What is Disqus? Pricing, ads and privacy explained

What Disqus is and how the embed works

Disqus is a hosted comment system: you add its embed code to your pages, and the comments live on Disqus's servers instead of in your database. Readers get one profile across sites, which Disqus pitches as a "Single profile for commenting on over 4 million sites."

Daniel Ha and Jason Yan founded Disqus in 2007 in Y Combinator's Summer 2007 batch. Zeta Global announced it had bought Disqus on December 5, 2017, for an undisclosed price, and the announcement put Disqus on 4 million websites with 2 billion monthly unique users.

To set it up, you register a site and get a shortname. The universal embed code adds a disqus_thread div, loads https://EXAMPLE.disqus.com/embed.js, and uses this.page.url and this.page.identifier to tie each page to its thread.

On WordPress, the official plugin (version 3.1.6) has 30,000+ active installs and a 2.7 out of 5 rating from 219 reviews. Hugo ships a built-in Disqus partial.

Tip: The WordPress plugin can sync Disqus comments back into your database, but syncing is off by default. Turn it on if you want a local copy of every thread.

Is Disqus free? Plans and prices in 2026

Yes, if you accept ads. The Basic plan is "ads-supported with a Top ads placement required" and is only open to sites that meet the Disqus ad network's quality standards. It includes spam filtering, comment moderation tools, basic analytics, over 65 languages and Facebook, Twitter and Google login.

Disqus Plus is the cheapest ad-free plan. Plus and Pro come with a 30-day free trial, but you need a valid payment method to start it. Prices as of October 2026:

How ads work on the free plan

"Advertising is a default part of the free version of Disqus," says the Disqus help center. On Basic, the ad unit above the comments is locked on. You can also add ads below the comments and in-thread ads, which only appear on pages with 4 or more top-level comments.

To keep the free plan, ads must be "properly enabled and viewable on page load." Sites with adult content, copyright infringement, malware or intrusive ads, drugs and firearms, gambling or hate speech can be disqualified.

Publishers can earn a share of ad revenue, but Disqus doesn't publish the percentage. Payouts start once a site passes $100 after fees and arrive about 90 days after the revenue is earned.

Is Disqus safe? Privacy, tracking and data sharing

Disqus is open about its business model. Its privacy policy says "Disqus is also a marketing and data company" that uses personal data from sites running its embed "for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising," and that "Advertising is the predominant way Disqus makes money."

It also says: "In the past 12 months, we have sold and/or shared all of the categories of personal data listed above with Zeta Global and our Business Partners." Those categories include cookie IDs, device IDs, hashed email addresses, IP addresses and browsing activity.

You can opt out. Readers can switch off data sharing on the Data Sharing Settings page, linked from the Privacy link in every embed, site owners can disable tracking for their site, and Disqus honors Global Privacy Control. In 2025, it received 1,303 opt-out requests and complied with all 1,303.

Two incidents are worth knowing:

• Norway, 2021 to 2024: Datatilsynet, Norway's data protection authority, announced a planned NOK 25,000,000 fine (about EUR 2.5 million) on May 5, 2021. Its 2024 final decision was a reprimand with no fine: Disqus "had not obtained valid consent" to share personal data with Zeta Global between July 20, 2018 and December 12, 2019.
• 2017 disclosure: On October 6, 2017, Disqus disclosed that a 2012 database snapshot exposed emails, usernames, sign-up and last login dates for 17.5 million users, plus salted SHA1 password hashes for about one-third of them.

Alternatives to Disqus

If required ads or ad-driven data sharing don't fit your site, CommentCamp is the free, ad-free option we're building for independent publishers, bloggers and WordPress sites. It's $0 for site owners forever, funded by optional member Pro instead of ads, and it never sells reader data. It will launch with an official WordPress plugin and a universal embed script, with WordPress comment import and full data exports on the roadmap. It's in private early access: join the CommentCamp waitlist to get an invite.

For more options, compare these Disqus alternatives and free comment systems.

Why Disqus is not loading

"We were unable to load Disqus" means a server-side check on the page URL failed. Site owners should check that:

• The shortname is present and correct.
• The domain is on the site's trusted domains list, and new DNS settings have had time to propagate (allow 48 hours).
• Disqus can reach the page within 10 seconds, and the page doesn't return an error such as 404 or 503.
• The URL is absolute with no spaces, and this.page.title is 200 characters or shorter.

If the comment box is blank for you as a reader, clear your cache and cookies, then try disabling extensions. Disqus lists Avast Online Security, Avast Web Reputation and Ghostery among the extensions that block it.

Note: Firefox exempts Disqus from its default Enhanced Tracking Protection, but with tracking protection set to Strict, Disqus comments can fail to load.