A referral bot gives every member their own invite link, records who joined through it, and hands out reward roles once someone has brought in enough people. The hard part is not counting joins, it is refusing to count the fake ones. Noxyr's referral module does both, is free, and takes one command to switch on. This guide explains how attribution works, the four anti-farming rules, and the settings you should pick before you announce a referral contest.

A member shares a personal invite link, a friend joins, a stay timer fills, the referral is counted and a reward role is handed out. @ana 🔗 discord.gg/ana-invite friend joins must stay 24h counted +1 referral 5 referrals → @Recruiter role, automatically

How Discord invite attribution actually works

Discord never tells a bot which invite a new member used. What it does expose is the use count on every invite in the server. A referral bot keeps those counts in memory and, the moment someone joins, looks for the invite whose count went up by one. That is why the bot needs the Manage Server permission (to read invites) and the Invites gateway intent; without either, joins simply are not attributed and nothing else breaks.

Noxyr adds one more piece: /referrals link creates a personal invite for the member who runs it, made by the bot, so the join is attributed to that member even if they never touched Discord's invite dialog. Members share that link and every join through it counts for them.

What stops referral farming

Any reward attached to referrals will be gamed within an hour unless the rules are built in. Noxyr applies four:

  • One referral per member, ever. A member who leaves and rejoins through a different link does not count twice. The record is unique per member per server for good.
  • No self-invites, no bots. Inviting your own alt or a bot account never counts.
  • Minimum account age. Set min_account_age (0 to 365 days) and accounts younger than that are rejected as likely alts.
  • A stay timer. Turn on hold and a referral waits hold_hours (1 to 720) before it counts, and it only counts if the new member is still in the server at the end. Invite-and-leave earns nothing.

Two ways to record referrals: log or ticket

Every referral is announced. In log mode an embed goes to a channel you choose: who invited whom, and whether it counted or is waiting on the stay timer. In ticket mode each referral opens a private channel for staff with Approve and Reject buttons, so a human confirms it before it counts. Ticket mode is the right choice when referrals pay out something valuable; log mode is enough for a cosmetic role.

Reward roles

/referrals reward-add count:5 role:@Recruiter gives a role automatically the moment a member reaches five counted referrals. Add as many thresholds as you like (up to 1,000 referrals each), stack them for tiers, and remove one with /referrals reward-remove. Because rewards are roles, everything Discord can do with a role (channel access, a colour, a hoisted name) becomes a referral perk without more configuration.

Setting it up

  • 1. Make sure Noxyr has Manage Server (Administrator covers it).
  • 2. Run /referrals setup enabled:true mode:log log_channel:#referrals, or open Community → Referrals on the dashboard and fill in the same fields.
  • 3. Decide the rules: hold:true hold_hours:24 and min_account_age:7 is a sensible default for a public server.
  • 4. Add reward tiers with /referrals reward-add.
  • 5. Tell members to run /referrals link and share it. /referrals me shows their total and how many are still waiting; /referrals top is the leaderboard.

Staff can check any member with /referrals user, and /referrals settings prints the current configuration and the total counted so far.

Ideas for a referral campaign

  • A monthly "top recruiter" role plus a shout-out in announcements, using /referrals top.
  • A store voucher for the first five referrals, handed out by staff from ticket mode. See voucher codes.
  • Early access to a product drop for anyone with the reward role, since roles control channel access.

Common questions

Does it work with vanity URLs? Joins through a vanity URL are not tied to a member, so they are not attributed to anyone.

What if an invite hits its use limit on that join? An invite that disappears because its last use was just consumed is still matched, so limited-use links count too.

Can I see pending referrals? Yes, /referrals me and /referrals user show counted and waiting numbers separately.

Is it free? Yes, like every Noxyr module.

Turn it on from the dashboard and pair it with staff applications to turn your best recruiters into moderators.