Terms of Service

1. Who we are

Cubepals is a Minecraft: Java Edition server host. You create a server, pick what to play, share its address, and your friends join. Cubepals is run by The Cubepals Authors, based in Saudi Arabia (“we”, “us”), not by a company. We have no office or company in the UK or the EU. We take notices by email, at legal@cubepals.com.

You can reach us at support@cubepals.com. Write to legal@cubepals.com for legal notices and to privacy@cubepals.com about your personal data.

These Terms are an agreement between you and us. They apply when you create an account or use Cubepals. Our Privacy Policy, Refunds and cancellation, Acceptable Use Policy, Content and copyright and Cookies pages are part of them.

2. The service

With Cubepals you can run Minecraft: Java Edition servers. Each server gets an address like yourserver.play.cubepals.com that your friends type into Minecraft. A server starts when someone joins and sleeps when nobody is playing.

We pick most things for you: where a server runs, how big it is, and how it is set up. You can change many of these later. We may change how the service works behind the scenes, as long as what you pay for stays the same or gets better. If we ever remove something you pay for, section 13 says what happens.

We run the service with reasonable care and skill, but it is not guaranteed to be available at every moment. Servers depend on hosting providers, on Mojang’s services and on the internet, and sometimes we need to stop things for maintenance. We don’t promise any particular uptime.

3. Your account, and the 18+ rule

You must be 18 or over to create or use a {brand} account. By creating one, you confirm that you are. We record which version of these Terms you agreed to, and when.

People who only join someone’s server to play don’t need a Cubepals account. The account holder who runs a server is responsible for who they invite to it.

If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we will suspend it and email the address on the account. If it was a mistake, reply within 14 days and show us. Otherwise we close the account, offer a download of its worlds where we can, and delete it as our Privacy Policy says. If the account paid for a plan, we refund the payment for the period it was in.

Keep your password safe and don’t share your account. You are responsible for what happens under your account unless it was used without your permission and you couldn’t reasonably have stopped it. Tell us at support@cubepals.com straight away if you think someone else has access.

Use a real email address you read. We use it for things you need to know: confirming your account, resetting your password, warnings about your play time, and warnings before a world is deleted. Now and then we may also write to you personally, to ask how it’s going. We don’t send marketing.

One account per person. Don’t create extra accounts to get more free hours or servers.

4. Plans and hours

Free costs nothing. It includes 20 hours of play once, not every month, and at most 2 of them a day, on 1 server, plain Minecraft (vanilla or Paper without plugins), and the limits shown on the Pricing page.

Plus costs $25 a month, VAT included where it applies. It includes 120 hours of play each month on up to 3 servers, mods, plugins and modpacks, and the other things the Pricing page lists. It renews every month until you cancel.

A year of Plus costs $250, VAT included where it applies, paid once. It includes what Plus by the month does, with its hours starting again on the 1st of each month, except extra hours, which come with Plus by the month. It doesn’t renew on its own: we email you 14 and 3 days before it ends, and you can renew it from your account. Bought while you still have Plus, it starts when the time you already paid for ends, and a monthly subscription then stops renewing.

An hour of play is an hour a server is running. A large server (for big modpacks and big groups) uses two hours for each hour it runs, and the largest (for up to 100 players) uses four. A start that fails doesn’t use your hours.

On Free, a day starts at midnight in your time zone, as your browser reports it (UTC until it has). Free’s 20 hours come once: only play on Free counts toward them, and once they are used, your servers and worlds are kept, you can still download them, and they start again only with Plus. On Plus, they start again on the 1st of each month, at midnight in the same time zone. What’s left of a month’s Plus hours, up to 50, carries into the next month only, and is used first there; the month you subscribe in carries nothing. Free’s hours don’t carry over. When an account has used its hours, its servers stop and can’t start again until its hours start again, unless you allow extra hours. Players on a server are told in game before Free’s hours run out, and we email you as you get close to the month’s. On Plus you can allow extra hours at $0.25 each, up to a limit you set, and they are added to your next Plus payment. We never charge you for play beyond your plan unless you allow it, and never past the limit you set.

Prices are in US dollars. Where we have to show a price including VAT (in the UK and the EU, for example), the price we show includes it. What you pay is always shown on the payment page before you pay.

Gifts. You can buy Plus for someone else as a code, paid once. It doesn’t renew. Whoever redeems it gets Plus on their own account for the time the gift gives, from when they redeem it, or from when the Plus they already have ends. A code works once and doesn’t expire. It is emailed to the account that bought it, and anyone who has it can redeem it, so keep it as you would cash. We limit how many gifts one account can buy in a day. How a gift is refunded is on the Refunds page.

