A Free Shot-Caller Bot vs Paid Shot-Caller Services¶
Most Discord shot-caller bots are paid, hosted services — a "speak once, reach every squad" workflow gated behind a monthly subscription, with tiers that cap how many servers and parties you can use. go-discord-caller gives you the same workflow for free: it's open source and self-hosted, so you run it with your own Discord bot tokens with no plan tiers, no party limits, and end-to-end encrypted audio.
Try the hosted bot (demo) Self-host it (GitHub)
Comparison¶
| go-discord-caller | Typical paid shot-caller service | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | ✅ Free & open source (Apache-2.0) | 💸 Monthly subscription (tiered) |
| Servers | ✅ Unlimited (inter-guild relay) | ⚠️ Usually capped by plan |
| Speaker channels / parties | ✅ Unlimited (one speaker bot per channel) | ⚠️ Usually capped by plan |
| Hosting | ✅ Self-hosted — you own the data | ☁️ Managed SaaS |
| Caller modes | ✅ One-caller, hub-and-spoke, full conference (mix-minus) | ➖ Typically one-way broadcast |
| Encryption | ✅ DAVE end-to-end encrypted voice | ❓ Varies / often unstated |
| Localization | ✅ 7 languages | ❌ Often English only |
| Source code | ✅ Open on GitHub | 🔒 Closed |
Capabilities of paid services vary by provider and plan; check each vendor for current details.
Why teams switch from paid services¶
- No subscription — host it once and run as many relays as you want.
- No server or party caps — relay across any number of Discord servers with as many speaker channels as you bind.
- Full conference mode — not just one-way broadcast: everyone can hear everyone with mix-minus echo prevention (
/start mode:many). - Privacy — self-hosted with DAVE end-to-end encryption; your audio never sits on a third-party service.
Is self-hosting hard?¶
No. It's a single Docker container:
docker run -d \
-e DISCORD_OWNER_BOT_TOKEN=your-owner-token \
-e DISCORD_SPEAKER_BOT_TOKEN_1=your-speaker-1-token \
-e STORE_PATH=/data/store.yaml \
-v $(pwd)/data:/data \
sealbro/go-discord-caller
Create one owner bot and one or more speaker bots in the Discord Developer Portal, drop the tokens in, and run /setup in your server. Prefer not to host at all? Use the hosted bot for evaluation.
See the full setup guide on GitHub and how it works.