---
title: "How much does a game server cost? — TickServ"
description: "4 friends, 6 hours a week: between €0.52 and €1.30 a month depending on the game. Billed by the started hour, €0 while the server is off."
url: https://tickserv.com/cost
site: "TickServ (https://tickserv.com)"
lang: en
generated: 2026-08-28
---

# How much does a game server cost?

**Short answer** — For 4 friends playing 6 hours a week, a private game server costs between €0.52 and €1.30 a month, depending on the game. You pay for each started hour the server runs, and nothing at all while it is off.

We bill by the started hour: a session of 2 h 10 is billed as 3 hours. The figures below assume your play time is your billed time — a session that runs over rounds up to the next hour.

## Cost by game

The same scenario for every game: 4 players, 6 hours a week, on the RAM we recommend for that game.

| Game | RAM | Price / hour | At 6 h a week | Monthly plan elsewhere | Before a plan wins |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Minecraft](https://tickserv.com/cost/minecraft) | 4 GB | €0.02/h | €0.52 | €9.00 | 450 h a month |
| [Valheim](https://tickserv.com/cost/valheim) | 8 GB | €0.03/h | €0.78 | €12.00 | 400 h a month |
| [Palworld](https://tickserv.com/cost/palworld) | 16 GB | €0.05/h | €1.30 | €14.00 | 280 h a month |
| [Factorio](https://tickserv.com/cost/factorio) | 8 GB | €0.03/h | €0.78 | €10.00 | 333 h a month |
| [Project Zomboid](https://tickserv.com/cost/project-zomboid) | 8 GB | €0.03/h | €0.78 | €13.00 | 433 h a month |
| [Core Keeper](https://tickserv.com/cost/core-keeper) | 4 GB | €0.02/h | €0.52 | €8.00 | 400 h a month |
| [Terraria](https://tickserv.com/cost/terraria) | 4 GB | €0.02/h | €0.52 | €5.00 | 250 h a month |
| [Minecraft Bedrock](https://tickserv.com/cost/minecraft-bedrock) | 4 GB | €0.02/h | €0.52 | €9.00 | 450 h a month |

“Monthly plan” is a market benchmark: what a host billing a fixed monthly fee asks for a comparable server, taken at the low end of what we measured. It is not our price, and it is not a quote from them.

Prices include VAT. A stopped server costs €0.

## What actually changes the bill

- The RAM you pick. The price is carried by the RAM, not by the game: at equal RAM, every game costs the same.
- The performance level. A shared vCPU is the cheaper one; a dedicated CPU costs more per hour and is what heavy mods and crowded servers need.
- The hours the server actually runs. It stops on its own once nobody is playing, and an hour that never starts is never billed.
- Nothing else. No setup fee, no mandatory subscription, and keeping your world between sessions costs nothing.

## How the bill works

- Each started hour of running time is billed at the hourly rate of the RAM you picked.
- A stopped server costs nothing, and it stops on its own once nobody is playing.
- You pay from a prepaid wallet, topped up when you choose, from €5.
- The welcome credit needs a registered card — an imprint, which is never charged.
- Your world is kept between sessions at no extra cost, and it is never deleted for non-payment.
- One paid option exists: timestamped backups at €0.10 per 30 days, which keeps 5 archives instead of 1.

— TickServ, https://tickserv.com/cost