A Shockbyte alternative billed by the hour, with no monthly plan.
Shockbyte's premium tiers start at $3.99 a month for 1 GB and its budget line at $1.99, with 15 server locations and a library of 3,000+ one-click modpacks behind them. Those prices are genuinely low for the category — and every one of them buys the whole month, played or not.
~10 hours to try · no card · instant setup
Pixly answers the same question with a meter instead: an hourly rate counted by the minute, running only while someone is actually on the server. The two models suit different groups, and this comparison names which is which rather than pretending one wins everywhere.
A month of RAM, or a meter that runs while you play
Shockbyte's whole catalog answers one question — how much RAM per month. That's simple and predictable. What makes Pixly an alternative rather than one more subscription is that it drops the month entirely: usage billing, built for groups that play in sessions.
No hourly charge when idle
Your server sleeps after about 5 minutes empty; from then on only the small storage fee that keeps your saves continues.
First month, then every month
Shockbyte's 30% first-month discount is real1 — and so is what follows: renewal at the listed rate, with renewals sitting outside its refund window2. Pixly skips the pattern, because there's no subscription to discount or renew.
Where Shockbyte fits better
A community server that's genuinely active most of the day, or wants one flat rate for all that uptime, is better served by a monthly plan — and Shockbyte's budget line starts at $1.99 a month3.
Weighing more than one host? The Pixly vs Apex Hosting comparison covers the premium end of subscriptions, BisectHosting — the other big per-gigabyte RAM host — has its own Pixly vs BisectHosting comparison, Aternos gets the free-hosting treatment in the Pixly vs Aternos comparison, and Mojang's own subscription server is covered in Pixly vs Minecraft Realms. Want the whole market in one scroll? The Minecraft hosting comparison sets every host against the others in two dated tables.
Pixly vs Shockbyte at a glance
Shockbyte figures below are its published U.S. prices and policies as of August 2026, taken from its plans pages13, knowledgebase4, and terms of service2. Competitor names are trademarks of their respective owners and are used here only for comparison.
| Feature | Pixly | Shockbyte |
|---|---|---|
| Billing model | An hourly rate metered to the minute; no subscription, and no hourly charge while your server sleeps. | Monthly RAM tiers from $3.99 for 1 GB; 30% off the first month, then the listed rate. |
| Empty server | Checks for players five minutes after everyone logs off and sleeps if it's empty; you're not billed hours for idle time. | Runs and bills all month whether or not anyone plays. |
| Renewals & refunds | Nothing renews — add funds when you choose, and simply stop any time. | Renews at the listed rate; 72-hour money-back guarantee once per customer on new orders; account credit is non-refundable and non-withdrawable. |
| Plan changes | Resize any time in the dashboard — one quick restart, then the meter runs at the new rate; nothing to claim back because nothing was prepaid to a plan. | Self-serve up or down any time; a downgrade's prorated difference comes back as account credit only via a Billing ticket, and a pending renewal invoice must be paid before any change. |
| Player slots | Uncapped — set any max players in settings; plan size guides what runs smoothly. | Unlimited slots; pricing is by RAM. |
| Mods & modpacks | In-panel search across CurseForge and Modrinth for mods, plugins and modpacks; pasted links and your own .mrpack or .jar uploads install too. | 3,000+ one-click packs from CurseForge, FTB, Technic, and ATLauncher. |
| Crossplay | The Geyser bridge is installed automatically; one world for Java and Bedrock. | Documented do-it-yourself GeyserMC setup, or a separate Bedrock-native server. |
| Backups | Daily automatic backups with 7-day history, on every plan. | Scheduled backups, capped at 3 stored and 15 GB total. |
| Storage & hardware | Dedicated CPU and RAM on NVMe SSD; pick a region close to your players. | Fair-use “unlimited” NVMe storage; 15 server locations worldwide. |
| Server address | A pixly.gg address on every server, or point a domain you own at the world instead. | Subdomain creator included; a dedicated IP is a paid add-on. |
| Best fit | Groups that play in sessions and don't want to pay for empty hours. | Always-on community servers that want one flat bill. |
Two of those rows are where the money actually differs: what the bill does while nobody is playing, and what happens to it when the plan size changes mid-cycle. The next section works through both.
