Why Even Discord Is Offering Creators Ways to Get Paid

Discord isn’t just a social network for video gamers anymore. The service has mushroomed into a 150 million-user hangout spot for everyone from high-school debate teams to karaoke singers. Now it’s helping Internet stars who have also gravitated to Discord get paid when they stick around. 

The San Francisco-based startup is using a familiar playbook to court creators. In an invite-only test, they will be able to sell tickets to Discord’s live audio feature called Stage Channels. Twitter recently added similar ticketing sales to its own, Clubhouse-like live conversations product, Spaces.

Discord’s move marks the first time the actors, writers and musicians who converse with their fans on the service will be able to earn money from them there. Such transactions—say selling access to a private Discord server, or chat group—often take place on the performer’s YouTube or Patreon account. In turn, those companies get a cut of the sales. 

It’s a baby step by Discord into competing with the bigger social networks, including Snap and Facebook, to win Internet influencers. Their goals are broadly the same: attracting online celebrities who can help expand the time their followers spend on their platform. Unlike Facebook, which gets the vast majority of its revenue from ad sales but is looking to expand in other areas like e-commerce, Discord has its eye on a different prize. 

Stanislav Vishnevskiy, Discord co-founder and chief technology officer, said in an interview that the business priority is selling consumers Nitro, the $10 a month subscription that offers perks like better emoji, personalized profiles and the ability to upload bigger files. Last year, Discord’s revenue nearly tripled to $130 million, according to a person familiar with the company’s finances, largely from such subscriptions. 

“For what we don’t offer, other people can offer that,” Vishnevskiy said of competitors such as Patreon, which cash in when people sell access to Discord servers on their Patreon pages. He wouldn’t comment on whether Discord planned to handle such transactions on its own app or introduce other ways for creators to make money, such as tipping.

“For us, it’s about giving people the power to create belonging on Discord, whether it’s a paid community or not.”

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