When using the hourly game server hosting option on ServerFlex, users need to add credit to the account before creating the server. This may seem a little odd, but the reason will be obvious in the lines ahead.

The simple answer is: transaction fees.

When an online purchase is made, whether it be by PayPal, Card, Paysafecard or any other method, the vendor (ServerFlex) doesn't receive the full amount paid by the client (you). We  have fixed and percentage based fees deducted from the payment before it reaches us - this is done by the payment provider.

Take an example of an Hourly Minecraft Server on ServerFlex - let's say you play for two hours on a plan that charges $0.05/hour. The total you will need to pay is $0.10 when you come to delete the server. This is a problem. Most payment providers have flat base fees in the range of $0.20-$0.30, plus a variable percentage based fee on top of that.

This means that if we charged your payment method (credit/debit card) just for the time the server has been active, we would lose money on the sale.

To circumvent this issue we have instead decided to add account balances to accounts - this way our users can still use hourly game server hosting with ServerFlex, and we can run a profitable product.

The minimum amount we allow for top-up is 5.00 (USD, EUR, GBP) and this balance will stay in your account until it is used up by your hourly game server products.

Our team is on-hand to help you through any billing related queries. Please contact us via Discord for further assistance.