How Much Does a Game Server Cost? 2026 Pricing

"How much does a game server cost?" has no single answer — it depends on the game, the player count and what's included. Here's what drives the price by game and RAM tier, the hidden costs to watch for, and how to avoid paying for the wrong things.

Quick answer

A rented game server costs anywhere from a few euros a month for a small vanilla server to €20–45+ a month for large, modded or high-player-count ones. The price is driven mainly by RAM, CPU speed and player slots, so the same budget goes much further on a light game like Terraria than on ARK or a modded Minecraft pack.

What you're actually paying for

The headline price of a game server is mostly driven by a few factors:

• RAM and player slots — the biggest lever. More players and mods need more memory.
• The game — lightweight games (CS, TF2) cost less to run than heavy ones (Rust, ARK, FiveM).
• CPU quality — fast, modern CPUs cost more but deliver smoother performance.
• Location and network — well-connected hubs and good routing aren't the cheapest, but they give low ping.
• Anti-DDoS — real protection has a cost; "free" protection often isn't real.

Typical price ranges by game

Lightweight, tick-friendly games (CS2, TF2, small Minecraft survival) tend to sit at the low end of the pricing scale for a given player count. Mid-weight games (Valheim, Palworld, Project Zomboid, modest Minecraft modpacks) cost a bit more because they need more RAM per player. Heavy games (Rust, ARK, FiveM roleplay, large modpacks) sit at the top of the range, since they need both a strong CPU and a large RAM allocation to stay smooth as the community grows. See our guide to the best games to host for what each one typically needs.

Here are the typical monthly ranges for 15 popular games, from a small server to a large or modded one. Select a game to jump to what drives its price.

The RAM and slot math

Price scales roughly with RAM, and RAM scales with player slots and mods. A small vanilla Minecraft server for a friend group might need 2–4 GB; a modded server or a busy public server can need 8 GB or more — see our modpack RAM guide for exact numbers per pack. The same logic applies across games: more concurrent players and more content mean more memory, which is the single biggest cost driver on any quote.

Managed vs self-hosted

Self-hosting on a VDS or your own PC looks cheaper, but you pay in time: installation, updates, port-forwarding, security and dealing with attacks. Managed game hosting bundles the panel, DDoS protection, instant setup and support into the price — usually worth it unless you specifically want full server control. If you want to compare the underlying infrastructure tiers, see dedicated vs shared game server hosting.

One-time vs recurring costs

Beyond the monthly plan price, watch for setup fees, charges for extra backup slots, add-on costs for extra player slots, and migration fees if you switch hosts later. A plan that looks cheap on the label can end up costing more once these extras are added — always check what's bundled in before comparing two prices directly.

Watch for hidden costs

The cheapest plan is rarely the cheapest in practice. Watch for: slow, overcrowded CPUs that cause lag; "DDoS protection" that's only a checkbox; paid add-ons for backups or extra slots; and poor support when something breaks. A slightly higher price with real CPUs and included protection often costs less overall.

How to compare quotes apples-to-apples

When comparing two hosts, normalise for RAM, CPU type and included Anti-DDoS before comparing the sticker price. A slightly higher monthly price with a modern CPU, NVMe storage and real multi-Tbps protection included is almost always the better deal than a cheaper plan on an oversold node with vague "protection". Our full buyer's checklist covers everything worth checking before you commit.

What drives the cost, game by game

Every game spends its budget differently: some are RAM-bound, some live on single-core CPU speed, and some are cheap no matter what. The ranges below are typical across providers and vary with configuration; each game's hosting page has our current plan prices.

7 Days to Die server cost

Around €8-14 a month for a small group and €18-25+ for a bigger or modded server. 6-8 GB of RAM runs a small-to-mid group; a large or heavily modded server wants 12 GB+, and overhaul packs like Darkness Falls or Undead Legacy are what push it there. The hidden cost is the zombies: MaxSpawnedZombies and blood-moon horde size are AI load on the CPU, so a harder server needs a faster CPU, and a 16+ player server with big hordes is a different machine from an 8-player one. See 7 Days to Die server hosting.

