Tebex vs CraftingStore vs MineLabz vs Donation Store

December 25, 2024 | Minecraft Donations | 6 minutes read

Have you ever wanted to accept donations on your Minecraft server, but are unsure if the services are overpriced? 

To help you find an affordable solution, we have reviewed and compared Tebex, CraftingStore, and MineLabz in terms of pricing, and features.

What is Tebex?

Tebex is a gaming monetization platform that offers donation stores for various games, including Minecraft. Before rebranding to its current name, Tebex was also known as BuyCraft. 

While BuyCraft was dedicated to Minecraft servers only, Tebex is a more complex solution, which offers donation services for the most popular games.

Each of their store solutions is packed with feature-rich modules, including advanced payment gateways, and the option to host under their name.

In regards to Tebex’s pricing, they offer freemium solutions, meaning you can start free. The free plan comes with:

• Ability to create and sell unlimited products

• Accept payments globally

• Protection from fraud and chargeback

• Support for all game servers

• Analytics 

• Tebex templates (Premium)

• Free Tebex templates (from BuiltByBit)

• Tebex Store builder (addon from Fragmentor)

• Premade webstore

• Tebex coupon codes creator

• Free Tebex Custom Domain (subdomain)

However, on each sale, you will need to pay a 5% commission to Tebex, and additional fees to payment processors.

If you want to go for their paid plan, you will be charged $14 monthly, and receive the following features:

• Everything from the starter plan

• HTML/CSS Editor for your webstore

• Sales, coupons, and gift card options

• Abandoned cart recovery

• Followups for purchases

• Team accounts

• Custom domain

Free SSL certificate

What is CraftingStore 

CraftingStore is a close Tebex alternative in terms of monetization solutions, which offers advanced solutions for popular games. 

While they offer payment systems for games like Rust, CSGO, Unturned, and others, their most popular option is Minecraft.

In terms of taxes and payments, CraftingStore doesn’t take any cuts or fees. The only fee required to be paid is to the payment providers.

And, if you want to sign up with CraftingStore, they have freemium solutions like a free plan and 3 paid plans.

• The free plan offers:

• Unlimited servers

• Unlimited products

• Unlimited Payments

• Limited refunds

• CraftingStore templates (paid)

• CraftingStore plugin (used for your Minecraft server)

• Coupon Codes

• Free subdomain

Going for their $10 silver plan unlocks:

• Maintenance mode

• HTTPS on custom domains

• Instant payment processing

• Subscriptions

• Gift cards

• HTML/CSS Editor

To unlock more features such as page builders, blog editors, and more, you must upgrade to their gold plan, which costs $15 monthly.

What is MineLabz

MineLabz is a self-hosted donation system, which is managed on WordPress. It’s the newest product available on the store, and the first WordPress-dedicated solution that works with “offline”, and “online” Minecraft servers.

In terms of game availability like Tebex, and CraftingStore, MineLabz is Minecraft-focused, meaning, our mission is to provide quality-of-life updates for Minecraft only.

If we look into the product pricing, MineLabz currently offers only 1 plan, priced at $5.95 monthly, and offers the following:

• Unlimited Servers

• Unlimited Products

• Unlimited Refunds

• Coupon Codes

• Free subdomain

• DDoS Protection

• Referrals

• Free website templates

• Free SSL certificates

• CMS 

• Display top donator
  
• Display top-selling donator product

• And much more

You can also continuously upgrade your webstore, and choose between hundreds of payment methods. MineLabz doesn’t take fees for sales, but payment processors do.

What is Donation Store

Donation Store is yet another great Tebex alternative for Minecraft server monetization. Its main category lies in setting up donation stores for multiple games, but we are here to look at Minecraft’s category.

For Minecraft, they have 2 special plans available, and they are Basic and Standard.

The basic plan is free until it reaches over 250 euros per month but has limited features.

However, if you wish to upgrade to their standard plan, it starts from 11 euros per month for a revenue of 2,500 euros in donations. For this price, you get all the features, including live support and full updates.

Additionally, you can get self-hosted for 125 euro one time and receive the following:

• Hosted by your own server and terms
• All the features offered
• License to use their tool
• 12 months of updates (renewal afterward)
• No transactions limit
• Standard support as in the free plan, and community support.
• The ability to host 1 server network

You can also pay Donation Store to receive 60 days live support for 60 euros, and 30 euros for an installation service.

Tebex vs CraftingStore vs MineLabz vs Donation Store Price Comparison

Which has the best pricing?

In terms of pricing for features, MineLabz is a Tebex alternative that comes with the ideal solutions for starting Minecraft servers, who want to collect payments without paying extra fees.

For security and management, MineLabz can help you manage your website, and continuously improve your server.

We also have a blog section, dedicated to helping you improve your server popularity and selling efforts.

Which has the most features?

CraftingStore is the Minecraft server donations provider, with the most features, including custom Discord bots, which help server owners stand out from the crowd. The only downside of using CraftingStore is its security.

CraftingStore requires a $25 monthly plan for dedicated protection, including advanced support, unlike, MineLabz and Tebex, which offer it free.

Which is more secure?

Tebex, MineLabz, and CtaftingStore offer secure solutions in terms of data protection. All 3 websites have a data privacy policy, and do not store any sensitive user information.

Which donation plugin is self-hosted?

Both Donation Store and MineLabz are Tebex alternatives that allow self-hosting in terms of freedom. However, comparing Donation Store and MineLabz, our donations tool seems more affordable, since we do not take money for setups.

CraftingStore vs Tebex vs MineLabz – Conclusion

If we compare CraftingStore or Tebex to MineLabz, we could say MineLabz is the best and cheapest solution. You have the full freedom to manage your website and not pay fees.

Rad Ivanov

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.