Disqus pricing in 2026: Basic, Plus, Pro, and what the free plan costs you in ads

Disqus pricing is not complicated, but it is easy to misread, because the plan you actually get depends on two things the pricing page puts in small print: whether your site can show ads, and how many page views it gets. Here is the whole table, from Disqus's own plans and pricing article, followed by what each tier really costs and what the same traffic costs elsewhere.

The plans

Basic includes the comment widget, "advanced spam filtering, moderation tools, basic analytics, configurable ads, and more". Pro adds advanced moderation, shadow banning, deeper analytics and branding customisation. Business is for "enterprise companies and large publishers" and adds single sign-on and unlimited API access.

What "free" means on Basic

The condition is in the plan description: Basic is free because it shows ads, and it requires a top ad placement, above the comments, on your pages. You do not control those ads beyond some configuration, you do not share meaningfully in the revenue at small scale, and the ad network brings the cross-site tracking that a lot of readers now block or resent. Disqus also notes that sites which cannot run ads, "due to adult content or other restrictions", may not be eligible for Basic at all. For those sites the entry price is $12 a month, not zero.

So the honest way to read the ladder is: the free plan costs you a banner and a tracker on every page; the first ad-free plan is $12 a month for up to 100,000 monthly page views. The privacy consequences of Disqus's free tier are their own topic; this post stays on price.

The page-view meter

Every paid Disqus plan is metered on monthly page views, with three sizes per plan. That is the industry norm: Hyvor Talk, GraphComment, ReplyBox and FastComments all meter traffic in some form. It is also the number that decides your bill, so know yours before you compare. A blog doing 30,000 page views a month sits comfortably in the smallest tier of anything; a site doing 400,000 has just moved from $20 to $35 on Disqus Plus.

The same traffic on ad-free alternatives

EchoThread's page-view allowance applies to sites created from 1 October 2026; a site created before that date keeps unmetered page views on any plan. FastComments figures are from their traffic pricing page and exclude comments-stored and SSO-user meters; the FastComments alternative post works through a full example bill. Hyvor Talk meters on credits and is compared in the Hyvor Talk comparison.

EchoThread's Hobby plan is free for your first site: unlimited comments, no ads, no reader tracking, and 10,000 page views a month on sites created from 1 October 2026 (a site created before that date keeps unmetered page views). Paid plans start at $9 a month for three sites and 100,000 page views; see pricing for the full ladder.

What you give up by leaving

Disqus has the largest commenter network of any comment system and the widest set of social logins, and its readers carry one identity across every Disqus site. If that network is where your comments come from, no cheaper option replaces it. Most blogs find that their commenters are their own readers, not passers-by from the network, and that the switch changes nothing except the ads. The EchoThread versus Disqus comparison sets out where Disqus is still the better choice.

If you decide to move

Disqus exports your comments as XML from Admin, then Community, then Export, and emails you the file. EchoThread imports that file directly, threads and replies intact, matching old discussions to your page URLs. The Disqus export and migration guide covers the export, and how to migrate from Disqus to EchoThread covers the rest. You can export everything back out as JSON or CSV at any time, so the move is reversible.

Prices in this post were read from Disqus's help centre on 3 September 2026; check the Disqus pricing page before you buy, since tiers change.