Turn on wake-on-join and the server takes care of itself. It goes to sleep when the last player leaves, wakes up when somebody connects, and you pay for the hours in between. There is no script to maintain and no machine of your own to keep online.
1000 free credits when you verify your account, no card required
A sleeping server costs €0 of compute
The loop
Set it up once per server. Everything after that is automatic.
When the server sits empty for a while, idle auto-stop shuts it down. You choose the delay, anywhere from 5 minutes to 24 hours, and compute billing stops the moment it does.
A sleeping server keeps its hostname and port. In the in-game server list it stays green and shows "💤 sleeping — join to wake it up", so your friends can see it's still there.
When someone connects, the server starts on its own. Smaller servers hold the connection while the world boots and the player usually walks straight in. Bigger modpacks show a short message asking the player to rejoin in a minute.
Compute is metered only while the server runs, with no rounding up to the hour. Storage is billed separately, and the first 10 GB are free, so a typical friends server sleeps at no cost at all.
Your rules
Waking a server spends your credits, so the feature stays off until you decide otherwise.
Wake-on-join is enabled per server and off by default. You can flip it on in the panel at any time, or already when creating the server, which then waits asleep for its first player.
With the whitelist on, only whitelisted players can wake the server. Anyone else just sees the sleeping message and your balance stays untouched.
If you prefer a button, generate an anonymous wake link and pin it in Discord. Whoever has the link can start the server from a browser, without an account or a Minecraft client, and you can revoke it whenever you like.
FAQ
Most worlds boot in about half a minute. The joining player's connection is held during the first part of the start, so a vanilla or lightly modded server usually comes up in time and the player lands in the game without doing anything. Heavier modpacks take longer, so the first player gets a short message asking them to rejoin in about a minute while the server finishes starting.
Ready when you are
Sign up, verify your account, use your free credits, and start a server from the dashboard.