Why Minecraft servers ask you to vote, and how it works

Minecraft servers ask you to vote because votes move them up server lists, and server lists are where many players go looking for a new server. In return, most servers hand you an in-game reward, and the whole thing takes about a minute: you type your Minecraft name on the list's vote page, pass a captcha, and the list sends a signed message to the server, which gives you the reward.

What a vote does

On the list, a vote counts toward the server's position. On serverlist.net, servers that were playable in the last 24 hours come first, ordered by votes from the last 30 days, so a vote helps for a month and then drops out. The full ranking rules are on the methodology page.

On the server, the vote triggers whatever the owner set up: diamonds, in-game money, crate keys, vote shop points or streak progress. The list does not choose the reward. You do not need a serverlist.net account to vote, and the server never gets your email address.

How a vote reaches the server

1. 1Vote pageYou vote on the list
2. 2Signed messageName, list, time
3. 3Votifier portThe server checks it
4. 4RewardA plugin pays out

Lists deliver votes through Votifier, a small plugin that listens on its own port (today usually NuVotifier, the fork that replaced the original). The path:

1. You vote on the list's website. The vote is saved first, so it counts on the list even if a later step fails.
2. The list opens a connection to the server's Votifier port (8192 by default, but the owner can pick any port) and sends a short message: the list's name, your username, the IP address you voted from and a timestamp. Those four fields are the Votifier format, and every list sends the same ones.
3. The message is protected. With the original v1 protocol it is encrypted with the server's public key. With NuVotifier's v2 protocol it is signed with a token that only the list and the server know, and it includes a one-time challenge from the server, so a copied message cannot be replayed.
4. Votifier checks the message and announces the vote inside the server. On a network with a proxy such as Velocity, the proxy can forward it to the game servers behind it.
5. A reward plugin, commonly VotingPlugin or SuperbVote, catches that announcement and runs the rewards the owner configured.

One difference matters when things go wrong: a v2 server answers "ok" or an error, so we know whether it accepted the vote, while a v1 server does not answer at all.

On serverlist.net the delivery runs in the background right after your vote is saved, and it is retried if the server does not answer. The owner sees the result of every delivery in their dashboard. Owners setting this up can follow our NuVotifier setup guide.

Voting on serverlist.net step by step

1. Open the server's vote page, for example AugustaMC's vote page. On many servers, typing /vote in game prints a link, and those links often fill in your name for you.
2. Type your Minecraft name. The form checks it as you type and tells you whether it found a Java or a Bedrock account.
3. Solve the captcha. It appears once you start typing.
4. Press Vote. You get a confirmation with the server address to copy, or a countdown if you already voted in the last 24 hours.
5. If you like, write a short review. Reviews need a vote from the same browser in the last 48 hours, and each vote allows one review.
6. Collect the reward in game. Some servers give it on the spot if you are online, others when you next join.

Your username: Java, Bedrock and offline names

Java. Use your exact Java username, the one shown in the launcher. Capital letters do not matter to our check.

Bedrock on a Java server. Servers that let Bedrock players in through Geyser use a plugin called Floodgate, which adds a prefix to Bedrock names so they cannot clash with Java names. The default prefix is a dot, and Floodgate replaces spaces with underscores by default, so the gamertag "Steve Miner" becomes .Steve_Miner on most servers. Some owners change the prefix to a star or another symbol. Type your name exactly the way the server shows it in chat or in the player list. Our vote page understands the prefix, so .Steve_Miner still finds your Bedrock account. On a server that runs Bedrock natively, without Geyser, use your gamertag as it appears in game.

Offline names. Cracked servers accept players without a paid account, whose names cannot be checked with Mojang. We accept such names only for servers whose owner asked and an admin approved. What a cracked server is covers why.

The 24-hour cooldown

You can vote for each server once every 24 hours, counted from your last vote, not from midnight. If you voted at 18:40 yesterday, your next vote opens at 18:40 today. The cooldown is per server, so voting for one server never blocks a vote for another.

A vote is refused within those 24 hours if any of these match an earlier vote for the same server: the same IP address, the same browser, or the same username. That has a side effect worth knowing. Two people voting for the same server from one home or school Wi-Fi share one vote per day, because they share an IP address. Servers that accept offline names are the exception: there, one connection can cast up to three votes for the server each day, as long as the browser and the name differ.

