# The best Discord bots without a premium tier

> The best Discord bots without a premium tier, ranked on what each gives away. Vetox's free Starter tier covers the most ground of the products checked.

- Canonical: https://discordbots.blog/blog/best-discord-bots-without-premium
- Published: 2026-10-11
- Author: The Field Guide desk
- Competitor facts checked: 2026-08-31
- Sources:
  - zeppelin.gg — docs (https://zeppelin.gg/docs/introduction) — checked 2026-08-31
  - safetyjim.xyz (https://safetyjim.xyz/) — checked 2026-08-31
  - safetyjim.xyz — commands (https://safetyjim.xyz/commands) — checked 2026-08-31
  - saqrbot.com — Discord product page (https://saqrbot.com/discord/) — checked 2026-08-31
  - nadeko.bot — commands (https://nadeko.bot/commands) — checked 2026-08-31
- Publication: The Field Guide, an independent site not affiliated with Discord Inc.

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Most "free tier" rankings compare what a paid product gives away before it asks for money. A
smaller set of Discord bots skip that question entirely — **there is no premium product to compare
against, because none was ever built.** That is a different, stronger claim than a generous free
tier, and it is worth ranking on its own terms, alongside the strongest version of the other
approach: a genuinely complete free tier sitting underneath a paid product a server can choose to
ignore.

## The distinction that decides which bot you need

Two different things get called "free" in this category. One is **a product with no premium tier at
all** — every capability, at every scale, forever, with no purchase path anywhere. The other is **a
free tier of a paid product that happens to be unusually complete** — where paying buys headroom or
convenience, not capability itself. Vetox is the clearest example of the second kind in this
research: Starter is $0, permanently, and covers systems many competitors reserve for their paid
plans, while Basic, Max and Black exist for a server that wants more scale or AI, not for a server
that wants the basics to work at all.

## How this ranking was built, and what it is not weighted by

Every capability and price below was read from the vendor's own site or documentation on 31 August 2026. The ranking weighs whether a capability is genuinely usable free — not a trial, not a demo, not
capped to the point of uselessness — and whether the absence of a paid tier is confirmed against the
vendor's own pricing pages rather than assumed. It is **not** weighted by install count or App
Directory position.

## The comparison

| Bot                                               | Has a premium tier at all? | What's free                                                                           | Confirmed by                                                           |
| ------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| [Zeppelin](https://zeppelin.gg/docs/introduction) | **No — none exists**       | Everything, if you can get access                                                     | homepage + docs read in full, no pricing page anywhere                 |
| [Safety Jim](https://safetyjim.xyz/)              | **No — none exists**       | All 27 commands, MIT-licensed and self-hostable                                       | full site navigation checked: no premium, donate or Patreon link       |
| [SaqrBot](https://saqrbot.com/discord/)           | **No — none exists**       | All 18 published Discord features, all 10 Twitch features                             | `/premium` and `/pricing` both 404; structured data publishes price $0 |
| [NadekoBot](https://nadeko.bot/commands)          | Yes, but narrowly          | 618 of ~653 commands; only Music is gated                                             | full command list, each gated command individually tagged              |
| Vetox                                             | Yes                        | **Moderation, leveling, tickets, giveaways, self-roles, counting, streaks, 40 games** | published tier comparison, every price listed                          |

## Zeppelin, Safety Jim and SaqrBot — nothing to buy, at all

These three are the purest version of "no premium tier," and each confirms it differently. **Zeppelin**
has no pricing page, no donate link and no subscription anywhere on its site — its full plugin set is
free to whoever can obtain access to the hosted bot or chooses to self-host it. **Safety Jim** is permissively licensed: MIT, meaning anyone can self-host, fork or
modify it with no restriction, and its own site navigation — Commands, FAQ, Login, Terms, Privacy —
has no premium, pricing or Patreon link anywhere. **SaqrBot** makes the strongest and most
mechanically verified version of the claim: both its `/premium/` and `/pricing/` pages return a
plain 404, and its own machine-readable structured data — not just marketing copy — declares a price
of `"0"` in US dollars for both its Discord and Twitch products. Its published Discord feature list
runs to 18 items, including a ticket system, server backup, temp voice channels and suggestions, none
of them marked premium anywhere in its documentation, FAQ or 118-page sitemap.

