Founded in 2015, Discord is a popular instant messaging and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) platform. It allows its users to create interest-based communities, known as servers, which have become very popular in the gaming community.
Since its inception, Discord has grown into a service that’s much bigger than a niche gaming chat service however. With over 550 million users worldwide in 2023, the platform is used by people interested in a wide variety of topics, such as tech, education, and music.
Following its rebranding in 2019, Discord has been more focused on tech and innovation communities, with its most popular server being AI-focused and attracting over 15 million users.
But who’s using Discord today? What are the other most popular servers? How does it make money?
In this article, we’ll look at the statistics for Discord’s users around the world, the company’s revenue, valuation, and market statistics, server statistics, regulatory and compliance trends, and possible trends for the future. Let’s dive in.
Key Discord Statistics & Trends for 2023
- Discord’s user count grew from 45 million in 2017 to 300 million in 2020 and 560 million in 2023.
- Gen Z and young millennials (people aged 25-34) are the biggest group of Discord users worldwide, making up over 42% of users.
- Discord has a 13% market share in the US as a messaging service and 16% in Brazil.
- As of Q3 2022, most of Discord’s in-app revenue (60%) comes from the US, which also has the most Discord users worldwide.
- There are approximately 19 million active servers on Discord in 2023.
- As of May 2023, the top Discord server by number of users is Midjourney, with over 15 million members.
- In November 2022, the French Data Protection Authority issued a €800,000 GDPR fine to Discord Inc. for non-compliance with the European general data processing principles and for insufficient data security.
Discord Demographics & Usage Statistics
Source: Statista
In 2020, the number of Discord users exceeded 300 million.
The exponential growth of the platform’s user base is a testament to its appeal to different demographics around the world. Although primarily known for gaming communities, Discord’s users have many interests and come from different backgrounds. Let’s take a closer look at who Discord’s users are.
Discord Number of Users Statistics
Source: Statista
The Discord user count grew from 45 million in 2017 to 300 million in 2020 and 560 million in 2023. The COVID-19 pandemic, increasing use of digital services, and growing uptake of online communities were all big contributors to that growth.
Between June 2020 and September 2021, the number of Discord monthly active users (MAU) grew from 100 million to 150 million. As of September 2021, there were 150 million Discord monthly active users, a figure that grew to 154 million by January 2023.
Top Discord Demographics
Source: Statista
Overall, men make up the majority of Discord’s global audience (67.7%), with women making up 32.3%, as of Q4 of 2022. There is a similar distribution around the world. For example, in Brazil, 67% of the app’s usersare men.
In terms of age, Gen Z and young millennials (people aged 25-34) are the biggest cohort of Discord users worldwide, making up over 42% of users. 16-24-year-olds are in second place, at 22.2%. People aged 65 and over make up the smallest audience group at 2.1%.
For the US, 18-34-year-olds make up over a third of all American Discord users. An outright majority of Brazilian Discord users (62%) are Gen Z-ers aged 18-29.
In terms of occupation, the majority (60%) of US-based Discord users are college students. 25% of users are unemployed, and 18% work in the private sector. Retirees make up the smallest audience group (2%), going hand-in-hand with those over-65 being the least represented among Discord users.
Usage & User Engagement on Discord
Source: Statista
The use of Discord grew significantly in 2022 – people who use it on a daily or weekly basis are using it 11% more than at the beginning of 2021. Monthly or occasional use is up 2%.
In terms of visitors to the platform, January 2023 saw the highest figures on record, at 846.1 million. The numbers dropped slightly in February of the same year but by less than half a million. Most users (220 million) are from the US.
In terms of time spent on the app, on average, US Discord users spend 280 minutes a month on Discord, or 9 minutes daily.
Discord-as-a-Messenger – Messages Statistics
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Discord is more popular in Brazil as a messaging app than in European countries. That’s no surprise, as Brazil is the second-biggest source of visitors for Discord.
Despite these relatively low percentages, as of summer 2022, Discord users were sending as many as 4 billion messages a day.
However, these huge figures are perhaps no surprise – after only a year of activity, the platform saw 40 million daily messages. That number doubled after six months and grew 800% in just two years. The latest figure of 4 billion is the result of significant growth from 850 million messages sent per day in 2018.
Discord Financial Statistics
Source: Statista
In a move that’s unusual for consumer platforms, Discord’s management has decided not to monetize via advertising. Instead, its revenue comes from in-app purchases, including premium memberships, the sales of its software product Nitro, and, as of 2023, retention of 10% of what creators make on the platform.
Let’s dive into the figures for Discord’s revenue.
Total Revenue
Discord doesn’t share its total revenue figures publicly, but we can look at the revenue statistics by source. The two publicly available revenue streams are Discord’s IAP purchase statistics and Nitro sales statistics.
IAP Purchases
Source: Statista
In terms of in-app revenue, Discord’s best quarter reported was Q1 of 2022, when it made $57.34 million in IAP revenue. However, Q1 of 2023 wasn’t far behind – Discord made almost $55 million in IAP during that period.
One example of an IAP purchase is server boosting – a way to upgrade your Discord server that gives you additional perks, such as new emoji slots, better audio quality, and custom icons, among other benefits.
