Discord's emergence into the gaming world sought to redefine the experience of gamers by bridging the communication gap among gamers by making it possible for users to play games and chat as well.
The platform was created by Jason Citron and Stanislav Vishnevsky and launched on May 13, 2015. Before it entered the market, gaming platforms such as Skype and TeamSpeak were already in the business and making waves in their respective services.
While Skype targeted the corporate market, TeamSpeak focused on gamers. In its initial phase, Discord also focused on gamers until the emergence of the COVID-19 Pandemic, when people were forced by the government to stay at home.
This period saw a rise in the number of Discord users. Citron saw the need to expand to reach not just gamers alone but to bring families and friends together in a time when they needed to stay strong. It started by changing its motto from “chat for gamers” to “chat for community and friends” in March 2020.
Discord was approached by the tech giant, Microsoft Corp, and was offered $12 billion by the company to acquire it, but Citron nicely turned down the offer. The tremendous increase to 100 million in the height of the COVID-19 lockdown showed that Citron was visionary and believed there was life without Microsoft. Interesting. Let's look at more statistics of Discord below.
Key Discord Statistics: Users, Revenue & Valuation
- Discord has over 150 million monthly active users and over 300 million registered accounts.
- Over 960 million messages are sent daily, and the platform processes about 4 billion minutes of conversations.
- The platform generated a whopping $130 million in revenue in 2020, a year-on-year increase of about 188%.
- 70% of users say they patronize the app for gaming and other activities.
- The platform is valued at $15 billion.
- Discord experienced an increase from 150 million users in 2019 to 350 million users in 2021.
- Discord has an active number of almost 19 million users per week.
- Each Discord server can host up to 25000 online members at a time.
- Approximately 90% of Discord's servers have lower than 15 users.
25+ Discord Statistics, Facts & Market Share Trends In 2023
What is Discord Demography like?
When Discord first started, it targeted adult gamers, so it set its age limit to 30 – 33, but later on, when its user base expanded, it accommodated a large number of different age groups, issuing restrictions to only people under the age of 13.
As for gender statistics, Discord does not ask for your gender when signing up, so there is no clear statistics of how many males or females use the platform.
However, a little Reddit research explained that female users might be about 25% while male users are 75%. The clear statistics may not be ascertained as there are many servers on the platform. However, it is reported that on each server generally, there are lesser females than male users.
[Source: Reddit, TechJury]
What is the Number of Discord's Monthly Active Users?
The platform currently boasts over 150 million monthly active users. In 2019, it was at 56 million, but it witnessed a tremendous increase to 100 million in 2020 when the world was on lockdown. In 2020, the app attained 10.6 million concurrent users, an increase from the 8.2 million it was in 2018.
In the same year, Discord recorded only about 1 million daily active users, which even declined sometime in the next year (2019). In the same year, Discord saw a boost in the number of its daily active users, which amounted to 14 million.
[Source: Levvvel]
How Many Registered Users are on Discord?
Discord's registered users are the total number of users on the platform (active or inactive).
As of 2021, there were more than 300 million registered users on Discord. The platform experienced rapid growth in the early years of its launch. A year after its launch, Discord already had 25 million registered users on the platform. In December 2018, the number of registered users increased to 200 million.
The number increased again in May 2019, though only by 50 million, making it a total of 250 million users. June 2020 saw the number increase again by another 50 million, totaling 300 million as of the time.
[Source: Levvvel]
How Much Time do Users Spend on Discord?
Unlike other social media platforms where users just log in to see what's going on around the world and then log out as soon as they're done, Discord is different. The Wall Street Journal reported that users spend considerably long hours chatting or playing games on the platform.
An average US Discord user spends about 208.6 minutes on the platform per month. That's about 5 hours per month or 9 minutes per day. This amount of time is expected to increase as the platform amasses more users monthly, quarterly, and yearly.
[Source: Thesmallbusinessblog]
How Much is Discord's Net Worth?
In 2021, Tech giant Microsoft Corp offered the sum of $12 billion dollars to acquire Discord, but as every company approached for purchase, Discord turned the offer down. After its last fundraising led by Dragoneer Investment Group in September 2021, the company has hit a market value of $15 billion, which is more than twice what it was in the previous year ($7 billion in 2020).
The company has not gone public for now but is in talks with investment bankers about doing so within 2022. The table below shows the net worth of platforms from 2013 to 2021, excluding 2014 and 2015, whose data were not made available.
Year
Networth (USD)
2013
$23 million
2016
$282 million
2017
$1.6 billion
2018
$2 billion
2019
$3.5 billion
2020
$7 billion
2021
$15 billion
[Source: Businessofaps, Famemass]
What is Discord's Yearly Revenue?
