How to Advertise a Minecraft Server and Get Players (2026)

The fastest way to get players on a new Minecraft server is to list it on the major server lists, set up a voting plugin that rewards votes, and run a Discord alongside it. Everything else, including paid ads, works better once those three are in place. This guide covers the free methods first and the paid ones after.

Current as of Minecraft Java 26.3 and Bedrock 26.50 (Wilderness Bound).

You’ve set up your Minecraft server, but how do you get it popular? There are many factors involved, including offering a quality gaming experience, active staff, and of course advertising. Advertising can be as simple as submitting your server to voting sites or more complex like paying for ads.

Before You Advertise: Get the Server Ready

This part matters more than any advertising you do. Getting a player to join is easy. Getting them to stay is the hard bit, and if they log in to an empty half-finished world they will not come back a second time.

Run through this list before you post anywhere:

• Finish your setup. Builds, permissions, ranks, shops, and spawn should all be done. A player who spawns into a flat dirt field will leave in thirty seconds.
• Get a proper address. A domain like play.myserver.net is far easier to remember and share than a string of numbers. Most hosts let you point a subdomain at your server for free. If your server doesn’t use the default port, add an SRV record to your domain so Java players don’t have to type the port (Bedrock players still need it).
• Pick one thing you do well. Survival, skyblock, lifesteal, Cobblemon, whatever it is. Servers that try to be everything at once are the hardest to advertise because there is nothing specific to say about them.
• Have your plugins sorted. At minimum you want grief protection and basic moderation tools before strangers arrive.
• Invite your friends first. New players are much more likely to stay if somebody is already online when they join.

Server Lists and Vote Sites (Free)

Server lists are still where most new players go looking for somewhere to play. Submitting your server is free and it is the single highest value thing you can do on day one.

Here are lists that are active in 2026:

• Minecraft Server List
• Minecraft Servers (.org)
• TopG
• Minecraft Buzz
• Planet Minecraft

New lists appear and old ones quietly die, so before you spend an hour writing a listing, check that the site is actually alive. A good list shows live player counts and has servers that were updated in the last day or two. If the front page is full of servers that have been offline for months, skip it.

Spend real time on the description. Most people submit two sentences and wonder why nobody clicks. Say what game mode you run, what makes it different, what version and edition you support, and whether Bedrock players can join. Add screenshots and a banner.

Once listed, you will get links where your players can vote (usually daily or twice daily) for your server to increase its rank. These links should be put together somewhere easily accessible on your server’s website or in your Discord. It is an effective strategy to reward players for voting. NuVotifier is the plugin that receives votes from the lists, and you pair it with a reward plugin like VotingPlugin to actually hand out rewards, such as points to spend on perks, in-game cash, or items like diamonds or xp bottles.

On my previous servers I have found it effective to provide a reward that can only be obtained through voting. If you award 3 diamonds for voting but a player already has a chest of diamonds, why would they bother voting? I recommend awarding “points” or tokens to buy valuable ranks, perks, or items in a special shop. If you are selling ranks as well, have a look at our Minecraft rank names and donation ideas and make sure whatever you sell follows Mojang’s Minecraft Usage Guidelines.

Paid Advertising: These vote sites let you pay for a premium spot usually at the top of their homepage. These spots are usually sold in an auction to the highest bidder and bids can reach hundreds of dollars for a month.

Why Can’t the Server Lists Find My Server?

This trips up almost everyone the first time, and a reader asked about it in the comments below. When you submit your server, the list pings your IP and port to check it is online. If the ping fails, your listing gets rejected or shows as offline. Here is what to check:

• Is the server actually running right now? The list checks it at the moment you submit.
• Are you using your public IP? An address starting with 192.168 or 10.0 is your local network address and nobody outside your house can reach it.
• Is the port open? Java servers use port 25565 by default. If you also let Bedrock players join (for example with GeyserMC), they connect on port 19132, which uses UDP instead of TCP. If you are self hosting, those ports need to be forwarded in your router. If you run on a different port, include it in the submission.
• Is status enabled? In your server.properties file, enable-status needs to be set to true, otherwise your server will not answer pings at all.
• Are you on a host? Use the exact address your host gave you, including the port if there is one.

The quickest test is to paste your address into any server status checker site. If that cannot see it either, the problem is your server or your network, not the list.

Discord (Free)

Discord is where Minecraft communities actually live now, and a server without one is at a real disadvantage. It gives players somewhere to go when they are not in game, which is most of the day.

• Make the Discord before you advertise and put the invite link in every listing you write.
• List the Discord itself. Discord server directories like Disboard work the same way Minecraft server lists do, with bumping and categories.
• Post in other community Discords. Many large Minecraft community servers have an advertising or partners channel. Read their rules first, since posting in the wrong channel gets you banned quickly.
• Reward invites. Bots can track who invited who, so you can hand out in-game rewards for bringing people in.

