Set up ChestShop on Minecraft

ChestShop turns a chest and a sign into a shop. A player writes an amount and a price on the sign, other players right-click it to buy and left-click it to sell, and the money moves through your economy plugin. It runs only on the server, so players install nothing.

Checked against ChestShop 3.13-pre-1, a beta (the latest release is 3.12.2), on Paper, which Modrinth lists for Minecraft 1.13 to 26.2, October 2026.

What you need

• A Paper, Purpur or Folia server, which shows a Plugins tab under Content in the panel menu.
• An economy plugin that works through Vault. ChestShop supports almost all of them. Set up Vault on your Minecraft server explains the bridge, and Set up EssentialsX on your Minecraft server covers one that has an economy built in.

Install ChestShop

1. Open the Plugins tab and keep Modrinth selected in the source chip row at the top of the tab.
2. Search for ChestShop. Several unrelated listings share the name, so pick the one described as "The original physical shops Bukkit plugin using just signs and chests".
3. Click Install.
4. Open Console and click Restart.

The newest file on that listing is 3.13-pre-1, which Modrinth marks as a beta. The last build it marks as a release is 3.12.2, and that one lists Minecraft only up to 1.19.3. The Plugins tab installs the newest release that lists your server's Minecraft version, or the newest beta when no release lists it. A server on 26.1.2 or 26.2 therefore gets 3.13-pre-1, because 3.12.2 does not list those versions. If no file lists your Minecraft version, the store refuses with "No build of ChestShop for Minecraft" and your version. Set the Game version filter to Any version and click Install again to take the newest release, 3.12.2. Run chestshop version in the Console after the restart to see which version arrived.

Make a player shop

1. Place a chest.
2. Place a sign one block away from it, for example above it.
3. Leave line 1 empty. The plugin fills in your name.
4. On line 2, write the amount to trade, such as 64.
5. On line 3, write the prices with a B for the price players pay to buy and an S for the price they get when they sell, such as B 5:5 S. B 5 and S free also work. Separate the two prices with a colon.
6. On line 4, write the item name, or write ? to copy the item from the chest.

Stock the chest. Players right-click the sign to buy and left-click it to sell. If you are unsure of an item's name, hold it and run /iteminfo.

Make an admin shop

An admin shop has unlimited stock and needs no chest. Write Admin Shop on line 1 of the sign. You need operator status or the ChestShop.admin permission. If a chest sits at the sign, the shop uses the chest's contents and is not unlimited, unless FORCE_UNLIMITED_ADMIN_SHOP is true in config.yml.

Commands

Run these in game, or in the Console without the slash for the ones that do not need a player:

• /iteminfo shows the name of the item in your hand.
• /shopinfo shows details of the shop you are looking at.
• /cstoggle turns the buy and sell notifications on or off.
• /csaccess toggles trading at shops while your admin or access permissions would normally make shops ignore you. It needs ChestShop.accesstoggle, which operators have by default.
• chestshop version shows the version, and chestshop reload reloads the config and messages. The plugin's page says a reload might not apply every feature, so restart after bigger changes.

Permissions and settings

Everyone can create, buy from and sell to shops by default, because ChestShop.shop.* is on for all players. ChestShop.admin defaults to operators, and ChestShop.mod lets a player open other people's shop chests without destroying them. To limit a group to certain items, use nodes such as ChestShop.shop.create.<itemid>, ChestShop.shop.buy.<itemid> and ChestShop.shop.sell.<itemid>. Set up LuckPerms on your Minecraft server shows how to assign them.

The first start creates plugins/ChestShop. Open config.yml in File Manager and look at these keys:

• SHOP_CREATION_PRICE is what a player pays to make a shop. It starts at 0.
• MAX_SHOP_AMOUNT caps the amount on a sign. It starts at 3456, a double chest of full stacks.
• ALLOW_PARTIAL_TRANSACTIONS is true, so a shop still trades when a buyer cannot afford the whole amount.

Minimum and maximum prices go in priceLimits.yml, and admin shop discounts go in discounts.yml. Click Save after any change and run chestshop reload.

Common problems

• Players cannot buy. Check the Installed view for Vault and an economy plugin. ChestShop pays through them, so without both there is nothing to move money.
• A config file will not load. See How to find and fix YAML and JSON config errors.
• Usage statistics. ChestShop sends anonymous stats by default. Opt out in PluginMetrics/config.yml and bstats/config.yml.