Discord has experienced growth in its yearly revenue. The report says that it could have something to do with the COVID-19 Pandemic. In 2016, Discord generated a revenue of $5 million (that's a year after its launch). In 2017 it upped its game as it hit $10 million, twice the amount it generated in the previous year.
In 2018, tripled its 2017 revenue, which was $30 million. In 2019, it added 50% percent of its 2018 revenue, which made it $45 million.
In 2020, Discord attained a whopping $130 million, an exponential shoot that may be attributed to the Pandemic. The company is expected to generate about $200 million in 2021.
[Source: Businessofaps, Grojo]
What are Discord's Daily Active Users?
According to Business of Apps, Discord's daily active users were about 14 million, which is now estimated to be around 20 million in 2021. Again, the exponential growth could be linked to the COVID-19 Pandemic and lockdown when everyone had to be indoors to reduce the spread of the virus.
In 2017, the platform saw a daily active user of 9 million. In 2018, it increased its number of the previous year's daily active users by a little above 200%, making it stand at 19 million. In 2019, the number dropped by 5 million, which had the daily active users for the year at 14 million.
[Source: Businessofaps]
What is Discord's Servers Statistics?
Discord is popularly known for its numerous servers for each group. Discord had about 6.7 million active servers in 2020, which rose to about 13.5 million in 2021. Currently, the platform has 19 million active servers on the platform.
The rationale behind having so many servers is to strongly compete with its competitors such as Microsoft Teams, Google Chats (formerly known as Hangout), and as well as its long-term rivals: TeamSpeak and Skype.
Discord has a user limit of 800,000 on each server. Currently, 7 servers have reached or crossed their limits. These include Minecraft, Genshin Impact, Valorant, Fortnite, Mr. Beast, Among Us, and Roblox
[Source: Wersm, InfluencerMarketingHub, Famemass, Businessofapss]
How Many Employees does Discord Have?
Discord's Co-founder, Jason Citron, reiterated the company's commitment to balance its position or role of employees between white supremacists and marginalized people so as not to come off as racist. Currently, Jason Citron is the CEO of Discord. The company has 750 employees.
Out of this number, 19 are in leadership positions. The Discord executive team is comprised of 26% female and 63% male. 60% of the management team come from the White race. 16% of the management team is Hispanic or Latino.
And 9% of the management team is Black or African-American. Citron pointed out that the company is still at its early phase of giving equal opportunities to every race and thus requires more “time, resources and sustained attention”.
How Much is Citron's Net Worth?
There is no clear figure for the net worth of the gaming and chatting platform's CEO. However, unverified sources estimated it to be around $3 million. In some other instances, his net worth is estimated to be around $1.8 million. Both sources are not reliable, but there is a way to ascertain Citron's net worth: you can take a look at compensation for Discord's executive level and do a little calculation with that information.
According to Comparably, there is a report on the “most compensated executives”. It averages the highest annual revenue at about $427,000, and the lowest is $65,000. You can calculate the total asset value by adding the $100 million he got at 26. He lives in a highbrow neighborhood where the standard of living is pretty high.
However, no data shows his real estate, investments, or cash holdings, making it impossible to calculate his liabilities and deduct them. All of these make the initial figure of $1.3 to $3 million probably true.
[Source: MyTechMag]
How Many Messages do Users Send Daily?
Since the platform divided its service between chatting and gaming, it has seen witnessed a huge number of messages on a daily and monthly basis. In June 2020, the platform boasted 300 million registered users, and it announced that its members send about 963 million members daily.
Multiplying that by 30 means users send about 2.8 billion messages every month. While there have been no statistics about the most recent development since then, there is a high probability that the figures must have increased now.
[Source: InfluencerMarketingHub]
How Much has Discord Raised so Far from Funding?
In the most recent Discord funding led by Dragoneer Investment Group, Discord raised a whopping $500 million. That is the highest since it started its fundraising in 2012. The cumulative fundraised so far has amounted to more than $1 billion. The table below shows a comprehensive run-down of Discord's funding since 2012.
Funding Dates
Amount Raised (Millions)
July 2012
$1.1
November 2013
$8.2
February 2015
$4.5
January 2016
$20
January 2017
$50
April 2018
$50
December 2018
$150
June 2020
$100
December 2020
$100
September 2021
$500
[Source: Backlinko]
How Many Times has Discord Been Downloaded?
Since September 5th, Discord has seen an all-time high in the mobile download of its app on the Google PlayStore and AppStore. The surge is linked to the picking up of Among Us, a cross-platform indie game. Discord has been downloaded 800,000 times since the game started to gain popularity among the users of the platform.
Apptopia analyst Adam Blacker said in a report that the United States is the largest market for both video games and VoIP (Voice-over IP). 18.8% of Among Us downloads come from the United States and also account for about 21.5% of Discord downloads.