ARK server cost

ARK is one of the pricier games: roughly €12-20 a month for a small server and €25-45+ for a modded, high-population or clustered setup. RAM is most of the bill: 8 GB for a small Survival Evolved server, 12-16 GB for Survival Ascended, modded maps or large tribes, 16 GB+ for heavy mods — and it climbs as the map fills with structures and tames. ASA (Unreal Engine 5) needs noticeably more than ASE for the same players. Clusters multiply the cost, because each map is its own server: a 3-map cluster costs roughly three times one map. See ARK server hosting.

CS2 server cost

One of the cheaper games to host: roughly €5-12 a month for a standard competitive or community server. CS2 is light on RAM (around 2 GB, 4 GB+ for a heavy plugin stack or a big deathmatch server), so the price follows player slots, game mode and single-core CPU speed. A 10-12 slot 5v5 server is light; a 32-64 slot casual, deathmatch, retakes or surf server does much more work per tick. A Metamod + CounterStrikeSharp stack adds some load, and the GSLT you need to list the server is free. See CS2 server hosting.

DayZ server cost

Around €10-18 a month for a vanilla or lightly modded server and €20-30+ for a full 60-slot heavily modded one. Mods are the main reason DayZ costs more: 4-8 GB covers vanilla or light mods, a full modded 60-slot server wants 8-12 GB+. Desync and lag are usually CPU-bound, so a fast core beats extra RAM, and scheduled restarts every 4-6 hours keep a long-running server steady. A 20-40 slot community server costs less than a full 60-slot public one. See DayZ server hosting.

FiveM server cost

Around €8-15 a month for a small RP server and €25-40+ for a busy, script-heavy one. Unlike most games, FiveM's cost is driven by CPU speed: FiveM and its resources are largely single-threaded, so one fast core keeps server frame time healthy. A near-vanilla server is light; ESX or QBCore with 50+ scripts is heavy, and every resource adds CPU load. RAM matters less (4 GB for a small server, 8 GB+ for a busy framework with its MySQL/MariaDB database). A 32-slot server is modest; 64-128 slots need a much stronger CPU. See FiveM server hosting.

Garry's Mod server cost

Around €7-14 a month for a small sandbox or DarkRP server and €18-25+ for a big, addon-heavy DarkRP community. GMod runs its Lua on effectively one core, so single-core speed decides how smooth a busy server is. Gamemode weight is the biggest lever: sandbox with a few addons is light, DarkRP with jobs, an economy and a large Workshop collection is heavy. RAM follows addon count (2-4 GB small, 6-8 GB+ addon-heavy DarkRP), and a FastDL host keeps addon downloads on join from stalling the server. See Garry's Mod server hosting.

Minecraft server cost

From a few euros a month for a small vanilla server (2-4 GB), around €8-15 for a modded or 10-20 player server (6-8 GB), and €15-25+ for a heavy modpack or busy public server (12-16 GB). Modpacks are the big multiplier: 100+ mods can need 3-4× the RAM of vanilla for the same players. More RAM does not fix low TPS, though — Minecraft lag is often CPU-bound, so a fast single core matters as much as memory. See Minecraft server hosting.

Palworld server cost

Around €8-15 a month for a co-op group on about 8 GB of RAM, and €20-30 for a bigger, base-heavy server on 16 GB. Palworld is memory-hungry and RAM use grows as players build bases and collect pals, so a world that was fine on 8 GB may need 16 GB after weeks of building. The config allows 32 players, but stability drops hard past about 16 (base desync, pal pathfinding), so a 32-slot plan costs more without being usable. See Palworld server hosting.

Rust server cost

Around €8-15 a month for a small community (about 100 slots on a 3000-3500 map), €15-25 for a mid server (150-200 slots, modded) and €25-40+ for a large, high-population one (250+ slots on a 4500+ map). World size is the biggest RAM multiplier: Facepunch lists 12 GB of free RAM as the minimum, so plan 12 GB for a small map, 12-16 GB for a mid or modded server and 16 GB+ for a large map or heavy plugins. Rust is also CPU-bound, so a fast single core matters more than extra RAM, and Oxide/uMod or Carbon plugins add load. Empty slots still reserve resources you pay for. See Rust server hosting.

