Vishnevskiy first launched Discord in 2015 as a way for gamers to communicate while playing games online. Fast-forward to 2024 and Discord is among the top ten social apps in the world.  

Boasting over 563 million registered users, Discord is where people hang out for over 4 hours a day, talking and building relationships. In fact, over 4 billion server-conversation minutes happen daily.

If you’re curious about what makes this online platform tick, keep reading. We’ve put together 80+ Discord statistics covering growth, revenue, users, and more.

Discord Company Snapshot

Discord is a decentralized, ad-free online community platform that allows users to create servers and communicate through voice, text, video, media and files.

Discord’s History

• 2015: On May 13, Discord was launched by Founders Jason Citron (CEO) and Stanislav Vishnevskiy. The app initially had only text and audio communication. By the second quarter of the year, the company had raised over $9 million in funding.
• 2016: Discord hit 25 million registered users sending over 100 million messages daily and launched its GameBridge API^[1].
• 2017: Discord added video calling^[2] and screen sharing. The platform also reached a new milestone of 130 million unique registered^[3] users, adding a Trust and safety team to counter harmful content.
• 2018: Discord Nitro and a games storefront were launched.
• 2019: The free games feature was scrapped due to low profitability and a lack of interest. Users under 13 were barred from the platform, and Discord started releasing transparency reports. Meanwhile, the user base grew to more than 150 million active users per month, with close to 80% of all users logging in from outside the US. 
• 2020: Due to the pandemic, user numbers surged by 47% between February and July. Discord raised nearly $500 million over 10 rounds and generated 188% more revenue ($130 million) compared to the previous year.
• 2021: Discord rebranded and changed its slogan from ‘Chat for Gamers’ to ‘Chat for Communities and Friends’. The company also doubled in value, going from a valuation of $7 billion to over $14 billion. It also turned down a $12 billion acquisition offer from Microsoft.
• 2022: Discord launched server subscriptions allowing creators to charge subscribers up to $3,500 per month. Although the app’s growth slowed slightly, it still raked in over $400 million in revenue. 
• 2023: Discord acquired Gas, a social app in January and shut it down^[4] on November 7. The social platform also revamped its mobile app for a new seamless experience.

Discord Corporate Statistics

In January 2024, Discord’s CEO announced that the company would be laying off 17%^[5] of its employees.

According to Verge, the move, which translated to 170 employees across various departments, was to help Discord operate more efficiently.

As of January 2024, Discord had approximately 750 employees^[6].

This is according to Zippia, which pegged the average discord salary at $104,283 per year or $50.14 hourly. Comparably^[7], however, had this slightly higher at $130,262 per year or $62 hourly.

Across departments, estimates were:

• Engineering: $154,622
• Product: $164,623 
• Operations: $118,159
• Admin: $61,393

Overall, considering that the average salary in the US was $59,540 in the fourth quarter of 2023, Discord offers its employees above-average compensation.

Out of these 750 employees, 17 or around 2% are in executive leadership positions. 

The demographics are as follows:

• 35% are women and 65% are men.
• 63% are White.
• 12% Hispanic or Latino.
• 10% Black/African American. 

Discord’s ERG leads dedicate 10% of their work time^[8] to promote belonging in and outside of the company.

In line with its ongoing commitment to diversity and inclusion, Discord has Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) dedicated to empowering members of underrepresented groups and allies.

Between 2020 and 2023, Discord’s workforce grew 5x.

During the hiring boom of 2020 alone, Discord more than doubled its workforce to 650 people. However, according to the CEO, this led to the company taking on more projects and becoming less efficient.

According to Techcrunch^[9], Discord laid off 4% of its employees in August 2023.

The letting go of close to 40 employees was attributed to company restructuring and brought the employee count to 870 people^[10].

Discord Feature Statistics

Discord’s main draw is that its key features (VoIP, text, and video communication) are free. On the Discord app, users have access to the following:

• Unlimited high-quality chat with low-latency voice channels.
• Instant messaging 
• Unlimited, low latency HD video (mobile and PC)
• Multiple Streams
• Group video calls
• File sharing
• Server bots for extra functionality

Adding to Discord’s popularity is the ad-free experience users get to enjoy on the platform. The app is also compatible with multiple operating systems such as Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. 

As part of its unique business model, Discord’s premium subscription service offers users various perks such as bigger file sharing, HD streaming and more.