If we change the price of a plan you pay for, we will email you at least 30 days before the change applies to you. The new price applies from your next renewal after that. If you don’t want to pay it, cancel before then. A year you have paid for keeps the price you paid.

5. Paying, and who takes the payment

Payments are handled by Polar (polar.sh), which acts as our reseller and merchant of record. That means Polar sells you the plan on our behalf, charges your card, works out and pays the VAT or sales tax, and sends your receipts. Polar’s buyer terms apply to the payment itself. We never see or store your card details.

Before your plan starts, the checkout page asks you to agree to these Terms and to ask for your plan to start straight away. We record that you did.

If a renewal payment fails, you keep Plus for 7 days while you update your card under Manage billing on your account page. After that your account moves to Free (section 6 says what that means for your servers). If that payment included extra hours and is still unpaid, your servers can’t start until it is paid; you can still download your worlds.

You can also chip in to a friend’s server from its page or an invitation, from $5. It is a single payment to us, not a subscription and not a payment to the server’s owner. What you pay becomes hours of play on that server at $0.25 an hour, played once its owner has used their hours for that month, carried ones included, before any extra hours they would pay for. The owner sees your name and the hours you chipped in.

Refunds and cancellation explains how to cancel, refunds in the first 14 days, stopping a year early, chip-ins, and when we give other refunds.

6. Sleep, idle time and when a plan ends

To keep your hours for real play, a server stops a set time after the last player leaves: 10 minutes on Free and 15 on Plus. Before it stops, it saves the world and then shuts Minecraft down. A player who stands still for 15 minutes is removed from the game, so one idle player doesn’t keep a server awake. On Plus the account holder can change that.

Saving before a stop is something we always try to do, but it can’t be guaranteed in every case. For example, if a server crashes, if the machine it runs on fails, or if Minecraft doesn’t answer, it may stop without saving, and whatever was played since its last save can be lost.

When Plus ends (because you cancelled, a payment failed and wasn’t fixed, or a year you paid for ran out), your account moves to Free. Nothing is deleted at that moment. Servers that need Plus (mods, plugins, modpacks, larger sizes, or more servers than Free allows) stop and wait, whole, until you have Plus again or you change them to fit Free. From then on Free’s rules apply to your worlds, including the one-year rule in section 7.

7. What happens to worlds over time

• Resting. A world nobody has played for 14 days on Free (30 on Plus) is moved into storage, and its server stops using a disk. It is still yours: joining it, or starting it from your account, brings it back. That takes longer than a normal start.
• Deleting unplayed free worlds. On Free, a world nobody has played for a year can be deleted. We email you 30 days and 7 days before, with a way to keep it and a download. Playing it, or pressing Keep it, starts the year again. A deleted world goes to the trash first, like any deleted server.
• Plus worlds are kept for as long as you have Plus.
• Servers made “for a day”. If you choose this when you create a server, it is deleted a day after it was made unless you press Keep on its page. The create page shows the exact time.
• Deleting a server yourself. A server you delete waits in the trash for 7 days on Free and 30 days on Plus, and you can bring it back until then. After that it is deleted for good, with its backups.

Your worlds are yours. You can download a world from its server’s Backups page: once a day on Free, as often as you like on Plus. A download is kept for you to fetch for 7 days on Free and 30 on Plus.

8. Backups (and what we can’t promise)

Each time a server goes to sleep after people played on it, we take a backup of it as they left it; a server that plays on without sleeping is backed up about once a day. We take another before changes like a version change, a restore or a move. Free keeps the latest 3 backups taken after play, Plus the latest 14, and Plus also keeps a weekly download. A backup is a copy of the server at one moment, so restoring one loses whatever was played after it.

Backups are there to help, not a guarantee. We use reasonable care to keep your worlds safe, but storage and hosting can fail, and a backup can be missing or damaged. If a world matters to you, download a copy regularly and keep it somewhere of your own.

If we lose or damage your world because we didn’t use reasonable care and skill, we will restore the most recent good backup we have, and you keep your legal rights described in section 14.

9. Using Cubepals fairly

You agree to follow our Acceptable Use Policy. In short: only run Minecraft on Cubepals, don’t break the law, don’t attack anyone or anything, don’t try to get around your plan’s limits, and keep anything you list publicly suitable for everyone.

You are responsible for your servers and what happens on them, including what you upload, the mods and plugins you install, and the people you let in.

10. Minecraft, Mojang and Microsoft

{brand} is not an official Minecraft service. It is not approved by or associated with Mojang or Microsoft. “Minecraft” is a trademark of Mojang. We use it only to say what Cubepals runs.

