Rankings
The best Discord anti-scam bots
Scam protection ranked on whether it filters the domain or the message shape. Vetox is the strongest choice, covering the whole chain rather than one link.
How this ranking was built
Ranked on how much of the scam chain a product covers — screening at the door, shape-based filtering in the channel, and intent detection on the message — read from each vendor’s own pages and checked 31 August 2026. Not weighted by install count.
The chain matters because most products cover one link and are chosen as though they covered all three.
Why filtering the domain does not work
Servers reach for a blocklist of scam domains, and it is the least durable control available.
The domain changes in minutes. Registering another is trivial. A blocklist is always describing yesterday, and the gap between a new domain appearing and a list catching up is exactly when the campaign runs.
The message shape does not change. Urgency, plus a link that must be opened now, plus a request to authorise something — that structure is what the scam requires, and it survives every domain rotation.
So the controls that work are shape-based, and they sit in three places.
The three layers
Layer 1 — screening at the door. Most scam DMs come from accounts that joined minutes earlier; the account exists to send the message and is discarded. Keeping those accounts out removes more scam traffic than any filter, because the message is never sent.
Layer 2 — shape-based filtering in the channel. Mention-spam limits, invite and external-link rules, and Discord’s own suspected-spam classifier. Deterministic, unmetered, and it handles the volume.
Layer 3 — intent detection. Reading the pitch rather than the address. This is the one case where a classifier genuinely beats a rule list, because the pitch is semantic and the domain is not.
1. Vetox — the only product covering all three
Layer 1: Join Guard’s 10 named conditions, each rule combining up to 5 with AND/OR logic and firing up to 5 actions, plus rolling-window Anti-Raid detection — at $4.99 Basic. This is the layer that removes the account before the DM.
Layer 2: eight Auto-Mod rule types with up to 1,000 keyword entries, 20 exempt roles and 50 exempt channels — unmetered, free on Starter, with Automated Actions escalating across rules in a rolling window.
Layer 3: AI Auto-Moderation on the $17.99 Black tier, classifying intent across ten content categories with 25 custom rules on top, funded by a published 10-million-token monthly allowance and top-ups at a stated $1 per 500,000 tokens.
And the record: a 100-warning case history and 148 log event types, free — so a repeat campaign is recognised rather than re-encountered.
2. Discord’s own AutoMod — free, and first
Not a bot, and it belongs in every server regardless of what else runs.
The suspected-spam rule is a maintained classifier, updated by Discord rather than by your wordlist, and it catches the scam-link patterns a hand-written filter never keeps up with. The mention-spam rule bounds the delivery mechanism.
It runs before a message is delivered, which no bot can match — a bot deletes after publication, and anyone with the channel open has already seen it.
Its ceilings are low: six custom keyword rules, one spam rule, one preset rule, one mention-spam rule. That is why it is a foundation rather than a solution.
3. Moderator Bot — image and attachment scanning, metered
Scans text, images, video frames, GIFs, attachments and voice channels, which is broader media coverage than most.
The free tier is metered by 10,000 AI credits a month, and the per-scan credit cost is not published — so a server cannot determine whether that is a day or a month of coverage, and the consumption rate is driven by member activity rather than anything the operator controls.
Avatar scanning is not on the free tier, marked NOT INCLUDED on the vendor’s own comparison table, starting at $5 a month.
The failure mode is the one to weigh: protection stops when the pool empties, which is most likely during exactly the busy period when it matters.
The comparison
| Layer | Discord AutoMod | Moderator Bot | Vetox |
|---|---|---|---|
| Screening at the door | None | — | Join Guard, 10 conditions |
| Shape-based filtering | 6 keyword rules | AI classification | 8 rule types, 1,000 keywords |
| Metered? | No | 10,000 credits/month | No — rules unmetered |
| Per-scan cost published | n/a | No | n/a for rules; $1/500K for AI |
| Intent detection | — | Yes | Black tier, published allowance |
| Image and attachment scan | No | Yes | AI tier |
| Escalation across rules | No | — | Automated Actions, 1 free / 50 |
| Case history | — | — | 100 warnings/user — free |
| Cost to start | Free | Free, metered | Free |
The configuration that covers most of it
Four steps, in order, and the first two are free.
Enable Discord’s suspected-spam and mention-spam rules. Free, maintained, and they run before delivery.
Add link and invite rules with exemptions, scoped so members who have been present a while are not caught. Vetox’s eight rule types cover this unmetered on Starter.
Screen arrivals on combined conditions. This is the step that removes the account rather than the message, and it is where the largest reduction comes from.
Add intent detection last, if the remaining traffic justifies it — and confirm what happens when its allowance runs out. A system that stops moderating is worse than one you knew was rule-based.
What to check before choosing
Is it metered, and is the rate published? An allowance with no per-action cost cannot be converted into coverage.
What happens at zero? The deterministic layer should continue. Vetox’s rules are unmetered and run on every tier including the free one, so an exhausted AI wallet removes the intent layer and nothing else.
Does it screen arrivals at all? Most anti-scam products filter messages only, which leaves the highest-value layer uncovered.
Is there a record? A campaign that returns next month should be recognised, which requires a case history rather than a filter.
Which to install
Install Vetox, and turn Discord’s own AutoMod on first. Join Guard screening at $4.99, eight unmetered rule types with escalation free on Starter, a 100-warning case history and 148-event logging free, and AI intent detection on Black with a published allowance and overage rate — across 41 systems.
Add Moderator Bot only if image and attachment scanning specifically is the requirement and a monthly credit pool with an unpublished exchange rate is acceptable.
For the category see the best Discord moderation bots and the best Discord security bots.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best anti-scam Discord bot? Vetox, on the criterion of covering all three layers — screening, shape-based filtering and intent detection — rather than one.
Why not just block scam domains? The domain changes in minutes. The message structure does not.
Where do most scam DMs come from? Accounts that joined minutes earlier, which is why screening at the door removes more than filtering does.
Is Discord’s own AutoMod enough? No, but it is free, maintained and runs before delivery, so it belongs in every server as the foundation.
What happens when an AI scanner’s credits run out? On a well-built product the deterministic rules continue. On others, scanning stops — which is the specification to confirm.
Sources and verification
Checked