Monetization guide
How to set up support payments so that they actually come in — and keep coming in without ruining your server. This is what works on our own server; the four steps build on each other.
For the reference of every setting, see Monetization.
1. Set up the support page
Connect a payment account under Server Admin → Monetization: pick your payout country, choose private person or company and fill in Stripe's form right on the page. It usually takes under five minutes and needs a paid dzbot subscription. The step-by-step is in Connecting a payment account.
Then write a short introduction for the support page: what players support, what they get in return and how to reach you about questions and refunds. Stay with the wording "support" or "support product" — never call it a donation, not on the page and not towards Stripe (why).
Once the account is active, players find Support the server in the shop.
2. Give something back
Players pay far more readily when they get something in return. The easiest rewards:
- A Discord role for a set time after each payment — every new payment extends it.
- A thank-you in a channel, so the community sees who keeps the server running.
- In-game currency at a fixed rate per euro.
Currency works best tiered: whoever pays more gets a better rate. That rewards larger payments without making small ones feel worthless. On our own server:
| Payment from | Currency per euro | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 10 € | 500 | 10 € → 5,000 |
| 20 € | 750 | 20 € → 15,000 |
| 50 € | 1,000 | 50 € → 50,000 |
| 100 € | 1,250 | 100 € → 125,000 |
| 250 € | 1,500 | 250 € → 375,000 |
All three rewards come from the Support Rewards action: Server Admin → Actions → Marketplace. Install it, switch on the steps you want, set the currency per euro for the smallest payments and add one row per tier under the currency reward (from which amount, how much per euro). See Action marketplace for how installing works.
Crediting in-game currency for real money while the casino is on may be illegal, depending on your country. If you want to keep both, check the rules that apply to you — and if you are unsure, remove the casino.* rights from all your groups.
3. Give players something to buy
Currency is only worth something if the shop has things players want: weapons, attachments, vehicles, base building material, ready-made kits. How to build the catalog — categories, item sets, purchase limits — is in Shop system; you can also copy a whole shop from another server as a starting point.
Set the prices against your rate. On our server an M4A1 costs 4,000 — a 10 € payment buys one rifle, not half the shop. If 10 € buys everything there is, players have no reason to come back to the shop, and the gear loses its value in the game too. Purchase limits per player and period keep single items from flooding the server.
Make sure currency can also be earned by playing — through kill rewards, bounties, events or faction wages. Then supporters and everyone else share the same economy; supporters just get there faster.
4. Keep the loot scarce — and the economy fair
This is not about squeezing as much pay-to-win as possible out of your players. It is about a server people want to play on for months.
Boosted loot makes a server boring. When everyone is fully geared an hour after spawning, nothing is worth fighting over, losing your gear costs nothing, and players move on to the next server within days. You end up wiping often just to keep it interesting.
Scarce loot keeps players. When good gear has to be earned — searched for, fought for, carried home — it is worth something. Players stay longer, have stories to tell, and you need to wipe less often. You set this in your server's loot economy (the nominal and min values in types.xml on Nitrado).
The side effect: on a server with scarce loot, the shop matters, and you can price it high. Whoever buys something there gets a real advantage in time, but cannot buy the whole server for 10 €.
Players spot pay-to-win immediately, and they leave over it. If money buys power that nobody can get by playing, or the shop is obviously built to push people into paying, your community turns on you — supporters included.
The economy has to be balanced, or none of this works. A good rule of thumb: everything in the shop can also be found or earned in the game. The shop saves time; it does not sell what others can never have.
Checklist
- Payment account connected, support page with an introduction text.
- Support Rewards installed: role, thank-you, currency with tiers if you want them.
- Shop with items players want, prices set against your rate, purchase limits where needed.
- Currency also earnable by playing.
- Loot scarce enough that gear is worth something.