Nitro - $9.99 monthly or $99.99 yearly

• 500 MB uploads
• Unlimited Super Reactions
• Custom and animated emoji 
• 2 Free Boosts, plus a 30% discount

Nitro Basic - $2.99 or $29.99 yearly

• 50 MB uploads
• Custom and animated emoji
• Nitro Badge on profile
• Shop member pricing and exclusive items
• Messages up to 4000 characters

Server Boosting - $4.99 per month each or $49.99

• 100 to 250 emojis 
• 720P 60FPS (Level 1) to 1080P 60FPS (Level 3) streams 
• Custom server Invite Background
• 128 Kbps to 384 Kbps Audio Quality

The Shop - Special Member Pricing for Nitro Members
Discord’s Shop has a variety of items users can buy and collect to customize their profiles. This includes:

• Avatar decorations
• Profile effects

As of 1 February 2024, Discord had 4 patents and 4 other filed patents. 

These include detecting online contextual evolution of linguistic terms and expanding semantic classes via user feedback. According to CB insights^[11], Discord’s 3 most popular patent topics include:

• Computer Memory
• Computer Storage Devices
• Computer Storage Media

To keep users updated on what's new, Discord releases a regular changelog^[12] on its Blog. As of December 13, 2023:

• Users can now add lovely notes to their Nitro gift.
• The Shop opened its doors to everyone.
• New games were added to activities.

Since its inception in 2015, the Discord mobile app has always been about the Discord experience on the go. In 2022, Discord sought to build a better mobile app. 

Based on user feedback, the following enhancements^[13] were made:

• Global DM search.
• Simple media sharing.
• Reducing app open time by 43% on iOS and 55% on Android.

Discord Server Statistics

Each Discord server is limited to 500 channels, 50 categories and 1000 active threads.

As of 30 January 2024, Discord had over 19 million active servers^[14] per week. 

In addition, Discord’s top 5 most popular servers^[15] were:

• Midjourney - Over 18.5 million members.
• LimeWire - Over 2.3 million members.
• Leonardo.AI - Over 1.8 million users.
• Blox Fruits - Over 1.5 million users 
• Nova - Over 1.4 million users.

In addition, on Server Discovery, there were 25,625 communities. 

• The gaming category had 19,083 or 74% of communities.
• The entertainment category had 10,851 or 42% of communities.
• The education category had 2116 communities or 8% of communities.
• The science and tech category had 1990 communities or 7.7% of communities.
• The music category had 1909 communities or 7.4% of communities.

In October 2023, Discord optimized its platform to serve over one million users^[16] in a single server while maintaining responsiveness.

Discord carried out these optimizations to improve performance for Midjourney and other massive servers.

As of February 2023, Dank Memer, which allows users to send memes or funny images and play games, was the most-used bot^[17] with more than 8.6 million servers using it. 

The second most popular bot was ProBot, a multipurpose bot that can be configured to welcome users, auto-respond and auto-moderate. In third place with 3.4 million servers using Carl-bot for auto-moderation, role assignment and custom commands.

The most popular education server^[18] on Discord, as of January 2024, was the TikTok Effect House with 7,000 members.

In second place with over 661,000 users was Sui, a Layer 1 blockchain designed to make digital asset ownership accessible to anyone.

As of January 2024, the most popular gaming server^[19] on Discord was Blox Fruits, the official community for the Roblox Blox Fruits game, with over 1.5 million members.

In second place was Nova, which hosts older builds of video games like Fortnite, with over 1.4 million members.

In 2021, 90% of Discord’s private servers^[20] had fewer than 15 people.

According to CTO and Co-founder Stanislav Vishnevskiy, the small servers are where people “develop true connections and belonging.” 

Discord Growth Statistics

In 2023, Discord ranked 18th on CNBC’s Disruptor^[21] 50 list. The second year in a row that the company made it into the list’s top 20 (In 2022, it ranked 13th).

CNBC’s annual Disruptor 50 list looks at private companies that are chasing the market’s biggest opportunities and growing even amid tough economic conditions.

The platform's impressive growth from 10 million monthly active users in 2016, to over 154 million monthly active users in 2023 was fueled by:

• The growing popularity of eSports and gaming.
• The pandemic, which ushered in a new wave of remote work and collaboration. 
• Social media shifts and hyper-personalized community experiences.

Between 2013 and 2023 Discord’s valuation increased by 650%.

From around 2.3 billion in 2013, Discord is now valued at more than $14.9 billion.

