Rust Server Hosting: Prices per Slot Compared
Eight hosts, the price each one prints for its entry plan, what that comes to per player slot, and whether the RAM behind it clears Facepunch's own minimum for a dedicated server. Read from each host's Rust page on 29 September 2026; we have no affiliate deal with any of them, so the order below is arithmetic.
Every host's Rust page leads with a slot count and a monthly price, and every comparison article copies the two numbers into a table and calls it a review. The number that matters is the one neither prints: what a slot costs, and what the RAM underneath would carry. A 40-slot plan on 8 GB and a 50-slot plan on 10 GB are not the same product at similar prices; one of them runs a 4,000 map with a plugin list and the other holds up until wipe night. So the table works the price out per slot, in the currency the host printed, and puts the RAM next to it. Facepunch's published minimum for the server itself is “12 GB free RAM (6k map will use more), 15 GB free disc space (SSD/NVMe highly preferred)”, and the plans that clear it are marked.
Two hosts don't fit a per-slot table and are listed anyway. Hosterfy and GameServerKings sell RAM and cores with the slot count left to you, which is the more honest model even if it makes them harder to rank; Hostinger sells a whole VPS with a game panel on it, at a headline price that only holds for a 24-month term. BisectHosting prices per gigabyte but its page doesn't carry the figure as text, so it gets its features and no number. If you would rather not pay anyone, the self-hosting guide is the free route and the end of this page says when it is the better one.
Rust Server Hosting Compared
Cheapest per slot first. “Per slot” is the plan's printed price divided by its printed slots; where a host prints no slot count there is nothing to divide. RAM in bold clears Facepunch's 12 GB.
| Host | Plan | Price, as printed | Slots | RAM | Per slot | Refund window | Frameworks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shockbyte | Metal | $30.00/monthly | 125 | 12 GB | $0.24 | 72-hour self-serve refund | Oxide auto-install, uMod |
| GTX Gaming | Survivor | $12.66/mo | 50 | 10 GB | $0.25 | 24-hour money-back guarantee | Oxide / uMod / Carbon, one click |
| Pine Hosting | Essential | $14.99/mo | 50 | 8 GB | $0.30 | not stated | Oxide or Carbon, one-click selector |
| G-Portal | 50 slots, 30 days | £31.73 per 30 days | 50 | — | £0.63 | not stated | not stated |
| Hosterfy | Starter | $13.00/month | — | 12 GB | — | 72-hour money-back guarantee | Oxide (uMod), Carbon, Harmony, RustEdit maps |
| GameServerKings | Starter | $13.00/month | — | 12 GB | — | 72-hour money-back guarantee | Vanilla, Oxide or Carbon chosen before first boot |
| Hostinger (Game Panel VPS) | Game Panel 2 | $9.49/mo on a 24-month term, renews at $14.99/mo | — | 8 GB | — | 30-day money-back guarantee | not stated |
| BisectHosting | Per GB of RAM | not shown as text | — | — | — | not stated | Integrated Oxide & Carbon |
Prices as displayed on each host's Rust page on 29 September 2026; hosts change them without notice. GBP figures are not converted.
What the Price Actually Buys
Slots are the cheapest thing a host sells and the thing it advertises, because a slot is a number in a config file. The cost is RAM, and RAM is spent by the map and the plugins, not by the players. Facepunch's own figure is 12 GB free for the server, with the note that a 6k map wants more; GameServerKings publishes the same ladder on its plans, 12 GB to a 4,000 map, 16 GB for 4,250 to 4,500 and 20 GB for 5,000 to 6,000, and GTX names its tiers by world size for the same reason. So the honest reading of an 8 GB plan is a small map and a short plugin list, whatever the slot count says.
On that measure the cheapest plan that clears the 12 GB line on 29 September 2026 was Hosterfy's Starter at $13.00/month. Below the line, Shockbyte's Metal plan is the cheapest slot you can buy at $0.24, and for a group of friends on a 3,000 map that is the right buy; it is the wrong one for a public server that expects a wipe-day queue.
The other line item is the framework. Every host here installs Oxide (uMod) or Carbon from the panel, which is the difference between a vanilla server and one with a kit, a teleport and a clan plugin; the ones that say so on the plan are in the table. Wipe scheduling is the feature to ask about next, since a Rust server that can't change its seed on a timer is a server you are logging into at 7pm on the first Thursday to wipe by hand. Our wipe calendar has the dates.
Host by Host
Shockbyte
- Wood · 40 slots · 8 GB$11.24/monthly
- Fuel · 75 slots · 10 GB$18.74/monthly
- Metal · 125 slots · 12 GB$30.00/monthly
- Calls itself Rust's official partnered host on its own page.
- Auto-wipe support, staging branch, custom maps and Rust+ listed as plan features.
- Quarterly billing shown at 10% off, annual at 25% off.
GTX Gaming
- Survivor · 50 slots · 10 GB$12.66/mo
- Raider · 100 slots · 12 GB$33.30/mo
- Warlord · 160 slots · 16 GB$51.62/mo
- 11 locations, including New York, Dallas and Los Angeles
- Plans are named with a world size, which is the honest way to sell RAM.
- Automated wipes with seed changes on a scheduler, offsite backups on every restart, web RCON.
- Hosting Rust since 2014 by its own account.