[Source: Beebom]
How Many Countries is Discord Available In?
Discord is allowed in most countries of the world which include the United States, United Kingdom, India, Japan, Brazil, Russia, all countries in Europe, and every other country else except those that banned Discord. The list of countries that banned the platform includes Oman, Iran, Egypt, Mainland China, United Arab Emirates, and North Korea. However, many users from these countries still gain access to the platform through Virtual Private Networks (VPN), albeit considered illegal.
[Source: StreamersPlaybook]
What is Discord's Age Restriction?
Just like other social or gaming platforms, Discord has an age limit set for its users. It clearly states that users must be 13 years of age or above to be accepted onto the platform. Failure to adhere to the age instruction could attract a permanent ban of the user's account.
Even server owners can subject age violators to ban from their servers. However, some countries have a specific age restriction for Discord users. This is to ensure that they do not encounter contents that are inappropriate for them. These countries are:
14+ Age Restriction
15+ Age Restriction
16+ Age Restriction
South Korea
Vietnam
Aruba
Austria
Czech Republic
Caribbean Netherlands
Bulgaria
France
Curaçap
Cyprus
Greece
Sint Maarten
Italy
Serbia
Croatia
Lithuania
Germany
Spain
Hungary
Chile
Ireland
Colombia
Luxemburg
Peru
Netherlands
Venezuela
Poland
Romania
San Marino
Slovakia
Slovenia
What is Discord Traffic Rate?
In June 2022, Discord had amassed 443.6 million visits with an average duration of 16:45. This is a decline from the 448.1 million it was in May 2022. The number of visits declined by -1%. And in April 2022, the number of visits stood at 419.4 million, and a bounce rate of 66.47%.
The following table shows the top 5 countries with the highest traffic, with the United States taking the top spot.
Country
Traffic Generated
United States
45.96%
United Kingdom
4.08%
Brazil
3.63%
France
3.37%
Germany
3.24%
Obviously, the United States tops the countries with the highest Discord traffic by a very large margin. Even the United Kingdom, which ranks just below the US, is no way close to its traffic rate. Discord users use various devices to access the platform. Desktop constitutes 51% of the total visits, and mobile devices constitute 48.9% of the total visits.
[Source: Semrush]
Where does Discord Get Most of its Revenue?
Discord gets most of its revenue from its subscriptions. Discord Nitro is available in two tiers – Nitro and Nitro Basic. The Discord Nitro costs $9.99 per month and $99.99 per year. Discord Nitro Basic on the other hand, is priced at $4.49 per month and $49.99 per year.
The difference between the two subscription plans is that the former permits for a bigger file add dimension, better video quality, and two server boosts. The Nitro Basic subscription comes with only one server boost. Discord does not make any income for promoting – even the tiers are ads-free, so the platform makes most of its revenue from subscriptions.
[Source: GadgetOfficials]
What is Discord World Ranking?
According to Comparably, Discord is ranked 7th among Top Brands for Gen Z. Among Top Brands in Tech, it is ranked 77th, and finally, Discord is ranked 1st between it and its competitor (Twitch), which stands at the number 682nd spot on the global ranking, whereas Discord takes the 289th spot. By the way, Discord is voted the favorite social media platform for 3% of US Youngsters.
[Source: GadgetOfficials]
Which of Discord's Server Largest?
As earlier mentioned, there are about 10 Discord servers that have attained the limit of 800,000 users. Among these servers, Fortnite is by far the most important server on Discord, with a total of 800,000 members. Genshin Impact, Valorant, MrBeast, and Minecraft, take the second, third, fourth, and fifth spots in that order with the same number of members as Fortnite.
Axie Infinity takes the sixth position with over 798,000 members. Although a few servers have attained the limit as Fornite but it is considered the most important because it the among the most active servers in the world of gaming.
[Source: Businessofaps, Grojo]
How Many Physical Voice and Video Servers does Discord Have?
Discord has over 850,000 servers that are dedicated to only calls and videos. These are servers that they use to handle all voice and video calls that take place on the platform.
That is partly why there cannot be more than 25 members on a video chat; that’s understandable as Discord does not want to have anything less than the best quality and experience for its users.
What is Discord's Employees' Annual Income?
Curious about how much a Discord employee earns? Well, we are going to be talking about that in this part of the article. However, note that amount of salary is relative to the position each employee occupies. An estimated average annual salary, including basic and bonuses, is $145,755 or $67 per hour.
The median salary is $143,519 or $68 per hour. Discord's highest-paid position is the Director of Engineering at $238,884. On the other hand, the lowest paid position is Community Manager at $39,000. Discord's employees' annual salary by the department is:
- IT $117,787
- Operations: $119,234
- Product: $176,347
- HR: $129,884.
