# Pricing built on honest server hours > Three monthly plans, $49, $79 and $99, each include a fixed number of weighted server hours, transfer and storage. There is no unlimited always-on offer. Nobody is being charged yet: NetCraftGames is pre-launch. *NetCraftGames (NCG) by Charging Bull Software. Last updated: 2026-10-03. Canonical page: https://netcraftgames.com/pricing/* ## The plans | Plan | Price per month | Published games | Standard server hours | Transfer | Storage | Connection ceiling | | --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | | Creator | $49 | 10 | 40 | 10 GiB | 10 GiB | 50 | | Maker | $79 | 25 | 80 | 25 GiB | 25 GiB | 100 | | Studio | $99 | 50 | 120 | 40 GiB | 50 GiB | 150 | > **Not yet purchasable** > > These are the plan settings built into the product today. Checkout is disabled until the launch checks pass, no charge has ever been made, and the numbers may change before launch. Join the [waitlist](https://netcraftgames.com/waitlist/) to be told when they are final. ## All plans at a glance | Plan | Price per month | Published games | Standard server hours | Transfer | Storage | Connection ceiling | | --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | | Creator | $49 | 10 | 40 | 10 GiB | 10 GiB | 50 | | Maker | $79 | 25 | 80 | 25 GiB | 25 GiB | 100 | | Studio | $99 | 50 | 120 | 40 GiB | 50 GiB | 150 | The connection ceiling is the number of simultaneous player connections a plan allows across browser WebSocket gateway sessions and WebRTC signaling. ## How weighted server hours work An hour is spent only while a server is running and verified ready. Startup time is not counted. A bigger server spends hours faster: | Server profile | Resources | Hours used per wall-clock hour | | --- | --- | ---: | | Standard | 2 vCPU, 4 GiB memory | 1 | | Large | 4 vCPU, 8 GiB memory | 2 | So 40 standard hours on the Creator plan is one standard server running about 1.3 hours a day for a month, or two or three servers for a short test weekend. It is not a month of always-on hosting. Plans with more hours cost less per hour, so the Studio plan is cheaper per hour than Creator if you use them. ## The capacity boost The **capacity boost** costs $19 one time and adds 20 standard server hours and 5 GiB of transfer ($0.95 per hour). Boost balances carry forward while your subscription is active. Hosting requires an active subscription. A boost costs more per hour than moving up a plan, on purpose: if you need extra hours every month, a bigger plan is cheaper. ## Rules that surprise people, stated up front - **Unused base hours expire** at renewal. Boost hours carry forward while the subscription is active. - **Hosting requires an active subscription.** Without one there is no capacity. - **No automatic overage purchase.** When hours run out, servers are saved and stopped rather than silently billed. - **No unlimited always-on.** Keeping a game awake spends prepaid hours. - **Idle shutdown protects your hours.** If your server reports player counts, it stops after ten continuous minutes with zero players. See [the idle shutdown guide](https://netcraftgames.com/guides/idle-shutdown-empty-servers/). - **Region.** Servers run in `us-east-1` only. ## Limits you should know about | Limit | Current value | | --- | --- | | Browser WebSocket gateway: largest frame | 64 KiB | | Browser WebSocket gateway: rate per connection | up to 120 messages and 2 MiB per second | | WebRTC signaling: largest message | 16 KiB | | WebRTC room size | 2 to 16 peers; rooms expire after two hours | | Idle shutdown | after 10 continuous minutes with zero players (needs player-count reporting) | | Region | us-east-1 only | ## Is this cheaper than renting a server yourself? Per raw hour, no. A bare cloud virtual machine costs less per hour than a plan hour, and if you are comfortable operating Linux servers, self-hosting can be the cheaper path. What the plan buys is the work around the machine: reading your submission, producing the connection config, deploying and verifying it, shutting down empty servers, saving state and emailing a concrete fix when something fails. See [alternatives compared](https://netcraftgames.com/compare/) and the [cheap hosting guide](https://netcraftgames.com/guides/host-multiplayer-game-server-cheaply/) for the trade-offs. ## What is not decided yet Refund and cancellation terms, tax handling and the support commitments will be in the Terms before launch. The draft [Terms](https://netcraftgames.com/terms/) are not final. ## Frequently asked questions ### How much does NetCraftGames cost? The plans are Creator at $49 a month, Maker at $79 and Studio at $99, plus a one-time $19 capacity boost. They are product settings, not live prices: nobody can buy them yet because NetCraftGames is pre-launch. Join the waitlist to be told when pricing is final. ### What is a weighted server hour? It is one hour of a running, verified-ready server, multiplied by the server's size. A standard server of 2 vCPU and 4 GiB uses one hour per hour; a large server of 4 vCPU and 8 GiB uses two. Startup time is not counted, and sleeping servers use nothing. ### Is there an unlimited plan? No. Every plan has a fixed number of weighted server hours, and keeping a game awake spends them. Unused base hours expire at renewal. When hours run out, servers are saved and stopped instead of being billed automatically, because no automatic overage purchase exists. ## Related pages - [Idle shutdown: why paying for empty servers is waste](https://netcraftgames.com/guides/idle-shutdown-empty-servers/): Why paying for empty game servers is waste, how much it costs in hours, how idle shutdown works safely, and what your server must report for it to work. - [How to host a multiplayer game server cheaply](https://netcraftgames.com/guides/host-multiplayer-game-server-cheaply/): Honest ways to host a multiplayer game server cheaply: stop idle hours, right-size, mind egress, use free tiers and decide when managed hosting is worth it. - [Multiplayer hosting alternatives, compared fairly](https://netcraftgames.com/compare/): A fair, dated comparison of NetCraftGames with Unity Multiplay, Edgegap, Amazon GameLift, PlayFab, Photon and self-hosting, using only sourced facts.