How to Vote in Rust: Server Voting & /claim Rewards

When a Rust server tells you to "vote," it means this: vote for the server on a public server-ranking site, then claim a reward in-game. Votes push the server up the rankings, the rankings bring in new players, and the server pays you for the favor. It's not a base-game feature — vanilla and official servers don't have it. It's a plugin convention on community and modded servers, but it's so widespread that the flow is nearly identical everywhere.

The short version

1. chevron_rightType /vote in chat. On most servers this prints the server's voting links.
2. chevron_rightOpen a link and vote for the server on the ranking site — Rust-Servers.net, Rustservers.gg, BestServers.com, and similar lists are the common ones.
3. chevron_rightCome back in-game and type /claim. The server checks the site's API, confirms your vote, and hands out whatever reward the owner configured.

That's the whole loop. Some servers also have a /rewardlist command that shows what you get at each vote milestone — and on some setups you don't even need /claim: the server's vote bot detects the vote and pays out automatically within a few minutes, or credits it the next time you join if you voted while offline.

How the check actually works

The voting sites expose an API that server plugins query. Rust-Servers.net, for example, lets a server check whether a given player has voted in the last 24 hours and whether that vote has already been claimed — matched by SteamID (if you signed in through Steam on the site), Discord ID, or username. Popular uMod plugins like EasyVote, Vote For Money, and Voter Rewards sit on top of these APIs and handle the whole verify-and-pay flow automatically.

Two practical consequences:

• chevron_rightVoting is roughly a once-a-day thing per site. The sites track votes in a 24-hour window, so you can usually vote once per day on each list the server is registered on. Servers listed on several sites give you several votes to claim. Across a full wipe cycle that daily habit adds up — on milestone-based servers the late-wipe rewards are the good ones.
• chevron_rightYour identity has to match. If the site can't tie the vote to your Steam account or in-game name, /claim finds nothing. Voting through the link the server gives you (rather than searching the site yourself) and signing in with Steam where offered avoids most of this.

What rewards you get

Whatever the server owner decided — there is no standard. Rewards are configured per server, and many run cumulative milestones: a small reward for your first vote, better ones as your lifetime vote count climbs. Common setups pay out resources, scrap, or server currency, but the specifics vary so much between servers that any exact numbers you read online are wrong for the server you're actually on. Check /rewardlist, the server's Discord, or its shop page for the real list.

A second common model is vote points: instead of a fixed payout, each vote banks a point, and a /reward command lists what you can spend them on — /reward <ID> buys the item you pick. Point systems are worth checking early in a wipe, because saving a week of points for one big reward usually beats claiming small ones daily. Either way, make sure you have inventory space before claiming — plugins handle a full inventory inconsistently, and it's not worth finding out how yours does.

When it doesn't work

If /claim says you haven't voted, it's almost always one of these: the vote hasn't registered yet (give it a minute or two), you voted under a name or account the site can't match to you, or you already claimed today's vote. If none of that fits, the server's plugin may only be watching some of the sites it's listed on — ask an admin which links actually pay out.

And if you're voting because you love the server, good — that's the system working. Server owners rely on votes for visibility, and a daily /vote plus /claim habit costs you thirty seconds. If you're still hunting for a server worth that loyalty, our server browser tracks live population, wipe schedules, and modifiers across thousands of servers — filter for what you want and check its ranking from there. New to the game entirely? Start with the beginner's guide and our 50 tips first; vote rewards won't save you from your first wipe.