Terms of Service

Shard Hosting intends to provide managed Minecraft Java server hosting on shared hardware in Europe. You rent an allocation of memory on one of our nodes, together with access to a control panel from which you run your own server.

The server software, plugins, mods, configuration and world are yours. We provide the machine, the network and the panel; what you run on them is your decision and your responsibility.

We do not currently commit to an uptime figure, a service credit scheme, or a maximum response time. Publishing numbers we have no operating history to support would be meaningless. If and when we offer a service level commitment, it will be written here explicitly.

Ordering is not open. Nothing on this website takes payment, collects card details or creates a billing account, and no order you believe you have placed exists.

When ordering does open, you will need an account with accurate contact details, and you will be responsible for keeping your credentials secure. Anything done through your account or through panel access you have granted to someone else is treated as done by you.

• You must be legally able to enter into a contract in your country of residence.
• You are responsible for anyone you give panel, SFTP or subuser access to.
• Contact details must be kept current, because service and billing notices go to them.

The intended model is a monthly subscription, charged in euros in advance, with no setup fee. A plan renews each month until you cancel it.

Prices shown on this website are planned launch pricing and are not yet in force. We may change them before launch. After launch, a price change affecting an existing service will be notified in advance rather than applied silently at the next renewal.

Payments will be handled by a third-party payment provider. Shard Hosting will not store your full card details.

You are responsible for what runs on your server and what happens on it, including the conduct of your players and the legality of any content you host.

Use of the service is also subject to the Acceptable Use Policy, which forms part of these terms.

• Keep your server software, plugins and mods reasonably up to date.
• Do not use the service in a way that degrades the node for other customers.
• Respond to abuse reports we forward to you about your server.
• Comply with the Minecraft end user licence agreement and any licence covering the software you install.

We intend to provide server backups, and to let you take and download your own from the panel. Schedule, retention and how far back a restore can reach are not finalised, so nothing here should be read as a guarantee that a given backup will exist when you need it.

Treat your own copies as the ones that matter. Download anything you cannot afford to lose and keep it somewhere that is not us. We will not be liable for loss of world data, configuration or player data where you have no independent copy.

You will be able to cancel from the client area at any time. Cancellation stops the next renewal; the service continues until the end of the period you have already paid for, after which it is suspended and then deleted.

Refunds and the statutory right of withdrawal are covered separately in the Refund and Cancellation Policy.

We may suspend a service for non-payment after an invoice is overdue, or immediately where a server is breaching the Acceptable Use Policy, putting the node at risk, or being used for something unlawful.

Where the situation allows it, we will contact you first and give you a chance to fix the problem. Where it does not, such as an active attack originating from a server or a report of clearly illegal content, we will suspend first and explain afterwards.

If you believe a suspension was wrong, contact support and we will look at it again. We would much rather correct a mistake than defend one.

• Suspension for non-payment: the server is stopped but data is retained for a period before deletion.
• Suspension for abuse: the server is stopped immediately and you are told why.
• Termination for repeated or serious breaches, after which data is deleted.

Support is provided through Discord and by email at shardhosting1@gmail.com. Both reach the same small group of people.

We do not offer a guaranteed response time, and we are not going to pretend to run a 24/7 desk while we are two people. We will tell you what our actual hours are before you can order.

Support covers the platform: the node, the network, the panel and getting your server running. It does not extend to debugging your plugin configuration or writing your datapacks, though in practice we will usually help.

Nothing in these terms will limit liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited.

Subject to that, our liability in connection with the service is intended to be limited to the amount you have paid us in the twelve months before the claim. We do not accept liability for lost profit, lost players, or the reputational consequences of downtime.

We may update these terms. Material changes affecting existing customers will be notified in advance, and you will be free to cancel if you do not accept them.

The governing law and the courts with jurisdiction depend on where Shard Hosting is formally established, which is not settled yet.