Making Money from Minecraft

Tutorial – Updated May 8, 2025

177 Views
5

Where to Start?

Minecraft is an amazing game. Endless worlds, infinite possibilities. And with Minecraft comes an amazing community of creators and content enjoyers. In this community, it can be hard to take your first steps toward starting to make money from Minecraft Content.

In this guide, I will discuss several content categories, as well as a few strategies of monetization for each. This may seem intimidating now, but this is a process that takes time, and will get easier the longer you stay committed. This guide should give a solid foundation from which to start your journey!

Table of Contents

  1. Where to Start?
  2. Reflection
  3. Determine your Content Type
  4. Create Content
  5. Choose your Platform
  6. Monetization Strategies
  7. Beginner Methods
  8. Intermediate Methods
  9. Advanced Methods
  10. Reminders

TIP: Before we move on, I recommend starting a Google Doc or grabbing a sheet of paper to jot down ideas, and to plan out your next steps. It’s important to stay organized and have clear goals. Keep things written down so you have a record of your ideas.

Reflection

The first thing you should do is reflect on what you love most about Minecraft.

Do you enjoy building extravagant maps? Do you like exploring for structures and unique biomes? Do you make complex redstone contraptions? Do you enjoy PVP and combat? Do you like playing multiplayer on servers? Do you play Modded Minecraft?

It doesn’t matter what you love the most, but choose to pursue whatever type of content creation you enjoy most. This will keep you motivated to keep working on making content.

Determine your Content Type

Now that you have thought about what you love the most about Minecraft, you can make content that you would want to enjoy yourself! This is the best method for choosing what type of content you will create, as there are people out there who will enjoy and want what you create. Below I have listed several categories which are the most common:

  • Youtuber
  • Map Creator/Builder
  • Addon/Mod Programmer
  • Texture Pack Designer
  • Redstone Tutorials
  • Twitch Streamer
  • …and many more!

Create Content!

Here is the hardest part of making money from Minecraft content… making the content! It takes time to learn and time to create, so you have to be dedicated to making content.

Here are some resources for learning how to create your own content!

Choose your Platform

Next choose a platform for publishing your creations. This is important, as you want to grow a group of users that will follow your content, and also you want others to discover your content. Choose what you will be able to commit time and effort to, and something you will enjoy!

YouTubers and Streamers: YouTube and Twitch are the biggest platforms, which have pros and cons. This means your content can potentially be shown to millions, but the hard part is that there are mountains of content you have to be better than to show up on people’s recommended page. They are a great starting point, yet they require a lot of work and time to grow an audience.

Map Creators: Planet Minecraft is a great place to start publishing your Minecraft Maps. They have a large community, and good maps can stand out and gather attention.

Addon Creators (Bedrock Edition): MCPEDL is a great place to publish addons you create. It has a large community of creators and visitors, so your pack is sure to be seen by others. It also has a built in monetization platform, which is a great place to start making money for beginner creators!

Mod/Data Pack Creators (Java Edition): Curseforge, Planet Minecraft, and Modrinth are all great places to monetize your content. Modrinth and Curseforge both have rewards programs built into their websites for creators, which makes them a great place to start monetizing your creations!

Texture Pack Designers: Curseforge, Planet Minecraft, and Modrinth are also great places to monetize your texture packs. They get lots of visitors daily, and Curseforge and Modrinth have monetization programs to monetize your texture packs!

NOTE: The following monetization strategies are mostly for downloadable content, such as Addons, Mods, Datapacks, Worlds, and Texture Packs.

Youtubers can incorporate some of the following methods (such as affiliates and donations), yet ad revenue is most important for Youtubers. Grow your audience to at least 1000 subscribers to start monetizing on YouTube. This can seem like a large goal, yet consistent uploads and creating short-form content can get you a head start.

Monetization Strategies

While money is important, make sure you are first spending time to make quality content. Good content leads to growth, which leads to more revenue. I recommend planning revenue sources while also creating a solid base of content.

When choosing how you will monetize, you first need to know the fundamental basics of the types of monetization.

  • Advertisements
    • Your audience views ads, and then advertisers pay you for the views on those ads.
    • Pros: Everyone can access your content, and you can grow a larger following.
    • Cons: The revenue is low, unless you have a large audience. It can also be an annoyance for users if they have to view ads.

