Choose your server... Discord is the six-year-old social platform that hosts everything from your Fortnite marathon to your cousin’s 3rd-grade birthday party. It's kind of like Zoom, Slack, and Twitch — all in one. Discord started as a chat tool for gamers, but has expanded to all kinds of virtual meetups during the pandemic. Think: group Love Island binges, homework clubs, and houseplant interest groups. And it's crushing it.
- ~3X: Discord nearly tripled revenue last year by selling subscriptions with exclusive perks.
- 140M: Discord's monthly users, which have doubled during the pandemic.
- #2: In January, US adults spent more time on Discord than on Twitter, Snapchat, and Reddit. It was 2nd only to Facebook among social networks.
- $7B: Discord’s valuation doubled in December (yep, still private).
Discordant with the norm... Discord is designed for real-time communication — not scrolling through days-old hiking posts. But the biggest difference between Discord and other social networks is how it makes money.
- Discord makes 0% of its sales from ads. Meanwhile: Facebook, Snap, Twitter, and Pinterest each make more than 90% of their sales from ads.
- For $10/month or $100/year, Discord users can subscribe to "Nitro" for perks like special emojis and clearer video resolution. Discord is also testing other features, like original multiplayer games and e-stickers.
Ads are addicting, subscriptions are nourishing... for most social biz models. Social media companies make the product "free," but use your data to target you — and then they can't stop. The ad-based biz model has gotten more heat lately (hence: Google removing third-party cookies). So social companies are venturing beyond ads: Twitter is launching a paid “Super Follow” subscription, and Clubhouse plans to ship creator subscriptions. Paid subs are harder to sustain, but they're a reliable meal of monthly revenues if they work. And it’s easier to start with subscriptions than charge later on.