Pine Hosting
- Essential · 50 slots · 8 GB$14.99/mo
- Performance · 75 slots · 12 GB$29.99/mo
- Extreme · 100 slots · 16 GB$38.99/mo
- Prices the CPU share per tier as a percentage, which most hosts leave unsaid.
- Anycast DDoS protection described as built in on every server.
- No locations or refund terms on the Rust page itself.
Hosterfy
- Starter · 12 GB$13.00/month
- Standard · 16 GB$32.50/month
- Community · 20 GB$52.00/month
- Dallas, Ashburn, London, Frankfurt
- Sells RAM and cores rather than slots, so there is no per-slot figure to compute.
- Dedicated IPv4 is a +$5.00/mo add-on.
- Automatic 24-hour backups and SFTP on every plan.
GameServerKings
- Starter · 12 GB$13.00/month
- Dallas, Ashburn, London, Frankfurt
- Tiers are described by the map size each RAM step carries: 12 GB to 4000, 16 GB for 4250-4500, 20 GB for 5000-6000.
- Same four locations and refund window as Hosterfy.
- Off-site copy every 24 hours with five restore points; a written 99.9% uptime SLA.
Hostinger (Game Panel VPS)
- Game Panel 2 · 8 GB$9.49/mo
- Game Panel 4 · 16 GB$13.99/mo
- Game Panel 8 · 32 GB$27.99/mo
- Data centres in North America, South America, Europe and Asia
- A VPS with a game panel and root access, not a slot-based game server: you get the whole machine and the Rust template.
- The headline price is a 24-month term; the renewal price is two to three times it and is the number to budget on.
- Weekly backups and DDoS protection on every plan.
G-Portal
- 20 slots, 30 days · 20 slots£17.32 per 30 days
- 50 slots, 30 days · 50 slots£31.73 per 30 days
- Central Europe shown on the plans; others on its locations page
- Prices in pounds on the English page; a 3-day server from £6.92 is the cheapest way to try one.
- 50 GB backup space, FTP and MySQL access, game switching.
- No RAM figure is printed per plan.
BisectHosting
- 21 locations, free transfers between them
- Priced per GB of RAM with monthly, quarterly (10% off), semi-annual (15% off) and annual (20% off) terms, but the page shows the figure only in a script the text does not carry, so none is quoted here.
- Three days of free backups, instance manager, 110+ games on one plan.
Rent It or Host It Yourself
A rented server is $11 to $15 a month for the small plans and $30 to $52 for one that will carry a full map, which over a year is the price of a graphics card. What you are paying for is the part that goes wrong at 3am: the DDoS filtering, the reboot that checks Steam for the update your players already have, the backup from before the plugin that corrupted the save. Every host in the table lists those three, and they are the reason a public server should be rented.
A private server for a handful of friends is a different sum. The server software is a free download, the machine is the PC you already own if it has 12GB to spare while it isn't also running the client, and the work is an evening: SteamCMD, a server.cfg, a start script, Oxide if you want plugins, ownerid for yourself and two ports forwarded on the router. That evening is written up step by step in How to Make a Rust Server, along with the honest list of what breaks. If the machine has to stay on for other people while you are asleep, come back to the table.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best Rust server host?expand_more
There isn't one best host, but there is a cheapest per slot on a given day: on 29 September 2026 it was Shockbyte at $0.24 per slot on its Metal plan. Shockbyte is the one that calls itself Rust's official partnered host. If your friends are in Europe, G-Portal and the Frankfurt or London locations at Hosterfy and GameServerKings are the ones with a European address on the plan itself.
How much does a Rust server cost to rent?expand_more
Entry plans on the pages we checked run from $9.49 to $14.99 a month, and the plans big enough for a full-size map with a plugin list are $30 to $52. The one figure to watch is a promotional term price: Hostinger's $9.49 becomes $14.99 when it renews.
Is there free Rust server hosting?expand_more
None of the eight hosts here sells a free Rust server, and the trials are refund windows (24 hours at GTX, 72 hours at Shockbyte, Hosterfy and GameServerKings, 30 days at Hostinger) rather than free tiers. The free route is your own machine: Facepunch's server is a free download through SteamCMD, and the catch is a PC with 12 GB of RAM to spare and ports you can open. The guide linked below walks through it.
How many slots do I actually need?expand_more
Count the people you would invite, then double it for the friends of friends who turn up on wipe day. A group of five is comfortable on 20 slots; a public server that wants a queue on wipe night is the 75 to 125 slot tier. Slots are cheap; the RAM behind them is what a 4,000-plus map and an Oxide plugin list eat, so read the RAM column before the slot column.
Can I host a Rust server myself instead?expand_more
Yes, and it costs nothing but the machine and the electricity. Facepunch asks for 12 GB of free RAM and 15 GB of disk, more for a 6k map, and the server needs UDP 28015 (or your chosen port) and the RCON port opened on your router. Our how-to-make-a-Rust-server guide covers SteamCMD, server.cfg, Oxide, admin and port forwarding step by step.
Related guides
Set up your own Rust dedicated server with SteamCMD, server.cfg, a start.bat, Oxide plugins, admin, and port forwarding. Plus honest self-host vs host tips
New to Rust? Here's exactly what to do on your first wipe — gathering, your first base, tools, scrap and staying alive. Real numbers, no fluff.