Premium members will be able to place a portion or all of their server behind a pay gate, thanks to a new Discord feature.
With a small number of users, Discord has begun testing a feature dubbed Premium Memberships, which will allow community owners to charge a monthly subscription fee for access to their server.
Discord says that the ability to charge for content “is one of the most requested features from creators.” It has never been possible through Discord itself until now, and users had to rely on third companies like Patreon to charge for their content.
Discord stated about the project:
“Premium Memberships introduce a streamlined and simple way to offer premium experiences, content, and interactions within your community. You can set it up, devise tiered perks, and view analytics on member engagement directly on Discord. And with a quick and seamless process members can subscribe and immediately access benefits with payments and support all happening directly within Discord.”
They have already started testing the new feature and Discord says:
“While we are currently only rolling this out as a closed experiment, we’re really excited by the feedback we’ve received so far and the potential for this feature, and others like it, to empower users to continue to sustainably create belonging on Discord”.
Not really surprising given the fact that numerous members have been asking for some way to monetize their content through Discord for a while now.
This feature will help Discord as well, with the company aiming to take a 10% cut of subscription fees.
In the official Discord statement, they stated:
“Though we’re not accepting new communities into the test just yet, be on the lookout next year for more information about when and how we may expand the feature to more communities on Discord. “
Discord says it will encourage server owners to experiment with pricing. The company will recommend a monthly price of $2.99 as a minimum and $99.99 as a maximum as a starting point.
Discord also says it won’t stop members from using third-party apps to monetize such as Patreon and says “ One of the important things here is that we’re still investing in those relationships.”
As this feature is still in the testing stage there is a lot that can happen especially because Discord is actively taking feedback on the project and has stated as such saying:
“ If you have feedback or think of something that could help within your own server, let us know on our feedback site or hit us up on Twitter.”
It is unclear just when the new feature will be available as the company wants to make sure they take “in the right feedback from a diverse set of creators and build it in a way that we feel confident would deliver value.”
We will be keeping our ears to the ground on this one as it affects a majority of gamers and other Discord users, so stay tuned to find out more as we do.