TikTok and YouTube Shorts (Free)

Short vertical video is how most younger players find servers now, and it costs nothing but time. A clip of something genuinely interesting happening on your server will reach more people than a forum post ever will.

What tends to work is a specific moment rather than a tour. A huge build going up in timelapse, a boss fight, a chaotic lifesteal clip, a base getting raided. Put the server address on screen and in the caption, and keep the clip under thirty seconds.

New game drops are a great moment for this. When an update like Wilderness Bound comes out, players go looking for servers that already have it, so a clip of your players exploring the new dappled forest can pull in people who are searching for exactly that.

You can also approach small YouTubers and streamers directly. Someone with a few thousand subscribers is far more likely to reply than a big channel, and their audience is usually more likely to actually join.

Reddit (Free)

The subreddit /r/mcservers is another free place to advertise your server. I recommend making a post here with similar information as your listings (i.e., how to join, features, screenshots, link to your Discord). Be sure to follow the rules of the subreddit to avoid your post being deleted by the moderators.

Unlike forums, posts on Reddit will fall down after a while simply due to their age. New comments will not “bump” the post to the top of the page. Therefore, you can re-post every once in a while to make sure it is visible. Check the subreddit’s rules for how often reposting is allowed first.

Forums (Free)

Forums used to be the main way servers got found. That has changed a lot. Minecraft Forum closed its server list back in 2018 and the site is a shadow of what it was, so it is no longer worth building a strategy around.

Planet Minecraft is the one that is still worth your time. Your thread should showcase all the features of your server and is your opportunity to convince interested players to join. The thread should also include detailed instructions on how to join (Is there a whitelist? How does the player get whitelisted? What is the IP?), a link to your Discord, what plugins your server uses, and some screenshots.

Once you make a thread, it is important to keep it active so it is regularly “bumped” to the top of the page. One strategy to do so is by requiring players to post their in-game name in order to get whitelisted. This way, each time a player is interested in the server your thread will be bumped. You can also bump the thread by posting that you have whitelisted all the newest players.

Tip: Be sure to follow the rules of the forum you are posting in, otherwise your post could be locked or deleted. Avoid excessively “bumping” your post to the top and do it in a respectful manner.

Paid Advertising

With all types of advertising, it is important to advertise directly to your audience, especially if you’re paying for it. Do not spend money here until the free methods are working, because paid traffic landing on a weak server just wastes the money faster.

• Sponsored slots on server lists. Usually the best value paid option, because everyone clicking is already looking for a server to join.
• YouTube. Very popular with Minecraft players and it’s possible to place text or video ads on related videos. I like this platform because you are targeting people who are currently looking specifically for Minecraft videos. In other words, you target current players.
• Paying a creator directly. A sponsored video or a stream on your server from a small creator often beats an ad, because it comes with a recommendation attached.
• Social ads. Cheap and very targetable, but you run the risk of advertising to people who may like Minecraft but are not currently playing the game.

You can also buy ad space directly on Minecraft-related websites. Most sites will have an “advertise” or “contact” link at the bottom of the page where you can message the owner. The price depends on how popular the site is, and it is usually easier to negotiate with smaller ones.

Tips For Getting Popular

• Be unique! Why should players join your server instead of the others? Your server needs to be different and fill a need that is going unfilled.
• Encourage Referrals. You should reward your players when they bring their friends to the server. This encourages word-of-mouth recruitment which shouldn’t be underestimated. Just make sure the rewards are large enough that it’s worth it for players to participate.
• Show off your server. If you want new players to join, you have to convince them that your server is the best option. Screenshots of your spawn and your best builds do more work than any description you write.
• Have Active Staff! This is probably one of the #1 factors in the success of a server. I’ve played on so many servers that were incredible, but once the admins stopped adding updates and events, everyone started to leave!

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it against the rules to pay for votes on a Minecraft server?

Rewarding your own players for voting is fine and is how nearly every server does it. Buying fake votes from a service is against the rules of every server list and will get your server delisted. Any perks you sell for real money also need to follow Mojang’s Minecraft Usage Guidelines.

Should my server let Bedrock players join?

If you can, yes. Phone and console players are a huge part of Minecraft’s audience, and a Java server with GeyserMC lets them join without buying Java Edition. It’s also worth putting “Java and Bedrock” in every listing, since many players filter for it.

Should I update my server as soon as a new drop comes out?

Update as soon as your plugins support the new version, but not before. Back up first, and install ViaVersion so players on the newest version can still join while you wait. Once you’ve updated, announce it everywhere, because players look for servers with the new content.

That concludes our guide on how to advertise your Minecraft server! What has worked best for your server? Leave a comment below.