Satisfactory server cost

Around €8-14 a month for a fresh save and €18-25 for a large, complex factory. Co-op is small (usually up to 4 players), so slots barely affect the price — the factory does. Every belt, machine and vehicle is simulation work, and RAM climbs as you build: 6-8 GB runs a fresh or early save, a large factory wants 12 GB+. Start smaller and plan for the upgrade rather than buying 12 GB on day one. See Satisfactory server hosting.

SCP: Secret Laboratory server cost

Roughly €6-12 a month for a typical server. Rounds are usually up to about 25-30 players and the base server is light: 1-2 GB for vanilla, 3-4 GB for a heavy EXILED plugin stack of custom roles and events. That plugin stack is the main thing that raises the cost; a modest modern core runs a full round, and network quality and low ping matter more than raw CPU power. See SCP: Secret Laboratory server hosting.

Sons of the Forest server cost

Around €8-15 a month. Co-op is usually up to 8 players, so you don't pay for big slot counts; a few GB of RAM (4 GB+) runs a typical world, more if bases get large, and dense base areas benefit from a modern high-clock core. What you are really paying for is persistence: a world that stays online and saved when you log off, so friends can play any time. See Sons of the Forest server hosting.

Squad server cost

Roughly €20-40+ a month for a full server — there is no cheap small Squad server, because the game is built for 80-100 players. A full battle needs 8 GB+ of RAM, a strong high-clock CPU to keep hit registration and tick rate solid, and real datacentre bandwidth to serve 100 players every tick, which is also why Squad is impractical to self-host. Workshop mods and SquadJS over RCON add a little on top. See Squad server hosting.

Terraria server cost

One of the cheapest games to host: roughly €5-10 a month covers most servers. Groups are usually 8-16 players and vanilla or TShock needs 1-2 GB of RAM. The only real cost jump is tModLoader with a big modpack such as Calamity or Thorium, which wants 3-6 GB; world size is a minor factor next to mods. See Terraria server hosting.

Valheim server cost

Valheim is light and cheap: roughly €5-10 a month for a small group and €10-15 for a larger or long-lived world. 2-4 GB of RAM runs a small group; 4-8 GB covers a larger party or a long-explored world, which holds more map data over the months. The recommended player count is around 10, so big slot plans are wasted, and BepInEx mods add only a little RAM. For a mixed-platform group, a crossplay-ready host matters more than extra resources. See Valheim server hosting.

So what should you expect to pay?

For most games, a solid small-to-medium server (enough for a friend group or a small community) lands in the range of a couple of cups of coffee per month. Heavy games (Rust, ARK, FiveM) and big communities cost more because they need more CPU and RAM. The honest answer: pay for the RAM and CPU your game actually needs — and make sure Anti-DDoS is included, not extra.

Don't buy the cheapest plan — buy the right amount of RAM and CPU, on a network with real protection. That's the cheapest option that actually works.

Price ranges are typical across providers and vary by configuration; see our plans for current pricing. All game names are trademarks of their owners: 7 Days to Die (The Fun Pimps), ARK: Survival Ascended and ARK: Survival Evolved (Studio Wildcard), Counter-Strike 2 (Valve Corporation), DayZ (Bohemia Interactive), FiveM (operated by Cfx.re, a Rockstar Games company), Garry's Mod and Rust (Facepunch Studios), Minecraft (Mojang Studios / Microsoft), Palworld (Pocketpair, Inc.), Satisfactory (Coffee Stain Studios), SCP: Secret Laboratory (developed by Northwood Studios, based on the SCP Foundation, CC BY-SA 3.0), Sons of the Forest (Endnight Games), Squad (Offworld Industries), Terraria (Re-Logic), Valheim (Iron Gate AB / Coffee Stain Publishing). ESAGAMES is an independent hosting provider, not affiliated with or endorsed by any of them.