How much does a game server cost per month?

A game server costs between about $3 and $25 a month for almost every game people actually host, and the number is set by one thing more than any other: how much memory the game needs before it will run properly. Terraria starts at $3 because it runs in half a gigabyte. Palworld starts at $19 because its own recommended figure for a dedicated server is high and there is no honest way to sell a 2 GB Palworld plan. Everything else - CPU share, disk, ports, panel features - moves the price by a few units either way.

What follows is what you are paying for, the current starting prices for the games we host, and the costs that are real but never appear on a hosting page. Prices move, so treat every figure here as a snapshot taken in September 2026 and check the page before you budget against it; the links go to the live ones.

What you are actually paying for#

A plan is four numbers and a panel. Three of the numbers cost the host money in a straightforward way.

• Memory. The dominant term. RAM is the scarcest thing on a hosting node because it cannot be shared or oversubscribed safely - unlike CPU, which most servers use in bursts, a gigabyte handed to your server is a gigabyte nobody else can have. This is why price tracks RAM almost linearly up the ladder.
• CPU share. Sold as a percentage of a core or a vCPU figure, and here it is a hard throttle to the share bought rather than a target. Two plans with identical memory and disk can differ by a few units purely on CPU, and for a game whose tick loop runs on one thread that difference is what you feel. CPU or RAM for game servers is the thirty seconds of diagnosis that tells you which one you need more of.
• Disk. NVMe throughout on a ZFS pool here, and NVMe on every tier rather than only the expensive ones, so moving up buys you space and not speed. Most games need less than people expect; modpacks, map mods and multiple worlds are what fill a quota. What NVMe actually changes is specific about which operations improve.
• Ports. Each plan states its allocations. Arma 3 needs five, DayZ and Project Zomboid three, Minecraft one. A game that needs more ports gets more allocations in its plans, which is part of why the ladders differ between games.

The panel is the fifth thing and it is not metered. Every plan gets the same one: console, file manager, SFTP, backup slots, scheduled tasks, subusers and roles, database slots where the line includes them. Nothing is gated behind a bigger tier, which is worth checking on any host you compare against, because a cheap plan with the backups removed is not a cheap plan.

Starting prices by game#

These are the entry tiers as of the September 2026 catalogue. They change, and the game's own page is the source of truth.

The full list of thirty-one games is on the game servers page, along with the rest of each ladder. And the other categories, for comparison, because people often arrive looking for a game server and need something else:

One point of confusion worth clearing up: the Rust on the app hosting page is the programming language, compiled with Cargo. Rust the survival game is not in the catalogue at all.

Why the same amount of memory costs more for some games#

Two comparisons from the tables above explain most of the variation.

The game's memory floor sets the entry price. Palworld's lowest tier is 8 GB and 7 Days to Die's is 8 GB because those games will not run well in less, and selling a 2 GB tier for either would be selling a server that crashes. Terraria's lowest tier is 0.5 GB because that is genuinely enough. The entry price is therefore not a statement about the game's popularity or the host's margin; it is the smallest honest plan. When a game has no cheap tier, that is information about the game.

CPU share moves the price at the same memory. Look at two tiers with the same 4 GB and 30 GB: a Minecraft Standard plan at $9 with 1.5 vCPU, and a Valheim Advanced plan at $12 with 2 vCPU. Same memory, same disk, three units apart, and the difference is the throttle. Games whose simulation leans harder on one thread get more CPU per gigabyte in their ladders, and you pay for it.

There is also a floor under everything. The cheapest plan in the catalogue is $3 for half a gigabyte, which is not one sixth of the price of a 3 GB plan, because a server has fixed costs regardless of size: an IP allocation, a port, a share of the node's disk and network, backup storage, and the panel itself. Below a few units a month there is nothing left to cut, which is the arithmetic behind the free hosting section below.

Finally, the ladder flattens as it climbs. Minecraft runs from 2 GB at $5 to 14 GB at $34 - seven times the memory for under seven times the price. Buying the top tier of a small game is usually better value per gigabyte than buying the bottom tier of a large one, so if you know you are going to need the memory, the arithmetic favours moving up rather than running two servers.

Monthly, three months, six or twelve#

Longer terms are cheaper per month. The trade is obvious and people still get it wrong in both directions.

Commit to a longer term when you have already run the server for a month on the tier you want, the group is stable, and you know the game is one you will still be playing at Christmas. Do not commit when you are testing a game, when you are unsure of the size, or when the server exists because of a launch week. A 12-month commitment on a modpack server that three people abandon in October is not a discount.

Payment is by PayPal, card, wallet balance or bank transfer, and each produces an invoice - which matters more than it sounds if the server is funded by a group or a store, because you will want the paperwork. A renewal invoice arrives by email 7 days before expiry and again on the day, so nothing lapses without warning. There is no free tier and no automatic refund button; refunds go through a ticket. That is a real disadvantage against hosts offering a money-back window, and you should factor it into how long a term you are willing to buy.

The site quotes USD, EUR and GEL. USD is the base and the others are converted, so the exact figure in your currency moves with the rate.

What the monthly price does not include#

The plan is not the budget. These are the costs that turn up afterwards.

• The game. Several games need something from you before the server will run: a Steam game server token for CS2 and Unturned, a Cfx.re key for FiveM, a Klei token for Don't Starve Together, a BeamMP auth key, and a full Steam login for Arma 3, DayZ, Project Zomboid and 7 Days to Die - which means owning the game on that account. Use a spare Steam account for the ones that want a password.
• A domain. We do not sell or register domains and we do not host email. If you want a name instead of an IP address, you buy it from a registrar for roughly $10-15 a year and point a record at the server - connecting a domain to a game server covers the record itself.
• Paid mods and scripts. This is the big one on FiveM, where a roleplay server's script bill routinely exceeds its hosting bill several times over. Budget for it before you budget for the server.
• A store platform's cut, if you take money. Every payment processor takes a percentage, and monetising within the rules is about the constraints on what you are allowed to sell in the first place.
• Your time. The largest cost and the one nobody prices. A modded server is a few hours a month of maintenance in a quiet month.
• A second server, eventually. A test instance to try an update on before it reaches your players is the cheapest insurance in hosting, and it is a whole extra plan - staging and production on one account is how to run one without doubling the work.

