Making money from Minecraft servers can be a great way to upkeep hosting costs, pay staff for maintenance, or push new updates.
However, not many server owners succeed with maintaining a profitable Minecraft server, and close doors sooner than you think.
To prevent you from losing money from your Minecraft server, we have found the best ways to make money from Minecraft donations. Our guide covers the best products you can sell, including how to monetize your server cheaply.
How many Minecraft servers are profitable?
From the beginning of Minecraft and the server industry, more than 1 million Minecraft servers were created, of which only 15% have made roughly profits.
These statistics are based on server tracking and the reputation of servers, which were created from 2010 until now.
These statistics also include large server networks and small/hobby servers.
By that, we identify each type as:
- Major servers: Large, popular, and profitable Minecraft servers such as Hypixel, Mineplex, or ManaCube, which have substantial player bases, and many monetization strategies, which deem to turn their networks profitable.
- Mid-sized servers: These servers earn modest profits through merchandise purchases, donations, and/or advertisements from outside the game – for example, Loverfella’s server.
- Small and Hobby servers: Newly launched and not-so-popular servers, which often start at a loss, or run as a hobby for small communities. Most of these servers have now migrated to Minecraft Realms.
How to make Money from Minecraft server donations
To start making money from your Minecraft server, you need to choose a type of server to host, and a donation store to set up, and select what in-game items you wish to sell.
Selecting a Minecraft server to monetize
Before making money from donations on your Minecraft server, you need to choose the type of server you want to host. To help you pick the right choice, we have outlined the most profitable server types.
But before you pick, make sure you understand the concept of the server genre, or this may not work out as planned.
Skyblock Servers (35%)
Skyblock servers are the most popular genre in Minecraft. It consists of players landing on a small sky island, which allows them to style and build their homes as preferred.
Nonetheless, each Skyblock server features a unique playstyle, which may include placing minions, generators, and other types of items, enhancing the mechanics of the game.
For example, Hypixel and Manacube use real-world money to purchase in-game items and cosmetics to optimize and beautify their islands.
Survival Servers (30%)
Survival servers feature the Vanilla Minecraft experience and aim to provide players with the basic rules of the game.
However, in most servers, you will find additional features such as extra items, and more enchantments, including cosmetic items.
While survival servers differ from Skyblock, they also bring a lot of money through donations due to the focus on long-term progression in the server.
It’s also fairly simple to run a survival server, as it relies building on existing land and mechanics, implemented in the game, whereas in Skyblock, you need to build an entirely new world, with different mechanics – for example, mining in caves, building nether portals, etc.
One of our favorite and loved servers in the survival genre is WildWood, which features multiple types of SMP and has exclusive in-game perks for sale.
Factions Servers (25%)
Factions are another popular type of server genre, where players are gathered and divided into different groups of teams or even clans, with one simple objective – Conquer land.
In the factions realm of Minecraft, players are less dedicated but still very active in making in-game purchases, as the wider audience in Minecraft prefers PvP-oriented content.
For example, players who play on factions servers prefer to purchase ranks, weapons, or even boosts, for faster land conquering, and advancing in Factions.
A great example of such servers are CosmicPvP, and TheArchon, where the community is entirely dedicated to maximizing their efforts towards their factions.
Roleplay Servers (10%)
Roleplaying servers are one of the lesser preferred variants for making money from donations on Minecraft. A reason for that is the smaller community, which is dedicated to the roleplaying genre.
A couple of notable servers, which feature roleplaying in Minecraft are Wynncraft & SchoolRP, which bring income from donations on roleplaying perks, ranks, and mainly cosmetics.
However, roleplaying servers bring only 10% in donations, compared to the other 3 popular server types.
Choosing a donation store for monetizing the server
Once you have chosen the type of server, you wish to create, it is time to decide how you will monetize it.
Donation stores are the most popular way to make money from donations in Minecraft, and we have gathered a few popular donation stores that could help you start monetizing right away.
Tebex and MineLabz are the most popular options for making money from Minecraft donations.
Both these stores offer valuable features and give server owners the opportunity to create and sell in-game items, currencies, and many others, from donations.
However, each of these comes with different requirements.
For example, if you want to start using MineLabz donations, you will need to self-host a website, but can enhance it with our popular solution Donations Alerts.
This Minecraft plugin allows server owners to display donations made directly on your Minecraft server.
On the other side, Tebex offers you direct store setup from inside their website and will host your store on their platform.
Both platforms have great starter prices, but Tebex will take a tax percentage from each donation made on your server, while MineLabz uses payment gateways, which tax you based on your country. We don’t take any taxes when operating our plugin.
Selling in-game items that increase donations on Minecraft servers
After picking the server type and type of donation store you want to host, you will need to figure our what kind of donation items you want to include.
Below we have added a list of the most popular in-game perks sold to make profits for most Minecraft servers.
- Ranks: In-game ranks, which distinguish the donating from non-donating players. Each rank comes with extra features, including rank cosmetics and more.
- Skins & cosmetics: Exclusive in-game cosmetic items, which can be acquired by donating to the server.
- Currencies: Special in-game currencies used for purchases or boosts on servers.
- Crates & keys: Unique keys, which can unlock powerful items with a chance to win amazing rewards.
These items are used on most Minecraft servers, including the most popular ones. Additionally, servers like 2b2t sell priority slots, which are a great addition for busy Minecraft servers, with limited player slots.
More about in-game items that sell can be found in our dedicated article, about the top-selling donator items for Minecraft servers.
Rad is the lead writer for the MineLabz team, dedicated to writing content for Minecraft enthusiasts. Combining Minecraft and Marketing, Rad creates all kinds of articles for the server development community.