Every server runs Minecraft’s server software under Mojang’s End User License Agreement (opens in a new tab) (EULA). We download that software from Mojang for each server. By creating a server, you accept the EULA for it, and you agree to follow it and Mojang’s Usage Guidelines (opens in a new tab). Among other things these mean:

• everyone who plays needs their own copy of Minecraft: Java Edition. Keep your server checking players’ accounts with Minecraft (it does unless you turn it off in advanced settings) unless you have a good reason not to;
• if you charge players for anything on your server, you must follow Mojang’s rules about what you may sell and how, including treating every player the same;
• you may not sell or give away Mojang’s server software, or present your server as an official Minecraft product.

If Mojang or Microsoft changes its terms, its services or its account system, that may change what Cubepals can offer. We’ll tell you if it affects what you pay for.

11. Your content, mods and other people’s work

Your worlds, builds, server names, descriptions, icons and uploads belong to you (or to whoever made them). You give us permission to store, copy, run, back up and display them only as needed to run Cubepals for you: for example to host your world, take backups, and show your listing to others if you publish it. That permission ends when the content is deleted from Cubepals, except for backups and copies that are deleted on their normal schedule.

Mods, plugins and modpacks belong to their authors and are used under their own licences. When you install one, Cubepals downloads it for your server from where its author published it (such as Modrinth). We don’t own them, we don’t check every licence for you, and we don’t promise that any mod works, keeps working, or stays available. If you upload files yourself, you must have the right to use them.

If you think something on Cubepals breaks your copyright or another right, see Content and copyright.

12. Public listings and moderation

Servers are private until you choose to publish one. A published server gets a public page and may appear in the server directory. Its page shows its name, description, icon, version and mods, how many players are on, and, if it checks accounts, the Minecraft names of the players on right now. People signed in to Cubepals can star a server and leave a short note on it.

Anyone signed in can report a listing. We review reports and may remove a listing, with a note to its owner saying why. We may also remove listings or notes on our own if they break these Terms or the law. If you disagree with a decision, reply to our email or write to support@cubepals.com and we will look at it again.

13. Suspending or closing accounts

You can stop using Cubepals at any time. To close your account and delete your data, email support@cubepals.com from the address on your account. Cancel any paid plan first (see Refunds and cancellation).

We may limit, suspend or close an account, or stop a server, if we reasonably believe that:

• it breaks these Terms or the Acceptable Use Policy in a serious way, or keeps breaking them after we have asked you to stop;
• it puts other players, the service or our providers at risk (for example an attack, malware or a server that harms our machines);
• we have to because of the law, a court, the police, or a valid notice from a rights holder;
• the account holder is under 18 (section 3).

Where we can, we tell you first, say why, and give you a chance to fix it. In urgent cases we act first and explain afterwards. When we restrict something we will tell you which rule it was and how to ask us to look again.

If we close an account for a serious breach, we don’t refund the current month. If we close it for any other reason, or stop offering Cubepals altogether, we refund the unused part of what you paid and, wherever we can, give you at least 30 days’ notice and a way to download your worlds first.

14. Our responsibility to you

Nothing in these Terms takes away rights you have by law. If you are a consumer in the UK or the EU, you have legal rights in relation to services and digital services that are not provided as described or with reasonable care and skill: for example to have the problem put right, to a price reduction, or to end the contract. Your local consumer advice service can tell you more.

If we break these Terms or are negligent, we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that was a foreseeable result of that. Loss is foreseeable if it was obvious it would happen, or if we both knew it might happen when you agreed to these Terms. We are not responsible for loss that wasn’t foreseeable.

Cubepals is for personal, non-commercial use. We are not responsible for business losses, such as lost profit, lost revenue or business interruption.

For a paid plan, unless the law says otherwise, our total responsibility to you for everything arising in any 12 months is limited to the larger of (a) what you paid us in those 12 months and (b) 100 US dollars.

Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes our responsibility for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that the law doesn’t allow us to limit or exclude.

15. Changes to these Terms

We may change these Terms, for example when the service changes, when the law changes, or to make them clearer. The date at the top of each page says when it last changed.

If a change matters to you, we will email you at least 30 days before it takes effect, unless the law or a security risk makes us change something sooner. If you don’t agree with the change, you can stop using Cubepals and close your account before it takes effect, and if you pay for a plan, cancel it and get a refund for any time you paid for after the change. If you keep using Cubepals after the change takes effect, the new Terms apply.

16. Law and disputes

If you have a problem, please write to support@cubepals.com first. Most things can be sorted out quickly.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. If you are a consumer, you also keep the protection of the mandatory laws of the country where you live, and you can bring a claim in the courts of that country.

If any part of these Terms can’t be enforced, the rest still applies. If we don’t enforce a right straight away, we can still enforce it later. These Terms are between you and us; nobody else can enforce them. You can’t transfer your account or these Terms to someone else. We can transfer our rights and duties to someone who takes over running Cubepals, and we will tell you if we do; this won’t reduce your rights.