Best Discord bots for scheduled announcements

These are the three most-used Discord bots whose own sites and docs present scheduled posts as a main feature, ranked by the server counts they publish. MEE6 schedules posts with Timers, one of its plugins. Carl-bot, an all-in-one bot, does it with autofeeds. Embed Generator is a message editor whose bot posts saved messages on a schedule. Everything this page says about them comes from their own websites and docs.

MEE6

MEE6 is one of the most widely used Discord bots, and its Utilities plugins page gives Timers a section of its own. A timer sends text or an embed at a set time on the days you choose, for example to remind members of the rules or an upcoming event, and a recurring timer repeats after a set interval on the days you pick, from a start time to an end time or with no end time. Messages can use server variables such as the member count. To prevent spam, its docs say members must post between two reminders, or a reminder may not be delivered. Timers are on its Free plan, with a higher limit on Premium.

Best if you already run MEE6 and want timed posts in the same dashboard as its other plugins.

Carl-bot

Carl-bot is an all-in-one bot whose docs give Feeds a section of their own. A feed ties a role to a channel, and an announcement to it makes the role mentionable only for the moment of the ping. Autofeeds work like group reminders: each posts at a time you give and can repeat at an interval until you delete it, pinging a role, @everyone, @here or nobody, with variables for the server name, the channel name and Unix time. You set them up on its dashboard, which takes your local time zone, or with /feeds autofeeds slash commands. Carl-bot has a free tier. Its Premium makes autofeeds fire at once instead of waiting for a scheduled tick and gives finer control over role pings in short autofeed messages.

Best if you want announcements that ping a role without leaving it mentionable, set up from slash commands or a dashboard.

Embed Generator

Embed Generator is a visual editor for Discord messages, free and open source. You design embeds, buttons and select menus with a preview that updates as you type, then send the message through a webhook or its bot, which can also post saved messages on a schedule. Sending once at a set time is free. A list of dates, repeats at intervals from minutes to months and cron expressions come with Premium. Each schedule has its own time zone that follows daylight saving time, can end on a date or after a number of sends and can edit one message in place or open a new forum post each run. A Calendar tab shows every upcoming send, Send test posts a message right away, buttons and role menus keep working in scheduled posts and a failed send shows why and when.

Best if you want scheduled posts with buttons or role menus, or on a cron schedule, built in a visual editor.

Scheduled Announcements, built into YourBot

Scheduled Announcements is one of YourBot's ten core services, and every feature below is free on the shared bot. You write a post once and the bot publishes it at the minute you chose, or daily, weekly on any set of weekdays or monthly on a day of the month or the last day. Each post has its own time zone, which starts as your server's. A series can end on a date, after a number of posts or both. Posts take Discord markdown and up to 10 embeds pasted as JSON, and the edit page draws the post as Discord will.

Every upcoming post sits on a month calendar, where a click on a day starts a new one, and pending posts can be edited, paused, resumed, cancelled or sent early. @everyone and @here stay off unless you turn them on for a post, and that switch is enforced in what is sent to Discord. Before each post the bot checks the channel: a deleted or locked one is flagged, the owner is told once a day and the schedule is kept. A slot missed while the bot was offline goes out once at the next check. Staff can also post, list and cancel announcements with /announce. Posts carry no buttons, menus or uploaded files.

Best if you want daily, weekly and monthly posts free, run from a calendar, in the same bot as moderation, tickets and the other services.

The one-on-one pages go further: YourBot vs MEE6, YourBot vs Carl-bot and YourBot vs Embed Generator.