--- title: "How to make a welcome message in Discord" description: "Discord's built-in welcome is a random line you cannot edit. Bond greets each new member by name, with a welcome card and a link to your rules." canonical_url: "https://www.bondbot.gg/use-cases/welcome-messages" last_updated: "2026-10-05" --- # How to make a welcome message in Discord Discord's own welcome message is a random line you cannot edit, switched on under Server Settings, Engagement. For a greeting with the member's name, a welcome card and a link to your rules, you need a bot, and with Bond that is one message. Verified 2026-09-28 on a test server, build 5330928. ## In Discord, without a bot Discord has a built-in join message. It is one switch and a channel, and nothing about its wording is yours. 1. Open the server menu (the server's name above the channel list) and choose **Server Settings**. 2. Open **Engagement**. Under **System Messages**, pick the channel join messages go to. 3. Turn on the welcome message for new members. A second switch adds a button that lets people reply with a sticker; leave it off if you do not want a wall of stickers. 4. Save. Changing these needs the **Manage Server** permission. Discord picks the line itself from a fixed list. You cannot change the wording, add a link to #rules, attach a picture, give the member a role, or post in more than one channel. There is no built-in message when someone leaves. If you move to your own greeting, turn the built-in one off in the same place, or every new member is welcomed twice. ## With Bond, in one message A real run, recorded on a test server: what was asked, what Bond asked you to approve, what it did, and what members saw afterwards. In #admin-chat: > **You:** @Bond Welcome new members in #welcome with their name, a welcome card, and a link to #rules. > **Install a plugin** > for @You > Always allow stops asking about installing plugins · Expires in 10 minutes > > Buttons: Allow, Always allow, Deny. Pressed: Allow. What Bond did: - List plugins - List flows - List channels - Install plugin > **Bond:** Welcome is set up in #welcome. New members will be greeted by name with a welcome card and a link to #rules. > > The plugin is installed and active. It will greet members when they join; it hasn’t run yet. In #welcome, afterwards: > Welcome to Test Server, @New Member! Please read the rules: #rules Light tier · 1 message · 23 seconds · 101K tokens Recorded on a Bond test server on the Light tier, the tier every free plan runs on. Server, channel and member IDs are placeholders, the test bot is shown as Bond, and the steps where Bond loads its own tools or pages through a long result are left out. The test server has no plan limits, so the plan limits a step reports are left out. The Always allow line on each approval card is reworded in plain words. Recorded on version 8 of the Welcome plugin, which is now on version 9. Version 9 changes what happens when many people join at once. A join that comes right after another is no longer skipped, and when Bond falls behind, a member still gets their starting role while a greeting that would arrive more than two minutes late is left out. The setup and the greeting shown above are unchanged. The test server already had #welcome and #rules. Bond asked once, to install the plugin, and the recording pressed Allow. Bond wrote the greeting with {member}, so it mentions the new member, and with {server} for the server's name. The test member was a bot account, and the greeting skips bots by default, so after the setup and before the join Bond was asked, in the same chat and in a message not shown here, to greet bots too. A person who joins is greeted without that step. For the join the test account went by New Member, the name the greeting shows. The greeting also carried a welcome card, an image with the member's avatar and name, the server's name and the member count. This page shows the greeting's text but not the card. ## Welcome message templates Paste one into your request, or into the Welcome plugin's greeting setting. Bond fills the placeholders for each member when they join. ``` Welcome to {server}, {member}! You are member #{count}. Hey {name}, glad you made it. Say hi when you are ready. {member} just joined. Welcome in! Say hi to {member}, the newest member of {server}! ``` `{member}` mentions the new member, `{name}` writes their display name without a ping, `{server}` is the server's name, `{count}` the member count, and `{role}` names the starting role once Bond has given it, and is left empty otherwise. ## The permissions it takes Bond checks every step against your own Discord permissions and role position before it acts, and what it reads back is only what you can already see. ### What you need - List plugins: Nothing extra - List flows: Manage Server - List channels: Nothing extra - Install plugin: Administrator Installing takes Administrator, the same bar as any automation, because an automation goes on acting as Bond long after you asked for it. Bond itself never needs Administrator. ### What Bond needs Bond's invite already grants what the greeting uses. It goes missing only where a channel's own permissions deny Bond's role, so check **Edit Channel**, **Permissions** on the greeting channel if nothing arrives. - **View Channel** and **Send Messages** in the greeting channel. - **Attach Files** there too, because the card is sent as an image. - For a starting role, **Manage Roles**, and Bond's highest role must sit above that role in **Server Settings**, **Roles**. Discord does not let any bot give a role at or above its own. ## What to watch for - Bots that join are skipped unless you ask Bond to greet them too. - In a rush of joins, or after Bond restarts, a greeting that would arrive more than two minutes late is skipped. A starting role is still given. - If the card cannot be drawn, the greeting still goes out as text. The same happens during a very large join wave, once the server reaches its hourly limit on cards. - The greeting runs when Discord reports a join, which it only does for bots with the Server Members intent. Bond has it switched on. - Roles and @everyone in the greeting are shown but never ping anyone. `{member}` pings the new member, and `{name}` writes their name without a ping. - The Welcome plugin does not use any of your automation slots. A server without a plan can have 5 plugins installed. ## Questions people ask ### Can I design my own welcome card? Yes. The greeting uses your server's welcome card design, which you change in the card editor on Bond's dashboard, where you can also describe the change in words. Without one, Bond draws its default card with the member's avatar and name, the server's name, and the member count or a short line you choose. ### Can new members get a role when they join? Yes. Name the role when you ask, and Bond gives it to each new member. The role has to sit below Bond's highest role. ### Can Bond post a message when someone leaves? Yes, as a separate automation. Ask for it, for example to post in #welcome when someone leaves, with their name. Creating an automation needs Administrator, and it takes one of the 3 automations a free server can keep on. ### Does the greeting ping the new member? Only when it uses {member}, which mentions them, as the greeting in the run above does. {name} writes their display name without a ping. Roles and @everyone are never pinged. ### Is it free? Yes. Every tool works on the free plan. Setting this up uses tokens from your weekly allowance, and the run above shows how many; a free account gets 600K tokens a week. The greeting itself runs on every join without using any. ## Read next - [How to auto assign roles in Discord](https://www.bondbot.gg/use-cases/auto-assign-roles-on-join): Give every new member a role when they join, after Rules Screening if you use it, with a greeting in the channel you choose. - [Post a message when someone leaves](https://www.bondbot.gg/use-cases/goodbye-messages): Say something when a member leaves, or just keep a quiet record of it in a staff channel. - [How to make a verification system in Discord](https://www.bondbot.gg/use-cases/verification-system): New members only see your verify and rules channels until they press Verify, which gives them the Verified role and the rest of the server. - [How to automate a Discord server](https://www.bondbot.gg/blog/how-to-automate-a-discord-server): The automation patterns worth building, event-driven versus scheduled, where Discord AutoMod belongs, and the limits nobody tells you about before you start.