Cheap per gigabyte is not cheap per month
Shockbyte's sticker prices are genuinely low for the category — that's the draw. The catch isn't the price per gigabyte. A flat month bills the same whether your group played every evening or twice.
What the flat month buys
Take the 3 GB plan Shockbyte tags most popular, at $11.99 a month1. It's a fair deal for a server that's busy through the day — every hour of uptime is an hour someone could be playing on it.
What the meter buys
Three two-hour evenings a week is roughly 25 active hours a month — around a couple of dollars on Pixly's smaller sizes, because the hundreds of hours your world sits empty stay off the hourly bill.
Usage billing has a crossover point, and this page won't pretend otherwise: keep a server active from morning to midnight and the metered total can pass the flat fee. That answer doesn't change host to host — it's the same math we show against Apex and Realms.
Changing size mid-month is a different kind of event on each side, too. Shockbyte's switch itself is self-serve — that's fair to say clearly — but the money only moves one way.
- An upgrade — “upgraded immediately after your payment is received” on a prorated invoice4.
- A downgrade — “you can receive a prorated credit refund of the extra amount you've paid… by submitting a ticket to our Billing Department”4.
- What lands back — account credit, non-refundable and non-withdrawable under its terms2.
On Pixly a resize is a setting: a brief restart, and the meter simply starts running at the new plan's rate — there's no prepaid month to carve up.
The plans below carry the real hourly rate for every size and region — run it against the evenings your group actually plays.
Servers run in United States — Portland, Oregon and Ashburn, Virginia; Europe — Frankfurt, Germany.
The cost guide works through what a Minecraft server costs at real play patterns, side by side with subscription pricing.
Two modpack ecosystems, and which one is yours
Both hosts install modpacks for you; they draw from different catalogs, and that difference decides more switches than any other row in the table.
Shockbyte's one-click library
One-click installs from a curated library of 3,000+ packs spanning the big launcher ecosystems, browsable by loader. It's one of Shockbyte's genuinely strong features, and the classic big packs live there.
Pixly's catalog search
Search CurseForge and Modrinth together from the Mods tab — or paste a link — and mods, plugins, and modpacks are built onto the server at its next start, with the build pinned so updates never land uninvited. The modded Minecraft server hosting guide covers loaders, RAM, and versions.
Let the pack decide. Pixly searches both catalogs live, so mods, plugins and whole modpacks install from either one, and your own .mrpack or .jar uploads cover the rest. Shockbyte's one-click library also spans FTB, Technic, and ATLauncher, so a pack that lives only there is better served on its plans.
Crossplay: assembled by hand, or part of the setup
Mixed Java-and-Bedrock friend groups can end up on either host — what differs is how much of the bridge you build yourself.
- On Shockbyte — the documented path is installing GeyserMC yourself, as a plugin or mod on your Java server, then keeping it working through version updates. It's a well-trodden setup, but it's yours to run.
- On Pixly — Geyser and Floodgate are installed automatically on crossplay-capable types, and ViaVersion is added whenever your pinned version trails the newest release. The crossplay Minecraft server hosting guide explains the machinery and its honest limits.
- If everyone's on Bedrock — Shockbyte also sells Bedrock-native server types, and an all-Bedrock group is better served by one; bridged crossplay exists for mixed groups, not as a substitute for a native Bedrock server.
Getting a world out of Shockbyte, step by step
Your builds are yours: Shockbyte documents world export, and Pixly accepts an uploaded save. The whole move is a download, a zip, and an upload.
Moving a Java world across
- Download from Shockbyte. Connect over SFTP or open the panel file manager and download your world folder — Shockbyte's own guides cover the export, including moving to another server.
- Upload it into Pixly. Create a server on the same Minecraft version, open the Backups tab, and upload the zipped world. It's imported while the server is stopped, and the next start loads your map.