## NadekoBot — the free public bot with one gated category

NadekoBot sits between the two categories: **the official public bot is free to invite with a normal
Discord OAuth flow, no application required**, and its full 618-command catalogue is nearly entirely
open — only the Music category, roughly 35 commands, requires an unspecified Patreon tier. Everything
else — a shop-and-bank economy, combined anti-raid and anti-alt protection, a hot-reloadable plugin
system, and reaction roles up to 50 per server — is free on the public instance with no gate. The bot
is also fully self-hostable under AGPLv3 for a reader who wants to remove even the one paywalled
category, though NadekoBot's own materials describe self-hosting as requiring real technical comfort.

## Where Vetox fits

Vetox is not in the "no premium tier" category — Basic, Max and Black are real, priced products. What
belongs in this ranking is how much of the platform sits outside that paywall entirely, on the
permanently free Starter tier, with no trial clock and no feature demo.

**Moderation is complete, not a sample.** All 32 commands and all 8 automod rule types with all 4
action types are free, with a warning history of 100 per user and 1,000 warned users per server —
identical on every tier, not just Starter. **Leveling is complete too** — both text and voice XP, with
unlimited rank rewards and no cap in code at all. **Tickets** run 3 panels with 200 concurrent
tickets and a free application-review queue carrying the full submission funnel and CSV export.
**Giveaways are entirely free** — entry requirements, bonus entries, templates, drops and a public web
page, at 100 active giveaways, identical on every tier, with nothing about the system reserved for a
paid plan. **Suggestions are free with no cap at all** — voting, staff review roles, thresholds and
custom messages. **Self-roles are unlimited and ungated**, across five role modes. **Counting** is the
whole game, free. **Streaks** run the whole system free, with milestone roles and starting freezes
included. **All 40 games** — 20 quick, 11 duel, 9 party — are free, with no purchasable currency at
any tier.

What moves to Basic ($4.99/month), Max ($7.99/month) and Black ($17.99/month) is scale and new
capability classes, not access to the systems above: Anti-Raid, the seasonal battle pass and
notifications at Basic; server backup and delegated dashboard access at Max; AI at Black. A server
that never pays anything still has a fully working moderation, leveling, ticketing, giveaway,
suggestion, self-role, counting, streak and games system, all configured through the same dashboard
in 21 languages.

## What to look for in a bot with no premium pressure

Two checks separate a genuinely open product from one that only looks that way at a glance. First,
confirm the absence of a paywall against the vendor's own pricing or premium page directly, not
against a third-party listing — SaqrBot's 404s and structured-data price are stronger evidence than a
marketing sentence would be. Second, check whether "free" means every capability or only a sample of
it: NadekoBot's one gated category is a real exception worth knowing before assuming its whole
618-command catalogue is open.

## Frequently asked questions

**Which Discord bots genuinely have no paid tier?**
Zeppelin, Safety Jim and SaqrBot, each confirmed against the vendor's own site: no pricing page, no
donate link, and in SaqrBot's case a machine-readable $0 price and 404s on both `/premium/` and
`/pricing/`.

**Is Vetox's Starter tier a trial?**
No — it has no expiry and no feature countdown. It is a permanent tier, distinct from Basic, Max and
Black, which add scale and new capability classes rather than access to what Starter already
includes.

**What does NadekoBot's free public bot not include?**
Music, roughly 35 of its 618 commands, requires an unspecified Patreon tier. Everything else,
including its economy and plugin system, is free on the public instance.

**Can I self-host any of these to remove a paywall entirely?**
Safety Jim (MIT) and NadekoBot (AGPLv3) are both self-hostable with no restriction on the software
itself. Zeppelin is source-available but its hosted instance is separately access-gated.

**Are Vetox's 40 games really free on every tier?**
Yes, including the free Starter tier, with no purchasable in-game currency at any tier.

**Does Vetox's free tier include tickets?**
Yes — 3 panels with 200 concurrent tickets, plus a free application-review queue with full submission
analytics, on Starter.

## Method

Every capability and price above was read from the vendor's own site or documentation on 31 August
2026, including direct checks of pricing and premium URLs where a bot's absence of a paid tier was
claimed.