Discord acquired 4 organizations^[22] at undisclosed amounts between 2018 and 2023.

• In January 2023, Discord acquired Gas^[23], a compliments-based social media app for teens.
• In July 2021, Discord acquired Sentropy Technologies^[24], a startup offering AI-based tools to detect harassment online.
• In June 2021, Discord acquired Ubiquity6^[25], an augmented reality startup.
• In November 2018, Discord acquired Blitz Esports^[26] to help grow its game store and subscription service.

Discord raised over $995.4 million in funding^[27] over 15 rounds and 33 investors.

According to Crunchbase^[28], the company’s most recent funding was raised on March 12, 2022, from a Secondary Market round. At the end of 2020, Discord raised $100 million and was valued at $ 7 billion. By September 2021, Discord had raised $500 million in funding and was valued at $14.7 billion. 

Discord Revenue Statistics 

Unlike other social platforms, Discord doesn't generate revenue from ads. 

Instead, its main revenue stream is through subscription packages and server boosting. Discord’s premium subscription package, known as Nitro, costs either $9.99 per month and $4.99 per month for Nitro Classic.

Discord also generates revenue through distribution fees as well as stickers and Discord merchandise.  

The company takes a 10% share of the titles sold by game developers through verified servers. In October 2020, Discord rolled out animated stickers that cost anywhere between $1.50 and $2.25.

In 2023, Discord generated an estimated $207 million from direct Nitro sales^[29] across the globe.

This represents a 196% increase from 2019’s revenue of $70 million. Discord experienced its highest jump in Nitro revenue between 2019 and 2020 due to the pandemic and platform growth. Revenues increased by over 70% from 70 million to 120 million in 2020.

In Q1 2023, Discord generated over $54 million from its mobile app, a slight decrease from its revenue in 2022.

Overall, since 2019, mobile app revenue increased by 752% from $6.45 million to almost $55 million in 2023.

Discord User Statistics

As of January 2023, Discord had approximately 154 million monthly^[30] active users.

This is a 3% increase from the 150 million MAU reported in September 2021 and a 161% increase from 59 million active^[31] users in 2019. The platform’s rapid growth in recent years was fueled by the pandemic. However, 2022 and 2023 figures suggest a slowing growth trend.

In terms of global registered users, Discord had 563 million^[32] in January 2023.

This represents an impressive 87% increase from June 2020. Between 2017 and 2020, Discord experienced a meteoric growth rate of 566% between 2017 and 2020 when its registered user base grew from 45 million users to over 300 million.

According to an October 2023 report by Data Reportal^[33]:

• Discord’s monthly active users (MAU) accounted for 1.9% of the total internet population and 2.4% of the internet population aged 13 and older.
• 31.5% of MAU on Discord were female users.
• 67.3% of MAU on Discord were male users

The same report found that among Discord active users:

• 87.1% also used YouTube
• 86.5% also used Instagram
• 76.4% also used Facebook
• 74.1% also used WhatsApp

As of May 2022, users between the ages of 25 to 34 years made up 42% of Discord’s worldwide^[34] user base.

Meanwhile, users between the ages of 16 and 24 years made up 22.2% of Discord’s user base. Discord’s user base primarily consists of millennials born between 1981 and 1996 and Gen Zs, who were born between 1997 and 2012. 

Discord has been dubbed the new platform of choice for young Millennial and Gen Z consumers. 

In 2023, Millennials made up 29% of the world population and their buying power surpassed $15 trillion in 2023. Meanwhile, Gen Z made up 23.5% of the population and their buying power was forecasted to increase by 400% to over 33 trillion over the next decade.

The average Discord user spends around 280 minutes per month^[35] on the platform.

This comes up to about 5 hours per month or 9 minutes per day.

Discord Use Case Statistics

As of 2023, over 78% of Discord’s monthly active users^[36] use the platform to hang out with friends and communities centered around their interests.

This echoes 2021 findings that approximately 80% of Discord’s user base^[37] used the platform for non-gaming or a combination of non-gaming and gaming. Discord’s appeal and applicability have extended beyond gaming, making it one of the top community platforms for audiences to personalize their experience around hobbies, and interests.

In 2021, 85% of Discord users^[38] surveyed said they played games with friends over Discord on a regular basis.

Discord conducted user research and found that the primary purpose for playing was to bond with friends. The company consequently rolled out Activities in 2022, which was a way for users to spend time together in more interactive ways such as playing games or watching videos  directly within Discord.

