TrueTick vs Shockbyte: cheap flat hosting vs metered, never-oversold hosting

If you've searched "cheap Minecraft hosting," Shockbyte is probably one of the first names you've seen. It has run game servers since 2013, sells budget plans from $1.99 a month next to a premium line from 1 GB up, and lists 16 locations across North America, South America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. This page is written by a host that picked a different trade-off — billing for the hours a server is awake, on a CPU share reserved for it — so every claim about Shockbyte below links to their own site. Read it, then check both of us; you don't need to trust either.

Who each one is actually for

Shockbyte is for the lowest monthly number. On their budget line 2 GB is $3.99 a month. For a 2 GB server that's up all month, that's less than our flat plan's $6, and we're not going to pretend otherwise.

TrueTick is for a server that's quiet most of the week, where paying for the hours it's awake beats paying for the month — and for people who want the CPU share their server runs on reserved for it while it runs.

The comparison

Two different bets: the lowest price for a month of uptime, or a bill that follows the hours a server is awake. Checked September 2026 — every Shockbyte cell links to their own site:

	Shockbyte	TrueTick
Pricing	Budget: 1–8 GB, $1.99–$15.99 a month; premium: 1–12 GB at $3.99–$47.99 a month list, 30% off recurring when we checked, and custom plans from 17 GB	Metered: $0.012 per active GB-hour, or flat $3/GB-month if you want always-on
Billing	Monthly, quarterly, semi-annually or annually	Metered by the minute the server is awake; flat by the UTC day it runs
Pay for idle time?	Yes — plans are paid by the period, and they advertise "99.9% Uptime"	Metered: only the idle wait before it sleeps (a delay you set per server), then $0 while asleep. Flat: every day it runs
CPU	Their hardware page names a CPU model for each location, but not how many cores a plan gets	A reserved CPU share per running server; admission control refuses a start the node can't back
Mods and plugins	One-click installs for many server types and modpacks; "All of our plans support every modpack"	Forge, NeoForge and Fabric from the Modrinth and CurseForge catalogues, plus your own .jar uploads
Locations	16 — six in North America, one in South America, five in Europe, four in Asia-Pacific	NA (Canada) and EU (France)

Our pricing page doesn't list cores per size either. What we do guarantee is the mechanism: the share a server runs on is reserved while it runs, and admission control refuses to start a server the node can't back — what oversell costs a Minecraft server is measured on our benchmark page rather than asserted here.

Where Shockbyte is the right call

• The lowest price for a small server that's always up. 2 GB for $3.99 a month on the budget line is less than our flat 2 GB at $6 a month — and on our metered plan, a 2 GB server awake around the clock costs more than either.
• Your players are in Asia-Pacific or South America. Shockbyte lists India, Singapore, Tokyo and Australia in Asia-Pacific, and São Paulo in South America. We run NA and EU only.
• You want support at any hour. Their support team is available 24/7 by ticket and live chat. We answer by email and Discord, and we don't promise a response time.
• You want one predictable bill, no math. Flat-rate simplicity is a real feature for people who don't want to think about hourly metering at all.

If a low flat number is what you need, we'd rather say so than pretend metered billing is better for every use case — it isn't.

Where the two differ in our favour

• A quiet week costs only what it used. A 2 GB server that's awake five hours a week costs $0.12 that week on the metered plan, and a 4 GB one $0.24; awake time runs until the server hibernates after the last player leaves, a delay you set per server. A Shockbyte plan is paid by the period whether anyone logs in or not.
• A reserved share instead of a processor name. Knowing it's a fast CPU doesn't tell you how much of it your server gets at 8 p.m. on a Friday. Here, each running server's share is reserved before it starts, and when a node can't back one more, the start is refused rather than every server on it slowing down.

Verdict

If the lowest monthly price is the deciding factor and your server is small and always on, Shockbyte's budget line is a reasonable, widely-used option. If your server is quiet most of the week and you'd rather pay for the hours it's awake, on a CPU share reserved while it runs, run the numbers for your server or create one and watch the tick line yourself.