If player trackers, online player lists or a /players command stopped working in your Rust Discord bot this summer, the bot is probably fine. BattleMetrics ended free access to its API in July 2026. Every request now needs a token from an account with an active subscription, and requests without one are refused. We checked on 20 October 2026: an anonymous request to the API returns HTTP 403 with the message "Access denied. A subscription is required to use the API."

What BattleMetrics is used for

BattleMetrics tracks game servers and the players on them. For Rust, that means server lists, population history, and who is online right now under which name. Rust+ itself does not provide any of this: it only knows about your own team. So any bot feature that involves players outside your team usually comes from BattleMetrics:

• trackers that alert you when a specific enemy logs on or off,
• the full online player list for a server,
• name history and play time for a player,
• server population and rank.

Bots that only use Rust+ (team chat, smart switches, alarms, storage monitors, the map, events) are not affected.

Which plan you need

API access is included in every paid plan, including the cheapest. On BattleMetrics' subscription page on 20 October 2026, that was Basic at US$1 a month, billed yearly; Premium was US$5 a month and the RCON plans started at US$10 a month. The RCON plans are for server owners; a team bot does not need them. The rustplusplus maintainer also recommends Basic.

Prices are BattleMetrics' and may change; check the page before you pay.

Create the token

1. Sign in to BattleMetrics, subscribe to a plan, and open Developers in your account.
2. Create a new personal access token. A tracker bot only reads public server and player data, so leave RCON and organization permissions unticked.
3. Copy the token. It is a long string starting with eyJ.

Treat the token like a password. Anyone who has it can make requests as your account and use up your rate limit. Do not paste it into Discord, a screenshot or a public repository. If it leaks, revoke it on the same page and create a new one.

Add it to rustplusplus

rustplusplus reads the token from its config. Set it in one of two places:

• the environment variable RPP_BATTLEMETRICS_TOKEN (best for Docker and hosted setups), or
• battlemetrics.token in config/index.js, which by default reads that variable and falls back to an empty string.

Restart the bot. With a token set, it checks BattleMetrics for each connected server about once a minute, and the trackers channel, the /players command and the BattleMetrics player buttons in the server information come back. With the token left empty, the bot skips BattleMetrics completely: those features stay switched off, and everything else works as before. The official page for this is Battlemetrics & Trackers.

One token serves the whole bot. Whoever hosts the bot pays for one subscription, not each teammate.

If it still doesn't work

• Still getting 403? The subscription is not active on the account that created the token, or the token was copied with a space or line break. Create a new token after the subscription shows as active.
• 401, "The authentication token provided is invalid or expired"? The token was revoked, expired or mistyped. Create a new one.
• Trackers empty but no errors? The server must be found on BattleMetrics. Search for it on the site; if it isn't listed there, there is nothing to track.
• Changed the config but nothing changed? The token is read at startup. Restart the bot, and if you use Docker, recreate the container so the new environment variable is passed in.

Other bots and tools

This change hits every tool that used the free API, not just rustplusplus: server status bots, population trackers, community sites and scripts. If a tool you use shows empty player data since July 2026, ask its developer whether it now needs a BattleMetrics token. Hosted bot services may handle it for you. RustPlusBot, for example, lists BattleMetrics-based features as part of its paid plan; see our bot comparison.