Rewards did not arrive? A checklist

1. Check the name. A typo, a missing Bedrock prefix or your friend's account all send the reward somewhere else. The confirmation screen shows the name we used.
2. Check the listing. If a network lists each game mode separately, the vote goes to the Votifier of the listing you used.
3. Be online, or rejoin. Some servers only reward players who are online when the vote arrives. Others queue it until you join. Rejoining the server, or the right game mode on a network, often releases it.
4. Use the server's vote commands. On servers running VotingPlugin, /vote next shows when you can vote again on each list and /vote total shows your votes. Other plugins have their own commands, so try /help vote.
5. Wait a few minutes. If the server does not answer, our delivery tries three more times over the next few minutes, so a quick restart does not lose your vote.
6. Ask staff with the details. Tell them the list (serverlist.net), the time of your vote with your time zone, and the exact name you entered. With that, the owner can find your vote in the delivery log in seconds.

When votes fail for everyone, the cause is on the server: a closed port, a wrong key or token, or a reward plugin expecting a different list name.

Vote streaks and monthly resets

Streaks belong to the server's reward plugin, not to the list. VotingPlugin, for example, can count streaks by day, week or month, with rules set by each owner.

Our rolling cooldown has one quirk for daily streaks: your earliest next vote can only move later, never earlier. Vote a little late each day and your vote time creeps later too. On a server that counts calendar days, that matters the day your vote slips past midnight on the server's clock: the day before ends without a vote, and the streak breaks. Voting at about the same time every day keeps the streak safe.

Many servers also reward their top voters each month and reset their counters on the first. The "votes this month" number on a serverlist.net listing resets then too (UTC), but the ranking uses the last 30 days, so no server drops down the list overnight. The first of the month does get a small bump: from April to October 2026 it averaged about 7% more votes than the two weeks around it, though in two of those seven months it came in slightly below.

Auto-voters and why they break the rules

Auto-voters are scripts, browser extensions or paid services that vote in your name every day without you visiting the page. They break our rules and most servers' rules:

• A vote is meant to be a person saying "I play here and recommend it". Scripts turn the ranking into a contest of who runs the most bots.
• They work by getting around the captcha and the per-IP, per-browser and per-name limits, which exist to stop exactly this.
• They ask you to install software or hand details to a stranger, a common way accounts get stolen.

Servers often treat auto-voting as cheating and take away the rewards. If you see a listing that seems to collect votes this way, report it from the listing page and choose "Fake votes".

How players vote, in numbers

In the 30 days to 16 October 2026, 15,648 votes were cast on serverlist.net by 6,085 different names, and 99.5% of those names voted for only one server.

Most did not come back daily. Of 6,119 name and server pairs, 3,709 (61%) voted exactly once. A core of 303 pairs, 5% of the total, voted 10 times or more and cast 4,425 votes, 28% of everything. When people did vote again, 15% did it within an hour of the cooldown ending, and 311 votes came in the first five minutes, the mark of players who set a reminder.

About 6% of votes (948) came from Bedrock names, nearly all with the dot prefix (920) and 26 with a star.

Votes also have their own daily rhythm. They peaked at 12:00 UTC, with 1,007 votes in that hour across the 30 days, against 356 at 23:00 UTC, a few hours ahead of the peak in players. A likely reason is that many servers remind you to vote as soon as you join:

Share of votesShare of players

Peak 12:00 UTC

0003060912151821

Times in UTC

Votes peak at 12:00 UTC, players at 15:00 UTC, 3 hours apart. Based on 15,246 votes.

Measured 19 Oct 2026, 22:52 UTCHow we measure

The same numbers, live:

• 15,237 votes in the last 30 days from 6,003 names, 99% of them loyal to one server
• 61% of name and server pairs voted once, and pairs with 10 or more votes cast 28% of all votes
• 14% of repeat votes came within an hour of the cooldown ending
• 6% of votes came from Bedrock names
• the busiest voting hour is 12:00 UTC

So a vote count says how hard a server works at reminding its players, not how many people play there. Our guide to choosing a server covers what to look at instead.

FAQ

Can I vote every day?

Yes, once every 24 hours per server, and for as many different servers as you like.

Does voting cost anything?

No. Voting is free and needs no account. Nobody needs your password to register a vote, so treat any page that asks for your Minecraft or Microsoft password in exchange for a vote as a scam.

Can I vote for a server I do not play on?

You can, and the vote counts on the list, but the reward goes to the name you typed on that server, so you will never see it. Votes work best as an honest recommendation, so save them for servers you would tell a friend about.