Cost simulator: fixed subscription or pay-as-you-go?
Most groups of friends only play a few evenings a week. A traditional subscription bills for the full month (730 hours) for a machine that idles 90% of the time. Adjust your weekly play hours below to see the difference.
How much does it cost?
You only pay for the hours you play. Server off = €0.
| Configuration | Hourly rate | On TickServ(3 h / week) | Elsewherefixed monthly sub |
|---|---|---|---|
4 GB· 2 vCPU for Minecraft, Core Keeper, Terraria +6 | €0.02/h | ≈ €0.26 /month or ~€0.07 / player | from €8.00/month −97 % |
8 GB· 4 vCPU for Minecraft, Valheim, Factorio +2 | €0.03/h | ≈ €0.39 /month or ~€0.10 / player | from €15.20/month −97 % |
16 GB· 8 vCPU for Palworld, Project Zomboid, Enshrouded | €0.06/h | ≈ €0.78 /month or ~€0.20 / player | from €27.20/month −97 % |
32 GB· 16 vCPU for Minecraft, Factorio | €0.10/h | ≈ €1.30 /month or ~€0.33 / player | from €48.00/month −97 % |
Estimate (3 h/wk × 4.33 wks). A stopped server costs nothing. “Elsewhere” = the monthly plan of a fixed-price host at the same RAM, taken from the low end of what we surveyed in September 2026. It is not our price, and it is not a quote from them.
The break-even point: when does a subscription win?
Beyond roughly 400 hours a month (nearly 14 hours a day), a traditional fixed monthly plan becomes more cost-effective. Conversely, for a group playing between 3 and 20 hours a week, hourly billing cuts the bill by a factor of 3 to 10.
How can a server cost €0 when nobody is playing?
Unlike a traditional VPS where CPU and RAM remain reserved continuously, TickServ archives and compresses your entire world to Cloudflare R2 object storage as soon as the server stops, and destroys the compute virtual machine. At the next startup, a fresh VM is spun up and your world restored automatically. No idle compute or hidden subscription fees are billed to you (barring the optional timestamped backups plan).
Ready to test with your group?
The first hour is free to test your world under real gaming conditions.