While organic posts on social platforms are seen by 1-6% of followers^[39], all members of a Discord group can see and interact with posts that are perfectly in line with their interests.

Discord has emerged as a key marketing platform for brands looking to build a sense of community. In 2022 alone:

• Samsung turned to Discord to build its metaverse strategy, attracting more than 200,000 members^[40] to its server.
• Gucci created its own server as part of an NFT strategy and gained over 28,000 members^[41] in two days.

Discord Engagement Statistics

As of January 31, 2024, Discord had a 4.7-star rating on Capterra^[42], a leading business software review site.

Over 402 customers reviewed Discord favorably, describing it as a versatile and easy-to-use platform for work and entertainment alike.

To drive engagement and interact with users, Discord also maintains a presence on major social networking platforms. As of 30 January 2024, Discord was on:

• Facebook with 711,000 likes and 971,000 followers.
• X (formerly Twitter) with Over 4.7 million.
• Instagram with over 2.1 million followers.
• YouTube with over 1.43 million subscribers.
• TikTok with over 4.6 million followers and 41.6 million likes.

As of December 2023, over 76% of Discord users were from outside of the United States^[43]. Meanwhile:

• 23.13% were from the US.
• 3.7% were from Brazil.
• 3.6% were from India.
• 3.56% were from the Philippines.

As of January 2024, Discord had over 387K followers^[44] on LinkedIn.

Discord uses its presence on the world’s largest professional network to keep followers updated on company developments and job openings.

According to Semrush, Discord had 771 million visits^[45] in December 2023, up 10.28% compared to November. Additionally, 

• The average visitor spent 28.49 minutes on the site over an average of 2 pages. 
• Desktops drove 55% of visits, while the remaining 45% was driven by mobile devices.
• Visitors on Discord.com, primarily came from Direct/Typing Discord’s URL directly into the browser (73.275%) followed by Google (4.8%).
• Organic search traffic increased by 7% to 44.8 million, while paid traffic decreased by 48%. 

In Q3 2023, Discord’s mobile app was downloaded 27 million times across Google Play and Apple App Store combined.

In Q4 2020, Discord mobile app downloads peaked at 47.64 million. Download rates leveled off at between 27 and 28 million for the rest of 2023.

Statista reports that in August 2022, Discord users exchanged 4 billion messages^[46] daily.

This represents a 370% increase from the 850 million daily messages sent on the platform in 2018 and a staggering 9,900% increase from the 40 million messages exchanged in 2016.

Discord Developer and Creator Statistics 

Discord offers creators the opportunity to monetize their servers through server subscriptions, one-time purchases of digital server products and more, through its own Server Shop^[47]. However, as of November 2023, server monetization tools were only available for US-based servers.

Creators make 90% per subscription or per every one-time product sale. Key success stories as per Discord’s website include:

• The Club Banana Story which went from $0 to $15,000 a month.
• No Hesi which rakes in $52,000 per month.
• D2 Checkpoint which makes $7000 a month.

As of 1 December 2023, the official Discord Developers server hit 250,000 community members.

DDevs is a community that provides resources for building on and off Discord.

Since 2023, Discord has offered a way for eligible developers across the UK and Europe to earn money by building apps on top of the platform and offering subscriptions.

This service is already available in the US, where developers make 70% per subscription sale.

Discord Market Statistics

Discord’s product offerings spanning chat, video, audio and more, mean that the company has diverse competitors across areas such as gaming (Steam Chat), social networks (Facebook), and productivity/messaging (Slack).

In terms of its key features, Discord’s main competitors include:

• TeamSpeak: A voice and text app that targets the eSports space.
• Steam Chat: A text and voice messaging service designed for gamers.
• Slack: A team messaging app designed for businesses of all sizes.
• Clubhouse: A social audio and messaging app for personal use.
• Telegram: An instant messaging and video calling app that prioritizes privacy.
• Element: A video, text and voice app that focuses on end-to-end encryption and user privacy.
• Microsoft Teams: A communication and collaboration platform designed for professional use.

As of February 1, 2024, Discord is #3 in the social networking category^[48] on the App Store.

The app has a near 5-star rating as determined by over 2.6 million reviews. Meanwhile, on the Play store, Discord has been downloaded over 100 million downloads and a 4.2-star rating across 29,000 reviews.

According to 6Sense^[49], Discord has a 22.75% market share in game development.

