How much does a game server cost per month?

Hosting a community game server costs money every month. But how much, exactly? It all depends on the game, the number of players and the mods. In this guide, we walk through realistic price ranges game by game, what actually drives the bill up, and above all how to stop paying for it on your own.

What makes the price vary

A server's price comes down to three main things.

• RAM, the make-or-break factor. The more players connected, mods active and zones loaded at the same time, the more memory you need. It is the number one price driver.
• The number of slots. A server built for 10 players costs far less than one open to 100 seats, even for the exact same game.
• Mods and plugins. A modded server (ARK, Rust with plugins, a heavy Minecraft modpack) demands far more resources than a vanilla version.

On top of that come the CPU (important for games that crunch a lot of numbers, like Rust or simulations), NVMe storage for decent loading times, and DDoS protection, usually included with serious hosts. Automatic backups and a simple management panel are also part of what you pay for.

The average cost, game by game

Here are ballpark figures for a solid community server with a professional host. These are monthly ranges, not rock-bottom promo prices.

Game	Typical monthly cost
Minecraft (vanilla or small modpack)	5 to 20 €
Valheim	5 to 15 €
Garry's Mod	8 to 20 €
Rust	10 to 30 €
Palworld	10 to 25 €
ARK: Survival Ascended	15 to 40 €

A heavy Minecraft modpack (think All the Mods) or a multi-map ARK cluster can quickly blow past these figures and climb beyond 50 € per month. On the flip side, a small server among friends, lightly loaded, stays at the low end of the range all year round.

Three concrete examples

• A Valheim server among mates (8 players, a few quality-of-life mods): around 10 € per month. Light, stable, no hassle.
• A community Minecraft server (mid-size modpack, 30 slots, economy plugins): around 25 € per month, more during activity peaks.
• A monthly-wipe Rust server (100 slots, DDoS protection, heavy CPU needs): easily 30 € and up per month.

The real problem: it is always the same person paying

Most community servers survive because one single person, the admin, pulls out their card every month. Players often do not even realise there is a cost behind it. And the day that person burns out or runs out of budget, the server goes dark and the community scatters within a few weeks.

Improvised PayPal tips do not solve the problem: it is opaque, awkward to ask for, and nobody really knows where the money goes or whether it covers the bill.

How much does it cost per player?

This is where everything changes. A server at 20 € per month feels heavy for one person. Split across active players, it becomes trivial:

• 10 players at 2 €: the 20 € server is funded, and nobody pays more than the price of a coffee.
• 20 players at 1.50 €: you even cover a 30 € server with room to spare for the peaks.

The real per-player cost of a community server almost always lands around 1 to 3 € per month. The hurdle was never the amount, but a clean way to collect it.

The solution: spread the cost across the people who play

The idea behind a community pool is simple: the monthly goal matches the real cost of hosting, every donation is visible, and the money goes straight to the server. No all-or-nothing, no hidden markup. If you want the full walkthrough, we detailed it in getting your community to fund your server.

With KeepAlive, you link your host account: the game and the monthly cost are pre-filled automatically. You add your rewards, share the link with your community, and off you go. Zero markup on hosting: only payment fees apply, everything else keeps your server online. Browse the pools currently running to see what it looks like.