Sales of Nitro
Source: Statista
With people spending more time online during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nitro sales grew by over 70% in 2019-2020. However, growth slowed down in the subsequent years, even decreasing to $207 million in 2023 from $208 million the year before.
Revenue by Region
As of Q3 2022, most of Discord’s in-app revenue comes from the United States, which also has the most Discord users worldwide.
Here’s a breakdown of Discord’s largest markets in terms of in-app revenue (IAP):
| Country | Percentage of revenue |
| USA | 60% |
| UK | 6% |
| Canda | 5% |
| France | 3% |
| Australia | 3% |
Valuation & Funding
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According to Crunchbase, Discord went through 16 funding rounds and raised $995.4 million in total over the last few years. In its last funding round in March 2022, the company raised $10.9 million through a secondary market sale.
However, Discord’s biggest funding round was a Series H round which took place in September 2021. In that round, the company managed to raise $500 million.
As you can see from the graph above, Discord’s valuation has been growing consistently since 2018, which is when the company had its Series E round, but it decreased in 2022 due to the post-pandemic lull in the digital markets.
There’s a possibility of a Discord IPO in 2023, but no date has been confirmed as of yet.
Discord Server Statistics
Source: Statista
Discord’s communities, or servers, are among the platform’s most unusual features. Users can create servers or join them based on their interests, such as gaming, tech, or music.
As of Q4 2021, technology and gaming were the top interest areas for Discord servers. As you’ll see in this section, servers associated with these interests are some of the most popular Discord servers. Let’s take a closer look at Discord server statistics, starting with the total number of servers.
Total Number of Servers
Source: Statista
As of 2023, there are approximately 19 million active servers on Discord. As you can see from the chart, the number of servers has almost tripled since 2020. Considering that Discord servers are mostly invite-only, it’s a testament to consumers’ increased interest in joining online communities.
Top Discord Servers
Source: Statista
As of May 2023, the top Discord server by number of users is Midjourney. The name refers to the text-to-image AI tool of that name, and the server has over 15 million members.
Given that Midjourey isn’t a gaming community but is focused on tech, you can make a case that its growth is a testament to Discord’s advancement as more than just a niche gaming platform.
We’ll now take a look at the top Discord servers in different categories to see whether that’s truly the case.
Education
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Thanks to its text and VoIP features, Discord is being actively used for training and educational purposes. Its top educational server is Sui, which has almost 750,000 members and is about making digital ownership accessible to everyone.
The second-biggest education community on Discord is English, which is home to over 650,000 English language learners.
Gaming
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When it comes to gaming Discord, the most popular gaming server is Blox Fruits, named after the game, which had over 1.1 million members as of May 2023. Servers dedicated to popular games Valorant and Genshin Impact Official each have over 1 million members.
Science & Tech
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Science and technology communities are also big on Discord. As mentioned, Midjourney, which is a tech server, is the server with the largest overall member count. The OpenAI server – covering the firm behind ChatGPT – has 3.3 million members, more than Blox Fruits and Sui combined.
Music
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Music is another popular category on Discord. Interestingly, the two most popular music servers on the platform are associated with TikTok – TikTok Videos and TikTok Zone have 670,000 and 541,000 members, respectively.
Discord Regulatory Statistics & Controversies
Since Discord is a voice-focused platform, privacy issues can arise easily. Additionally, as with many online platforms, some countries have banned the use of Discord entirely for reasons of law, privacy, or internet control.
Another issue Discord users contend with is the high frequency of bans. Since the platform is so popular, it’s no surprise that it attracts malicious actors as well as positive collaboration. Let’s look more closely at Discord’s regulatory issues and ban statistics.
Geographic Restrictions
Here’s an overview of countries where Discord is banned or restricted:
| Country | Restriction |
| North Korea | Full ban |
| China | Full ban on mainland |
| UAE | Full ban since 2020 |
| Egypt | Full ban |
| Iran | Full ban |
| Oman | Full ban |
| Russia | Partially restricted |
Privacy
As with many free services, Discord’s users have to sacrifice some of their personal data to fully enjoy the experience. And since Discord logs your IP address, it can potentially link your online activities to your real-world identity. You can use a VPN to avoid this issue, but Discord has a history of blocking VPN-associated IPs.
This practice, common among many online services, raises concerns about user privacy and data security.
This and associated issues were such a serious concern in France that the French Data Protection Authority actually issued an €800,000 GDPR fine to Discord Inc. for non-compliance with the European general data processing principles and for providing insufficient data security in November 2022.
Discord also collects information about users’ interactions, including messages, voice chat logs, and server activities. While this data is primarily used to improve user experience, it may also be subject to scrutiny by advertisers and other third parties.
Discord Account Ban Statistics
Source: Statista
Discord blocked over 36.8 million accounts in Q4 of 2022 for spam alone. In fact, spam seems to be the biggest offense when it comes to Discord violations. It’s no surprise, given the number of users and the platform’s open nature.
These figures constitute a significant increase from Q1 and Q2 of 2021 when Discord banned 19.74 million accounts for spam and 0.47 million for other violations.
