How to run a Discord XP leaderboard without MEE6

"XP leaderboard without MEE6" usually means one of two things, and they need different tools.

1. You want members to earn XP automatically for chatting, with level-up roles, and you don't want to pay for MEE6 Premium (list price $11.99 a month per server as of October 2026).
2. You want a leaderboard of points that staff hand out on purpose: event wins, raid attendance, helping in support channels, tournament results.

For the first, use a different leveling bot. For the second, a leveling bot is the wrong shape and a points table works better. Here's both.

Route 1: automatic chat XP with a free leveling bot

These bots watch messages and award XP on their own:

• Lurkr says all of its features are free, including up to 50 reward roles and a web leaderboard of 100 members. Optional tiers are $1 and $5 a month.
• Arcane's free plan includes message and reaction XP and up to 15 role rewards. Voice XP and custom XP rates are in Premium ($7 a month).
• Tatsu has free server scores and up to 10 leveled roles.
• AmariBot does message XP with weekly leaderboards and role rewards.

Pick one, invite it, set the XP channels and role rewards, and you're done. CordBase can't do this job: it doesn't read messages, so it has no idea who's chatting.

Route 2: a points leaderboard staff control

Leveling bots track one number that goes up with activity. They get clumsy when points come from things the bot can't see, when you want several stats, or when you want a separate board per season or game. A table handles that well. This walkthrough uses CordBase, which we make.

Step 1: Create the table

Sign in at cordbase.gg with Discord, add the bot to your server, and create a table called "XP" with these columns, in this order:

1. name: text, required. Put it first. CordBase labels leaderboard entries with the first text or member column, and it finds rows by searching the first text column when someone types in the row option.
2. member: member, required.
3. xp: number, required.
4. wins: number (optional, if you want a second board).

Save, and the bot registers /xp in your server within a few seconds. If you'd rather start from a template, Server Leaderboard has player, score, wins, losses, rank and last game. Add a name text column to it: as the table's only text column, it's what the row option searches.

Step 2: Decide who can award points

In the table's permissions, give your staff role write access and the role all members have (for example @Member) read. Members can then view the board but can't edit it. Once a table has any role set, members without one of those roles can't use it at all. People with Discord's Administrator permission always have full access.

Step 3: Add members and award XP

Add each member once:

/xp add name:Kai member:@Kai xp:0

Award points by incrementing, not by typing the new total:

/xp update row:Kai xp:25 _mode:Increment

Increment adds 25 to whatever Kai has. Decrement takes points away, and Set overwrites the value. Increments are applied as a single database operation, so two increments at the same moment both count.

Step 4: Show the leaderboard

/xp leaderboard column:xp posts the top 10, highest first, with medals for the top three. Add limit:25 for a longer list, or column:wins to rank a different stat.

On a paid plan you can schedule a weekly post of the top five (ranked by the table's first number column) to a channel, which saves someone remembering to run it every Sunday.

Step 5: Seasons

To reset for a new season, create a new table ("XP Season 2") and keep the old one as the record. Its command will be /xp-season-2. On Free that uses your second table slot; Pro has unlimited tables.

Which route should you pick?

If XP should reflect how active people are in chat, use a leveling bot from route 1. If XP is a reward staff give out, or you track more than one stat, use route 2. Plenty of servers run both: a leveling bot for chat activity, a table for event points.