According to Comparably, half of Discord's salary structure is more than $143,519.
[Source: Comparably]
How Many Bots are there on Discord?
Bots are Discord's little background workers. They help fix little things to give Discord users a smooth user experience. They can help moderate servers, add games and music, generate events, and helps remind users about an upcoming event.
As of 2021, there are about 12,000 bots available. The first one to reach 1 million servers on March 18 is Rhythm, the bot responsible for the music. It was serving 8 million servers before it was removed after a complaint from Google.
430,000 bots are used at the same time weekly by at least 30% of active Discord servers.
[Source: Levvvel]
How Many Minutes of Worth Conversation are Exchanged Daily?
On Discord, 4 billion minutes worth of conversations is exchanged daily.
There are over 24 billion messages sent per month, 6 billion per week, 4 billion per day, and approximately 1,000 texts in 6 hours, and according to Statistica, 688 million messages are being sent every minute.
Although these statistics could change from time to time because the volume of messages and pace at which they are sent is unpredictable. Regardless, whatever changes there might be, it is not far from the information provided above.
[Source: Rickyspears]
How Many Americans Watch a Livestream on Discord?
Apparently, Discord does not only deliver a gaming experience but allows users to stream videos on it. 14% of Americans say they watch live streams on Discord. That's a considerably high number of users who stream videos on Discord, given the population of the United.
Although it will be difficult to beat live steam giants such as YouTube, which has (40%) of the US population patronizing it. Neither can it stand Twitch, which has (47%) of US users, and Facebook (16%). Those are the only live stream platforms that are ahead of Discord.
[Source: Levvvel]
What is the Discord's Market Shares?
Discord has a market share of 27.6% in the game-development market. The companies using Discord include Darkcoin, Turtlecoin, NVIDIA, Phpbb, Node.js, NYAPM, and others.
Discord's biggest competitors also have a market share in the game-development market, but a lot lesser than Discord, including Google Gaming. Below is a short list of gaming companies' market share in the industry:
- Google Gaming (8.75%)
- Unreal Engine (17.45%)
- OBS (8.51%)
- Godot (6.20)
- GameMaker (2.33%)
- Kahoot (4.35%)
How Many Concurrent Users does Discord Have?
Discord just peaked at 10.6 million concurrent users in 2020 despite having the 13+ age restriction. That is an increase from the 8.2 million it was in 2018.
Since then, the statistics have not been updated, there is a high likelihood that the figure would have risen at this point in time, especially as the platform is witnessing growth in its user base and, consequently, revenue.
[Source: Businessofaps]
What are Discord's Future Plans?
Changing its motto from “chat for gamers” to “chat for community and friends” to attract not just gamers but also non-gamers implied that Discord would probably adjust to any favorable deal.
In early 2022, Sony's PlayStation agreed to work together with Discord. The platform has also been approached by two tech giants: Amazon and Twitter, with an offer which Discord has not yet turned down.
The plan the platform is making is to create small games where users can purchase many things. They plan to make it go big by connecting with influencers and artists to organize public events with tickets and take their dividends from the proceedings.
How much do Discord Developers Get?
Discord, like many other online gaming platforms, allows developers to self-publish games on the platform. In a bid to make its full-fledged game store developer-friendly, the platform allocates 90% of the proceeds from games created by developers and takes a 10% cut. Profits are used to increase the growth of users on its servers and, basically, operating costs.
Discord also charges a 10% game distribution fee. Other means by which Discord generates revenue are paid subscription to Discord Nitro, game distribution charges, fundraising, investment, Discord Merch Store and cosmetics.
How Many People Joined the Snowsgiving Server?
Wondering what Snowsgiving is? Well, it is that time of the year (usually December) when the Discord Community from all walks of life come together in the spirit of the season under one server known as the Snowsgiving Server. You can make new friends, participate in a contest, and give back by supporting charity organizations.
The 4th annual Snowsgiving, which was held in December 2020, saw 200,000 people join the server and raised funding of over $200,000 for Doctors Without Borders.
They also included a one-week digital music festival that featured Kaskade, TOKiMONSTA Nova Miller, and DJ Snoopadelic (also known as Snoop Dogg).
[Source: Rickyspears]
Conclusion
There you have it. Discord has had an amazing growth journey and remarkable progress so far. Its biggest undoing would have been the acceptance of the Microsoft Offer, but Citron was optimistic that his company would pick up without Microsoft, and it did.
It saw it saw its biggest user base growth in 2019 when it added over 120 million registered users to its previous year's user base of 130 million.
At the moment, Discord would have invariably attained a greater height in revenue growth and other spheres, and there are more to come, given its stability and consistency.