- Hand out the new address. Whitelist your friends and share the address the new server came with.
Do it while the plan is still active. Shockbyte's terms give a 1-day grace period after a missed renewal, suspend the server until it's paid, and delete files 30 days after that2 — so download your world before it lapses, not once it has.
When Shockbyte is the right call
A comparison you can trust has to name the cases where the other host wins. Shockbyte has clear ones.
- Keep Shockbyte if the server stays busy most of the day, or you need one of its 15 locations that Pixly's regions don't cover. Those are subscription-shaped servers.
- Switch the model if play comes in sessions — evenings, weekends, school-holiday bursts — with the server sitting empty in between. That's the usage pattern where paying for the month stops making sense.
Every plan and region rate is in the live grid above, and the pay-per-hour Minecraft server hosting page explains the billing model in full.
Pixly vs Shockbyte questions
What people ask when they are comparing a Shockbyte RAM tier against a meter.
Shockbyte sells monthly plans priced by RAM — its 3 GB plan is $11.99 a month as of July 2026, whether anyone plays or not. Pixly has no subscription: you top up a Wallet and are charged by the minute only for active hours, so an empty world stops the hourly meter.
It depends on hours played. A few evenings a week — say 25 active hours a month — lands around a couple of dollars on Pixly's smaller sizes, well under a comparable monthly plan. Flip the usage and the answer flips too: a server that's full for the bulk of each day can cost more metered than flat, and Shockbyte's budget line starts at $1.99 a month. Run your own week through the live rates on this page before deciding.
Yes — Pixly doesn't cap player slots either. The max-player count is yours to choose on every plan, and the per-plan player figures are guidance for how many people the hardware handles smoothly, not a limit. That's true of hosting generally: on any host, the real ceiling is the machine underneath and the setup running on it, which is why Shockbyte prices by RAM rather than by seat too.
Yes — the Mods tab searches CurseForge and Modrinth together, and mods, plugins and whole modpacks install from either catalog on the server's next start. A pasted link, a .mrpack, or plain .jar files cover anything the catalogs don't carry. Shockbyte's one-click library installs packs from CurseForge, FTB, Technic, and ATLauncher, so a group whose pack lives on FTB, Technic or ATLauncher is better served there.
Yes, for Java worlds. Shockbyte supports downloading your world over SFTP or its panel file manager, and documents the export for exactly this moving-to-another-server case. Zip the world folder, create a Pixly server on the same Minecraft version, and upload the archive in the Backups tab — the next start loads your map.
There's no plan purchase to refund your way out of: the trial is about 10 hours of play with no card, and after that it's small top-ups as you go. Shockbyte's 72-hour money-back guarantee is real, but it applies once per customer account and covers new orders only — renewal payments aren't refundable under its terms.
Both can get you there; the path differs. Shockbyte documents installing GeyserMC yourself, as a plugin or mod on your Java server. On Pixly, Geyser and Floodgate come as part of the managed setup on crossplay-capable types, with ViaVersion added when a pinned version trails the newest release — phones and consoles join without server-side work.
Yes on both — the difference is what happens to your money. Shockbyte lets you switch plans in its panel at any time, but the prorated difference from a downgrade comes back only as account credit after a ticket to its Billing department, credit that can't be refunded or withdrawn, and if your next renewal invoice has already been generated you must pay it before changing plans (per its knowledgebase and terms, August 2026). On Pixly there is no cycle and no credit to claim back: change size in the dashboard, restart once — minutes, with your world untouched — and the new rate applies from the moment the new hardware is up.
Footnotes
Shockbyte premium plans page — checked August 4, 2026. ↩ ↩ ↩
Shockbyte terms of service — checked August 4, 2026. ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
Shockbyte budget plans page — checked August 4, 2026. ↩ ↩
Shockbyte plan-change article — checked August 4, 2026. ↩ ↩ ↩
Pay for the hours, skip the month
Bring your Shockbyte world or start fresh — your version, your mods, billed per hour only while someone's playing. Start with a ~10-hour trial and see your real rate.
No card to start