Game server costs in Australia

On our plans, a game server starts at a few dollars a month for a small vanilla Minecraft world, and the price climbs with the RAM a game needs. A big modpack or a busy Rust map sits at the top of the range, and each game page shows which plan suits your group.

What a server costs, by game

Prices are the regular monthly price in Australian dollars, including GST, before any first-month offer shown on the game page.

Each game page shows what every plan is sized for, such as the player count or the Rust map size. Paying ahead costs less per month, and the Quarterly, Semi-Annually and Annually tabs on the game page show the saving for each.

What makes a game server cost more?

RAM sets the price. Game server plans are mostly sold by memory, because memory is usually what runs out first. What uses it differs by game:

• Minecraft grows with mods more than players. Our 1 GB plan suits vanilla for one or two players, and How much RAM does my Minecraft server need? works out your number.
• Rust grows with map size and player count. Our plans run a 3k map on 8 GB and a 6k map on 16 GB.
• Palworld grows with the world as bases and Pals fill it, so a busy world needs more memory than a new one.
• ARK grows with the map and mods. Genesis 2 and big mod packs are what push a server to the top plan.
• Valheim and Garry's Mod grow with add-ons. Heavy BepInEx packs and big Workshop collections are what the larger plans are for.

CPU comes with the plan. Bigger plans get more CPU too, and each plan card lists its vCPU, so there's no separate CPU choice to make. Minecraft plans step up in CPU at 5 GB and 9 GB.

Storage and player slots rarely change the price. Most worlds fit in a few gigabytes, and every plan includes its own disk space. You don't buy player slots separately here: the player figures on a plan describe what its RAM handles comfortably.

Why modded Minecraft costs more

A modpack loads every mod's blocks, items and world generation into memory at startup, and big packs keep hundreds of mods there. Minecraft plans are priced per gigabyte, so an 8 GB server costs four times what a 2 GB one does, whether two people play on it or eight.

The Recommended for rows on the Minecraft plans show where mods land: 2 GB is sized for a few plugins, 4 GB for light modpacks, 8 GB for big modpacks and 12 GB for any modpack. Each pack's own page lists the RAM it wants. Fabulously Optimized recommends 4 GB, RLCraft 6 GB and All the Mods 10 10 GB, and Modded Minecraft server hosting has the full list.

What "cheap" usually leaves out

A very low monthly price can be genuine. What it tends to leave out:

• Location. A server overseas can cost less, but players here typically sit at 120 ms or more on it. Ours run in Sydney, and Australian game server latency: what ping to expect from each city has the figures by city.
• GST and currency. Some prices are shown before tax, or in US dollars that turn into a bigger number on your statement. Ours are in Australian dollars and include GST.
• Backups. If you can't take and restore a backup yourself, one bad mod can cost you the world. Every plan includes backups, which you take from the Backups tab, and bigger Minecraft plans keep more of them.

How to choose an Australian game server host has a checklist you can run against any host, including us.

What self-hosting costs instead

A server on a PC at home has no hosting bill, and you pay in other ways. You pay for the power to keep a PC on all day, your upload speed caps how many people can join smoothly, and the world is offline whenever that PC is. Home server vs rented game server works through the power maths and port forwarding.

Not sure which plan you need?

Each game page has a Find my plan button. Answer a few questions about your group and it recommends a plan size.

Still deciding? Contact Play Your Way before you buy, and include the game, how many people play at once and any mods or modpack you want, since those set the plan size.