How much does a Minecraft server cost?
What a Minecraft server for a group of friends costs comes down to how much you play, how many of you there are, and whether you want mods. This guide is for Minecraft: Java Edition.
What you’re paying for
Most of the time, a server for friends sits empty: everyone has school, work or sleep. Paying for a machine by the month pays for those empty hours too. On Cubepals you pay for hours of play instead. A server only uses hours while it’s running, and it goes to sleep when nobody’s on.
Do you have to pay monthly?
No. There’s a free trial of 20 hours in all, at most 2 a day, with no card, and nothing is charged when it ends. Plus is $25 a month, and you can cancel any time. Here’s what each one includes:
| Free trial, $0 | Plus, $25 a month |
|---|---|
| 1 server, up to 5 players | Up to 3 servers and 100 players |
| 20 hours of play, at most 2 a day | 120 hours of play each month |
| Vanilla or Paper | Modpacks, mods, plugins and datapacks |
| Go back to any of your last 3 sessions, and download your world | Go back to any of your last 14 sessions, and a weekly download |
An hour is an hour your server is running, shared by everyone on it. It sleeps 10 minutes after everyone leaves (15 on Plus), and a start that fails never uses your hours.
If you run out, your server sleeps until the hours start again: the free trial’s at midnight where you are, until its 20 are played; Plus’s on the 1st. On a paid plan you can allow extra hours instead, at $0.25 each, up to a limit you set; nothing is charged past your plan unless you allow it. Prices are in US dollars and include VAT where it applies; Pricing has the details.
How far the hours go
How much a group plays in a month, roughly:
- A couple of evenings a week: about 20 hours
- Most evenings, for a couple of hours: about 45 hours
- Hours every day: 90 hours or more
The trial’s 20 hours, at most 2 a day, are enough for a group to find out whether it plays. Plus’s 120 hours a month cover a group that plays hours every day. Hours only count while someone is on, or in the minutes before it sleeps. How the sleeping works.
Running one yourself
Mojang’s server software is free to download, and runs on your own computer with Java. That costs nothing but the computer and its power, but the computer has to stay on whenever anyone wants to play, and friends outside your home usually can’t reach it until you’ve opened a port on your router. Why that step goes wrong.
Questions
Is it free?
To try, yes: the free trial is 20 hours in all, at most 2 a day, for up to 5 players, plain Minecraft or Paper.
Do I need a card?
Not for the free trial.
What if a big modpack needs more?
Big modpacks and groups of 20 or more run on a large server, which counts two hours for each hour it runs, and groups of more than 50 on the largest, which counts four. You never pick its size: how much memory a server needs explains why.
What happens to a world nobody plays?
It sleeps as soon as everyone leaves. After two weeks without play it rests in storage; joining still wakes it, it just takes a couple of minutes.
Start a world with your friends
Minecraft server hosting for friends. Send them the address and they’re in. Start with a free trial, no card needed.
Create a server