Within this category, Discord ranks 2nd just behind Unity with 29% market share and ahead of  Unreal Engine with 16.35%.

According to Similarweb^[50], Discord.com was ranked 30th globally and 14th in the United States as of 1 January 2024.

In terms of its ranking in the social media networks category Discord was number 5 behind:

1. Facebook
2. Twitter
3. Instagram
4. Reddit

In 2023, Discord was downloaded 96 million times^[51], placing 10th on the list of the most popular social apps of the year.

In first place was Instagram with 696 million downloads, followed by TikTok and Facebook with 654 million and 553 million downloads respectively.

Discord and AI Statistics 

As per a March 2023 Discord blog post^[52], Discord’s AutoMod AI blocked over 45 million unwanted messages from servers even before they got posted, based on server rules.  

Discord introduced AutoMod AI in 2022 to take the load off manually moderating a server.

The same blog post reported the following regarding AI on the platform:

• Close to 3 million servers had at least one AI experience.
• Users had created over 1 billion unique images through AI apps on Discord.
• Discord had launched three free public AI experiments (Clyde, AutoMod AI and Conversation Summaries).

As of 30 January 2024, Midjourney, a text-to-image AI server had over 18.5 million members, making it the most popular server on the platform.

This represents an increase of close to 9% from June 2023 when Midjourney^[53] had 17 million members.

In 2023, over 10% of new Discord users joined specifically to access AI-based communities on the platform.

Additionally, over 30 million^[54] Discord users made use of AI-powered tools. As of July 2023, the most popular AI apps^[55] on Discord were:

• Midjourney
• Cappuccino
• Memrise
• AI image Generator
• AI Bot
• Picsart 

Discord Security Statistics 

According to Discord’s Q2 2023 Transparency Report Around 15% of Discord employees^[56] work in a cross-functional team dedicated to safety.

This is part of Discord’s commitment to ensuring a safe experience for users.

19,267 warnings were issued to individual accounts, an increase of 7.5% from the previous quarter.

Warnings issued to servers decreased by 39% to 1,300. Meanwhile, warnings issued to server members increased by a whopping 90% to over 2.9 million.

In Q2 2023, Discord disabled over 7.9 million accounts for spam related offenses.

The company also disabled 294,255 accounts for policy violations, a 69% increase from the previous quarter. The largest categories quarter-over-quarter were:

• Child Safety which saw an increase of 184%.
• Illegal activities which saw an increase of 38%

Similarly, the company removed 54,362 servers, an increase of 57% from the previous quarter.

Servers removed for Child safety were removed proactively 95% of the time. CSAM servers were removed proactively 99% of the time. Overall 84% of all servers removed were removed proactively. Proactive removals highlight Discord’s continued investment into user safety.

712 disabled accounts that submitted an appeal were reinstated.

This is 2.35% out of 10% of disabled accounts that Discord received appeals from in Q2 2023.

In terms of reporting, Discord received over 11.9 million reports via its in-app reporting feature. The top 3 largest categories were:

• Platform manipulation at over 6.5 million.
• Harassment and Bullying at over 2.1 million.
• Exploitative and unsolicited content at over 860,000.

Discord Fun Facts

• The founders picked the name Discord because it sounds cool^[57] and has to do with talking. Plus ‘discord’ in the gaming community was the problem they initially sought to solve.
• While in Alpha, Discord gained over 950 users in one week.
• As of January 2024, Discord had 34 discovered Easter eggs.

Monetize Your Discord Community with Whop

It is clear to see that Discord is an incredibly popular platform for online communities and groups, and it just keeps growing. You can take advantage of this growing audience by creating your own Discord server and monetizing your community with Whop.

To start selling access to your Discord community, sign up as a seller on Whop today.

FAQs

Why is Discord so popular?
Discord is so popular because it allows users to create servers or communities for free and easily connect over voice, video, and text. Plus unlike other major social networks, Discord is ad-free.

Is Discord OK for my 12-year-old?
Discord is not OK for your 12-year-old. In fact, Discord’s minimum age requirement is 13. This is because all content on Discord is user-generated, increasing the risk of minors being exposed to inappropriate material. 

Is Discord better than WhatsApp?
Whether Discord is better than WhatsApp depends on your needs. If you want a simple messaging app, WhatsApp may be the better option. However, if you want to be part of an online community related to your interests and enjoy features like chat, video, screen sharing and more, Discord is better than WhatsApp.

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