Apricus is a free Discord leveling bot: /rank, /leaderboard, /xpstats and /levelup announcements are all included, with nothing locked behind a premium tier. It sets itself up in about 30 seconds with /quicksetup.
Updated 2026-11-02. Every command named on this page is live in the bot's command tree today.
If you searched for a “MEE6 alternative free” or asked on Reddit which leveling bot is not paywalled, the short answer is: pick a bot where the leveling commands are not the paid product. Apricus is one project, one binary, one .env file, run by people who got tired of enabling a level system and then being told level roles cost money. It is not a clone and it does not claim feature parity with MEE6 — MEE6 has years of polish and a much bigger feature surface. What Apricus does is keep leveling, moderation, welcome messages, starboard, suggestions and polls free, and let you host it yourself if you want to.
/rank shows a member's level and XP, /leaderboard ranks the server, /globalboard ranks across servers, and /xpstats breaks down where XP comes from. /levelup posts the level-up message. No tier gate on any of them.
/quicksetup configures leveling, welcome and goodbye messages in one pass. /setup and /setup_status cover the details, and /tour walks you through what the bot can actually do in your server.
/welcome set and /goodbye set handle join/leave messages, /autorole set hands out roles on join, and /onboard covers the first-minute experience for new members.
/starboard set surfaces good messages, /suggest plus /suggestions run a suggestion board, and /newpoll runs a poll with a live results channel.
/ban, /kick, /mute, /purge, /warn and /warnings are ordinary parts of the bot, not an upsell. /serverinfo and /botinfo give you the state at a glance.
/remind and /reminders for scheduled pings, /daily for a daily claim, /feedback to report issues straight to the developer, and /help or /usage when you forget a name.
/rank, /leaderboard, /globalboard, /xpstats, /levelup, /addxp/welcome set, /goodbye set, /autorole set, /onboard/starboard set, /suggest, /suggestions, /newpoll, /poll/warn, /warnings, /purge, /remind, /reminders, /dailyYes, but read the fine print on any candidate before you migrate. A leveling bot is “free” in a useful sense only if the commands your members touch every day — rank cards, the leaderboard, level-up announcements, XP roles — are enabled without a payment step. Apricus keeps all of those free. The trade-off is that Apricus is a smaller project: fewer integrations, no hosted dashboard, and a command list you should read rather than assume. Run /help after inviting and it will show exactly what exists in your server.
Apricus, for its leveling stack specifically: /rank, /leaderboard, /xpstats, /globalboard and /levelup all work on day one with /quicksetup. XP can be granted manually with /addxp for events and giveaways. If your requirement is “level roles must be automatic and free,” test it yourself in a scratch server — that is the only honest way to compare bots, and Apricus will pass that test for its own leveling commands.
Ignore the vote counts and compare four things: (1) which leveling commands are behind a paywall on the incumbent, (2) whether the alternative stores your data and where, (3) how long setup takes when you are not reading a wiki, and (4) what happens to your server if you stop paying. Apricus answers (2) with “a hosted service with a small, documented data footprint”, (3) with /quicksetup in roughly 30 seconds, and (4) with “nothing, there is nothing to stop paying for”. For (1), check the current pricing page of whatever you are leaving — it changes.
You will not lose your server, but XP history does not transfer: levels start from zero because Apricus keeps its own XP database and cannot read another bot's storage. The safe path is to invite Apricus, run /quicksetup, run /tour to see the feature list, keep the old bot's leveling muted while members adjust, and use /addxp to credit long-time members so nobody starts from nothing. Use /setup_status to confirm what is enabled before you announce the switch.
Invite Apricus, run /quicksetup, and check the leveling commands in your own server before you decide.