This increase is both a testament to Discord’s popularity and an illustration of the fact that more oversight and additional anti-spam measures may be required.
Server Removal Statistics
Source: Statista
In terms of Discord servers, over 17,400 of them were removed in Q4 of 2022, relating to concerns regarding child safety. The lion’s share of these servers (over 16,000) were removed proactively by Discord, whilst the rest were reactive. Illegal activities also resulted in the removal of over 7,600 servers during that period.
Future Discord Trends – Redefining Communication
Discord has already established itself as a prominent communication platform for gamers and other online communities. As technology advances, several trends are expected to mold the future of Discord, redefining how people interact online.
Beyond Gaming
As we’ve seen, Discord is not just for gamers anymore, and that’s not going to change any time soon. We predict that Discord will continue catering to a more diverse audience, supporting communities centered around different interests.
This diversification may enable Discord to become a go-to platform for a wider audience, allowing them to foster new connections and facilitating knowledge-sharing.
Enhance Voice & Video Communication
As internet infrastructure and technology continue to improve, especially with the rise of 5G, Discord will likely invest in improving its VoIP and video communication capabilities. We can expect to see better audio quality, reduced latency, and new features that make voice and video conversations more interactive and enjoyable.
This could lead to Discord becoming a preferred platform for virtual events, online conferences, and even remote work collaboration.
Mobile & Cross Platform
Mobile gaming and communication are on the rise, and Discord is capitalizing on this trend. In the future, we can expect Discord to invest in further optimizing its mobile app, providing a more seamless experience for users on the go.
Additionally, we predict that cross-platform integration will become more robust, allowing users to switch between devices while maintaining their conversations and server activities.
Closing Thoughts
We’ve seen that Discord’s popularity surged during COVID-19 and that it’s become a lot more than a niche gaming forum. More and more servers geared to different interests are emerging on the platform, with over 19 million servers active today.
However, Discord isn’t without its controversies – including the high incidence of spam and increased risk of harmful content, as well as its privacy issues.
It remains to be seen whether Discord will follow through on its IPO plans and, if so, at what valuation.
Given the low valuation figures of 2022, we’d expect the company to take advantage of new revenue streams in the near future – and we expect that these new monetization strategies will go hand-in-hand with technological advancements, such as the Metaverse.
References:
- Average monthly traffic to Discord.com worldwide from October 2022 to February 2023 (Statista)
- Discord Crunchbase profile (Crunchbase)
- Discord Is a Firm Favorite Among Younger Audiences (Statista)
- Discord – Nitro (Discord)
- Discord Privacy Policy (Discord)
- Discord share of lifetime in-app revenues as of July 2022, by country (Statista)
- Discord Statistics (ThinkImpact)
- Distribution of Discord users in Brazil as of May 2022, by age group (Statista)
- Distribution of Discord users in Brazil as of May 2022, by gender (Statista)
- Distribution of Discord.com users worldwide as of May 2022, by age group (Statista)
- Distribution of Discord users worldwide in 4th quarter 2022, by gender (Statista)
- GDPR Enforcement Tracker (EnforcementTracker)
- In-app purchase revenues of Discord mobile app worldwide from 2nd quarter of 2019 to 1st quarter 2023 (Statista)
- Leading countries for monthly traffic to Discord.com in April 2023 (Statista)
- Leading Discord educational servers among users worldwide as of May 2023, by number of members (Statista)
- Leading Discord gaming servers among users worldwide as of May 2023, by number of members (Statista)
- Leading Discord music servers among users worldwide as of May 2023, by number of members (Statista)
- Leading Discord science and tech servers among users worldwide as of May 2023, by number of members (Statista)
- Leading Discord servers among users worldwide as of May 2023, by number of members (Statista)
- Monthly app revenue of Discord in Japan from January to December 2022 (Statista)
- Number of daily messages exchanged on social media and communication platform Discord from July 2016 to August 2022 (Statista)
- Number of Discord accounts removed from the platform from 1st half 2020 to 2nd half 2021 (Statista)
- Number of Discord accounts removed from the platform in 4th quarter 2022, by violation (Statista)
- Number of Discord servers removed from the platform due to selected violations in 4th quarter 2022, by method of deletion (Statista)
- Number of monthly active Discord users worldwide from 2020 to 2023 (Statista)
- Number of registered users of Discord worldwide from 2017 to 2020 (Statista)
- Number of weekly active Discord servers worldwide from 2020 to 2023 (Statista)
- Revenues generated from direct Discord Nitro sales worldwide from 2019 to 2023 (Statista)
- Server Boosting FAQ (Discord)
- Share of adults in the United States who have a Discord account as of May 2022, by age group (Statista)
- Share of adults in the United States who have a Discord account as of May 2022, by occupation (Statista)
- Share of Discord users worldwide interested in selected hobbies and topics as of 4th quarter 2021 (Statista)
- The Latest Discord Statistics: Servers, Revenue, Data, and More (InfluencerMarketingHub)
- Value of funding raised by Discord from 2018 to 2022, by investment round (Statista)
- What Countries Is Discord Banned In? (List And Reasons!) (StreamersPlaybook)
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