Help
Written for people who have never rented a server before. If your question isn't here, ask us — that's how most of these got written.
What this is, and what happens when you make your first server.
It's a game server you rent by the hour instead of by the month. You pick a game, give the server a name, and we set it up and run it for you on our own hardware.
The point of it is that the server keeps running whether or not your computer is on. Your friends can play in your world while you're at work, and nobody has to leave a PC switched on at home.
No. Everything happens in your web browser, and you never touch a settings file, a command line, or your home router.
You choose a game and a size, and we handle the rest — installing it, keeping it running, and giving you an address to share. If you can join a friend's server, you can run one here.
A few minutes. Your dashboard shows the server building and tells you the moment it's ready — you don't have to sit and watch it, and nothing is lost if you close the tab.
Modpacks take longer than a plain game, because there's a lot more to install before the first player can join.
Your server gets its own address, shown on its page in your dashboard. Send that to your friends, and they paste it into the game's "add server" or "join by address" box. That's the whole process.
They don't need an Instances account, and they don't pay anything. Only the person who created the server is charged for it.
What you can run, and what to do if we don't host it yet.
Minecraft — both Java and Bedrock editions — several ready-made Minecraft modpacks, Valheim, and Project Zomboid, with more being added.
The games page has the current list, and each game has its own page showing what it costs to run and what you can change about it.
Yes, if it's one of the modpacks we host. A modpack is a bundle of mods that have been tested together, and we install and configure the whole bundle for you — there's nothing to download or set up on your side beyond installing the same pack in your own game.
We don't currently support uploading your own custom set of mods. If there's a pack you want that we don't have yet, tell us — it's the most useful thing you can send us.
Yes. You create a second server for the other game, and each one keeps its own world, entirely separate from the other.
Because you're only charged for a server while it's running, having two costs no more than having one, as long as you're only playing one at a time. Stop the one you've finished with and start the other.
Ask us for it. There's a form for exactly this, and it takes about a minute — the edition or version matters, and so does roughly how many of you would play, because that's what tells us which games are actually worth adding next.
We can't promise any particular game, and we won't pretend otherwise. But every game we've added so far got there because somebody asked.
How pay-as-you-play works, and the one thing worth knowing about stopped servers.
You pay for the hours your server actually runs. There's no monthly subscription, no minimum, and no contract to get out of — a server that ran for three hours this month costs you three hours.
We add up what you've used at the end of each calendar month and charge your saved card once, for that total. You can see what you've run up so far at any point in your account.
Almost entirely, and this is the one thing worth understanding properly. Stopping a server stops the expensive part — the computing power it uses while people are playing.
What carries on is a much smaller charge for keeping your world saved and waiting for you. That's the trade: your world is still there next weekend, and you're paying a little to hold onto it rather than paying to run a server nobody is using.
If you want a server to cost you nothing at all, delete it. Download your world first if you might want it back — deleting is final.
It depends on the game and the size you pick, so every game's page shows its own hourly prices rather than us quoting one number that's wrong for most people.
The useful way to think about it: work out roughly how many hours a week you and your friends actually play, and multiply. For most groups playing a couple of evenings a week, that's a much smaller number than a monthly server plan, because you aren't paying for the nights nobody logs in.
You're not tied in. There's nothing to cancel, because there's no subscription — stop or delete your servers and the charges stop with them.
You can close your account entirely from your account settings, or by emailing us. As a consumer buying online you also have a legal right to cancel within 14 days, and because you only ever pay for what you've used, that simply means you pay for the hours you ran and nothing else.
Changing your mind after it's up — size, location, and getting your world back out.
Yes, and your world is not affected. Server size is just how much power it's given to run with — bigger costs more per hour and copes with more players or heavier modpacks.
So you don't have to get it right first time. Start with the size we suggest for your game, and if it feels sluggish with everyone online, move it up. If you've gone quiet, move it down and pay less.
Yes. Once it's running it stays running on our hardware until you stop it, so your friends can play at three in the morning whether or not you're awake.
You decide when it runs. Most people start it when they sit down to play and stop it when they're done, which is what keeps the cost down.
You choose a location when you create it, from a list covering Europe, North and South America, and Asia-Pacific.
It matters for one reason: the further the server is from the people playing, the more lag they get. Pick the location closest to most of your group — not necessarily closest to you.
No, and we'd rather say so plainly than let you find out the hard way. There's no backup or restore service here — if a world is lost, we can't produce yesterday's copy of it.
Some games save their own snapshots onto the server as they go, but that's the game doing it, not us, and it disappears along with the server if you delete it.
So if a world matters to you, download a copy of it now and again. It takes a moment, and it's the only thing that actually protects you.
Yes. There's a Download Game Data option on each server, which gives you your world files to keep. It's yours; we're just holding it.
It's worth doing before you delete a server, and worth doing occasionally anyway if the world matters to you.
Who can see what, and what happens if you leave.
Our staff can access your data only where it's needed to run the service or to fix something you've asked us to fix. Payments are handled by Stripe, so your full card number never reaches us at all.
Our privacy policy sets out exactly what we hold, why, and how long for.
Your servers are stopped, charges stop, and we bill you once for the hours you'd already used. Your data is then scheduled for deletion.
Download anything you want to keep before you close the account — worlds especially. Once deletion has run, we can't get it back for you.
No. Not by email, not in Discord, not on a support ticket, not ever. Neither will we ask for a one-time login code or your full card number.
If anyone claiming to be from Instances asks you for any of those, they aren't from Instances. Tell us and we'll look into it.
Where to find us when something isn't right.
Three ways, and all of them reach us. Our Discord is usually the quickest for "how do I" questions, because other players answer too. There's a contact form that asks the right follow-up questions for whatever's gone wrong, so we're not stuck emailing you back for basics. And you can always just email help@aki-labs.com.
Whichever you use, tell us the name of the server and roughly when the trouble started — that's normally enough for us to go and look at it before we reply.
Please tell us, even if it seems small and even if you're not sure it's a bug. What page you were on and what you'd clicked is enough to start with.
If it's a security problem rather than a glitch, use the security option on the contact form and please don't post it publicly until it's fixed.
That might be our fault rather than yours — if it's a fair question and we haven't answered it, we'd like to know.
A real person reads all three of these. Discord is usually quickest, because other players answer too.
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