How much does an ARK server cost?Four plans - and why map and play style decide

Published on October 5, 2026

Prices at a glance

Four plans, all prepaid and without a contract. The buttons take you to the order with the plan already selected:

The plans apply to ARK: Survival Evolved, the original edition. We don't sell slots - the "Best for" column describes the use case, not a limit.

Which plan for which world?

The four plans follow the guideline values for memory:

• Plan S to get started: a small group on The Island, without mods, with default or slightly adjusted rates.
• Plan M for the regular group that plays for weeks, sets custom rates and uses a handful of Workshop mods.
• Plan L for sprawling maps such as Ragnarok or Fjordur with a serious mod list.
• Plan XL for the world that has been running for months: many tribes, large bases, hundreds of tamed creatures.

If you are starting fresh, S for €9.99 / month or M for €13.99 / month is the right choice. A typical sign of a bottleneck is a server that gets slower over the course of a session and recovers after a restart.

What drives the price

In ARK, the requirement depends less on the player count than in almost any other game. Four factors drive it:

• Tamed creatures. Every dino is simulated permanently, with stats, hunger and position - even when nobody is nearby.
• Structures. Every foundation, every wall and every storage box counts.
• The map. Large maps bring more area and more wild creatures than The Island.
• Mods. Structure and creature mods quickly multiply the requirement.

This leads to something that is often overlooked when planning: after three months, an ARK server needs more than on day one, without a single additional player. If you size for the first evening, you will switch later. That is not a mistake but the normal course of things - as long as switching stays easy.

Evolved instead of Ascended: the price difference lies in the edition

ARK exists in two editions, and the choice has a direct effect on cost. Survival Evolved is the original version with the well-known maps, a huge library of Workshop mods and much more moderate resource needs than the remastered version. Our plans refer to Survival Evolved.

For a group that mainly wants to play together and values the mod library, that is the more affordable decision.

A second point concerns the maps: each map keeps its own save, and only one map runs at a time. Switching starts a new world without deleting the old one - you can go back at any time. For the plan, that means: you size for the map that is currently running, not for all of them together.

What is included in the price

• All official maps at no extra charge.
• Steam Workshop mods via their mod IDs.
• Freely adjustable rates and full access to GameUserSettings.ini and Game.ini in the config editor.
• Admin commands and RCON for moderation and announcements.
• Task scheduler for fixed restart times plus automatic updates.
• DDoS protection up to 250 Gbit/⁠s, located in Frankfurt am Main, provisioned in around 120 seconds.

Automatic backups are not included. You back up the world file, profiles and tribe data yourself via the web file manager or SFTP - only all three together make a complete save.

Keeping costs low

With ARK, cleaning up often helps more than upgrading. Four measures before you order the next plan:

1. Let abandoned structures decay. The setting for this is in GameUserSettings.ini and is one of the most effective of all.
2. Limit the number of dinos. A limit per tribe keeps the biggest item under control.
3. Schedule restarts. ARK builds up memory over hours. Fixed times in the task scheduler keep the server stable.
4. Review your mods. What nobody uses any more still costs resources.

If that is not enough, you upgrade yourself in the customer interface; the save is kept. And because everything is prepaid, you can run a server seasonally: download the save, let the credit run out, order again later and restore it. How that works without a contract is explained on Game servers without a contract.

Frequently asked questions