What is included, and is sometimes extra elsewhere: backup slots on every game plan, a database slot on every game plan, scheduled tasks, SFTP, subusers, and adding or removing ports on the Network tab. Worth checking against any host you compare with, because those five things being extras is how a $2 plan gets to $8.

A panel plan, a VDS, or the machine under your desk#

Three ways to run a game server, three cost shapes.

A panel plan is the highest price per server and the lowest price per hour of your time. The game is installed at the right version, ports are allocated, admin and RCON passwords are generated, backups are a button, and nothing about Linux is your problem. For one or two servers this is almost always the cheapest option once your time is counted at any rate at all.

A VDS is cheaper per server if you run several, and it is a different job. The entry tier is $17 for 8 GB, 128 GB of disk and 2 vCPU with root access - note the disk, which is far more than any game plan at that price, because you are buying a slice of a machine rather than a configured service. Four small game servers on that box work out cheaper than four plans. They also work out as four services you keep patched, firewalled, supervised and backed up yourself, and a VDS here is prepared by hand within 24 hours rather than in a minute. Choosing between a VDS and a game panel is the honest comparison, and running several game servers on one VDS is what the work looks like.

Your own hardware is free except for the electricity, which is easy to underestimate: multiply the machine's draw in watts by 0.72 for kilowatt-hours a month. A 10 W mini PC costs a couple of units a month to run and genuinely beats a plan on cash. An old desktop pulling 80 W costs more in electricity than most game plans before you count the noise, the downtime and the fact that your home IP address is now public. Hosting at home versus renting goes through when that trade is fine and when it is not.

And free hosting, which exists and costs something else. The arithmetic above says a server has a floor of a few units a month in real resources, so anyone giving one away is recovering it somewhere: queues to start the server, servers that sleep when empty, hard player caps, advertising injected into your community, no backups, and no obligation to keep your data when they stop. For a weekend of messing about that is a fine trade. For a world people build in, it is not.

Cost per player, and what a community can fund#

Divide, because the monthly figure looks different when it is shared.

A $9 plan with ten players is 90 cents each. A $22 Minecraft plan holding forty regulars is 55 cents each. Even the $34 top tier, full, is under a unit per person per month. Put that way, the hosting is rarely the thing that kills a server - attention is.

That arithmetic also sets a realistic ceiling on what a community store can do. Conversion on a game server store runs at low single-digit percentages of active players, so a server with thirty regulars will fund its own hosting and nothing more. That is a perfectly good outcome and it is the outcome most servers should aim at: the server pays for itself, nobody is out of pocket, and no one is tempted to sell things that break the game to make the numbers work.

If several people are splitting the bill, invoices help. Every payment produces one, and the wallet balance is a straightforward way to let one person top up what everyone contributed.

Buying the right size the first time#

Start smaller than you think and move up with evidence. Changing plan does not rebuild the server, so the world, the files, the database slot and the settings stay exactly where they are - there is no penalty for beginning on a tier that turns out to be too small, and there is a real cost to paying for 8 GB to run something that needed 3.

The sizing you want before you buy:

1. Find the game's memory floor. How much RAM a Minecraft server needs is the worked example; game server requirements by game is the table for everything else.
2. Count the players you will actually have, not the ones you hope for. How many players fit on a server is about the real limit, which is usually CPU rather than a slot count.
3. Add the mods. A modpack is frequently three times the vanilla memory requirement, and mods are the single largest multiplier on the bill.
4. Buy the tier above the floor, not three above it. Headroom of 25 per cent is sensible. Doubling is speculation.
5. Watch for a week, then decide. When to upgrade your plan is the diagnostic that separates a genuine size problem from a configuration problem wearing its clothes.

One more thing worth saying plainly: an upgrade fixes a shortage and nothing else. It does not move the server closer to your players, it does not make the disk faster because NVMe is already on every tier, and it does not fix a memory leak or a plugin that eats a tick. Check which problem you have before you buy more of anything.

FAQ#

What is the cheapest game server I can rent?

Around $3 a month for the small games - Terraria and Counter-Strike 1.6 both start there with half a gigabyte of memory. Below that figure a server does not cover its own resources, so anything cheaper is being paid for another way.

Why is a Palworld server so much more expensive than a Minecraft one?

Because Palworld's dedicated server needs several times the memory before it behaves, so the smallest honest plan starts at 8 GB while Minecraft's starts at 2 GB. The price difference is the game's requirement, not a difference in what the host provides.

Is it cheaper to pay yearly?

Per month, yes - terms of 3, 6 and 12 months cost less per month than paying monthly. It is only cheaper overall if you keep the server for the whole term, so run it monthly first and commit once you know the group is real.

Do I need to buy the game as well?

Sometimes. Several games need a token or a full Steam login before the server will install, which means owning a copy on that account. Minecraft, Valheim and most of the rest install without anything from you.

Can I start small and upgrade later?

Yes, and it is the right way round. Changing plan does not rebuild the server, so your world, files, database slot and settings stay where they are and only the limits change.

Is free game server hosting worth it?

For experimenting, yes. For anything with a world in it, no. A server costs real resources, so a free one recovers the cost through queues, sleeping, player caps, advertising or the absence of backups, and none of those are discovered at a convenient moment.