Build a community people rely on — not another channel they ignore
Give customers, members, or contributors one welcoming place to get answers, share what they know, and stay connected. Discourse Pro helps even a small team launch a professional, branded community without creating another full-time job.
$100/month. No credit card required up front.
What Pro gives you
Look like a team of ten (even if it's just you!)
You shouldn't need a dedicated community department to give members a great experience. Pro brings the essentials together in one place, so a small team can keep conversations useful, people informed, and the community organized.
Help people help themselves
Keep useful answers organized and searchable instead of losing them in a busy chat feed.
Stop repeating important updates
Publish announcements, guides, and resources once, where members can find them again.
Give every group the right space
Create public or private areas for customers, partners, beta testers, contributors, or members.
Make room for quick conversation
Give members Chat for fast discussion while preserving the history.
Organization
Make it obvious where every conversation belongs
When a community is easy to navigate, members are more likely to participate — and less likely to ask your team where to post or how to find something.
- Categories
- Give each subject or group a clear home.
- Topics
- Keep questions and conversations focused.
- Tags
- Connect related discussions across the community.
- Chat
- Enables faster conversation without discarding history.
You don't need to design the perfect structure on day one. Begin with a few clear categories, then add tags, private spaces, and custom groups as you learn what your members need.
Get started
Go live today — not after weeks of setup
Start a free online trial and handle the essentials yourself, with no developer or technical project required.
Choose a theme
Pick a community theme or build one that looks like the brand your members know and love.
Connect your domain
Put the community on your own web address so it fits in your space, not someone else's.
Create your first categories
A few clear places to post is all it takes to make the community easy to navigate on day one.
Invite the people who will help run it
Bring in the staff and early members who will set the tone for everyone who arrives after them.
Moderation
Sleep safe. Your community's in good hands.
Discourse AI automatically detects and flags spam, while built-in safeguards can hide content that receives enough trusted flags until staff has a chance to review it. Members can flag spam, abuse, and other issues, giving your team more eyes without sacrificing control.
As people participate constructively, the trust system gradually gives reliable regulars more ways to help. Your best members can share some of the day-to-day work, while your staff keeps control of the rules and final decisions.
Compounding knowledge
Don't answer the same question twice
A useful answer should keep working long after the original conversation ends. Discourse turns questions and answers into durable, organized pages that members can search and revisit. Public topics can also be discovered through search engines and surfaced by AI-powered search and answer tools.
Members can find an existing solution before asking again. New visitors can discover the community through questions they're already searching for. Your team handles fewer repeat requests, and every helpful conversation makes the community more valuable.
Ownership
Build an asset that belongs to your organization
On Slack or Discord, valuable answers can disappear into the flow of chat. On Reddit, your community lives inside someone else's platform and algorithm.
Somewhere else
- Answers scroll away in a chat feed
- Your community sits on someone else's domain
- Reach depends on a platform's algorithm
- Their search visibility, not yours
On Discourse
- Conversations stay organized and searchable
- Your own domain, your own brand
- Visibility and access rules you choose
- Discussions and knowledge are always yours to control
Public conversations can create search visibility for your organization — not just the platform hosting them — so the value of your community compounds over time.
Branding
Make every interaction feel like part of your brand
Members should feel like your community is part of the organization they already know, not a disconnected third-party space. Put Discourse on your own domain and use a community or custom theme to match your website or product, including colors, typography, navigation, and page design.
Public and private categories can support different products, programs, or audiences. Custom groups help your staff organize access by role, product, cohort, or membership type.
Room to grow
Grow without rebuilding your community somewhere else
Start simply now without boxing yourself in later. Your structure can evolve, your systems can connect, and your community history stays with you.
API and webhook access
When your needs become more sophisticated, connect Discourse to your app, website, and internal tools.
15+ plugins included
Add capabilities for common community needs without piecing together a new platform.
Structure that evolves
Add categories, tags, private spaces, and custom groups as you learn what your members need.
Choose Pro when your community needs to feel established from day one
Free is a good place to begin when a .discourse.group address, two staff seats, and core Discourse features cover what you need. Pro is for teams that want a community to look and operate like a lasting part of their organization — with their own domain and branding, more room for staff, private spaces, integrations, plugins, and direct email support.
Pro
Includes:
- Unlimited members & chat
- Unlimited public & private categories
- Unlimited tags
- Custom groups
- Email support
- Custom & community themes
- Custom domain
- API and Webhook access
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Includes plugins like...
- DiscourseConnect
- Chat integration
- Solved
- Github
- And more!
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Staff seats are for your
admins and moderators 5 staff seats
Frequently asked questions
Can't find the answer you're looking for? Get in touch with us.
Do I need to be a community manager or developer to use Pro?
No. Pro works for people who run a community alongside another role. Start with a theme and a few clear categories, then add private spaces, tags, groups, plugins, or integrations as the community grows. Email support is included when you need help with setup.
What is Discourse, and what can members do with it?
Discourse combines organized, topic-based discussion with real-time chat. Members can ask questions, share answers, follow updates, search past conversations, and take part in public or private spaces. Staff can organize the community with categories, tags, groups, and moderation tools.
Should we start on Free or Pro?
Start on Free when a .discourse.group address, two staff seats, and core Discourse features meet your needs. Choose Pro when you need your own domain and branding, unlimited categories and tags, custom groups, APIs and webhooks, plugins, additional staff seats, or email support from the Discourse team.
What does “five staff seats” mean?
A staff seat is for one person with administrator or moderator permissions. The five-seat limit applies only to staff roles. Pro includes unlimited member accounts, so it doesn't limit how many people can join.
Can public Discourse content appear in search engines and AI-powered search?
Yes. Discourse is designed so search engines can crawl and index public topics. Clear titles, focused questions, useful answers, and organized discussion can also make public community knowledge easier for AI-powered search and answer tools to find and surface. Visibility depends on your content, crawler settings, and each external search service. Private categories and messages remain restricted to people with access.
Can we create private support or member areas?
Yes. Pro includes unlimited public and private categories, plus custom groups that help staff control access for customers, partners, cohorts, beta testers, or other member groups.
Can the community match our product or website?
Yes. Use your own domain and choose a community or custom theme. You can adapt colors, typography, navigation, and page design to fit your product or website.
Can our engineers connect Discourse to our systems?
Yes. Pro includes API and webhook access for connections with your app, website, and internal tools.
See Discourse in action across the internet's best communities