  • Affiliates
    • You advertise a company to your audience, and when your audience goes to purchase something from that website, you get a split of the revenue.
    • Pros: Very little impact on users, as they are not forced into any actions.
    • Cons: Very low conversion rates. Most people will not buy anything with your links.

  • Donations
    • Your audience can donate if they enjoy your content, and you directly recieve the money.
    • Pros: Gives your audience a way to support you, and it does not negatively impact the user experience.
    • Cons: Very little revenue. Not many people will donate unless you have a large enough audience.

  • Paywalls
    • You lock certain content to only be accessible if the person pays for it.
    • Pros: High revenue from subscribing users. Even a couple dollars a month from each person adds up.
    • Cons: Low subscriber count. This method is not recommended for new publishers, as this leads to very few people finding your content. You should only paywall content if it is very high quality and you have a large audience already.

You can mix and match advertising methods to best suit your needs! Later on, once you have gathered a following, I recommend that you experiment and try different methods to see their revenue potential and user impact.

Beginner Method 2: Rewards Programs

Some publishing platforms prefer that you do not use link shorteners, and instead use their rewards programs instead. This is the case for Curseforge, Modrinth, and MCPEDL. Each of these websites has their own rewards program you can sign up for. These programs work by giving you, the publisher, a small cut of their website’s revenue based on how many people downloaded and viewed your content.

These programs can be useful for large creators, with hundreds of thousands of downloads, as they often get a larger portion of the revenue these websites make. For those just starting out, it can be hard to make any money, which is why link shorteners can be so useful. I would recommend using both, using link shorteners on some websites, rewards programs on others, and seeing which works better.

Intermediate Method 1: Patreon Support

Creating a page on Patreon can be a great way to have grateful supporters give their thanks by supporting your content creation. By giving out your content ad-free, and giving special perks to patrons, you can increase your revenue while growing a loyal fanbase.

I would recommend creating a Patreon page with all of your content you have published, and linking it on all the sites you publish your content on. Make sure you give your patrons something special, as this is not a donation, they are paying for your content. You could try releasing special packs only for patrons, but remember that this can reduce your overall audience size if it is only accessible behind a paywall.

Intermediate Method 2: Donations

Accepting donations is a great way to let those who enjoy your content support you. While the revenue may be low, it still is a great way which does not require much setup. Ko-Fi and PayPal are both great options for accepting donations. It is recommended to show a donation button close to download links for maximum visibility.

Advanced Method 1: Create your own Website

Creating your own website is the best way to make money off of your own content. This method is recommended if you have already made some revenue from link-shorteners and you have a steady stream of 50+ downloads a day.

Starting your own website can be an upfront investment, but with enough traffic, you can make back your money and make large profits. The upfront cost for starting your own website is around $50 for 1 year, or around $160 for 4 years. With only a couple hundred views a day, your website can make over $20 a month, paying back the investment quickly.

Here is a step by step guide for creating your own Minecraft Content focused website:

  1. Purchase website Hosting. One deal that we use for our hosting right now is Hostinger. They have very cheap website hosting deals, and great built-in tools for building a website easily.
    • TIP: Hosting companies are cheaper when you first purchase the hosting, and then get more expensive when you have to renew. I recommend purchasing the longest time span available, which is 48 months, as it will be the discounted price for the entire time. Before you renew at the increased cost, I recommend switching hosting providers to get another discount (This is what we do at Gilded Bedrock to save money).
  2. Choose your domain name! This is what people can search up, such as gildedbedrock.com. Make it memorable and easy to understand.
  3. Next, build your website! WordPress is built into Hostinger, which makes it easy to make a website even if you never have before.
  4. After you have built your website, you should apply to AdSense
    • AdSense is Google’s advertising business for publishers, and you can make serious revenue by placing ads on your website.
    • AdSense only accepts high-quality websites with enough traffic, so make sure you have made a quality website.
  5. If you cannot apply to AdSense, or they do not accept you, you can use other advertising networks such as Adsterra. Adsterra has no minimum requirement for traffic which makes it easy to use on beginner websites.
  6. On your website, you can also use affiliate marketing, such as advertising server hosting. One great option is Apex Hosting, who gives a 15% commission.
  7. For your downloads, you can continue using a link shortener such as Linkvertise, or you could create your own download page where users view an ad to download. This can help increase revenue, while still giving users free content.

Creating your own website is a great experience, and I would highly recommend it. By creating your own space, you can monetize more freely, and you will make more as the link-shortening and rewards programs are no longer taking a cut of your profits!

Advanced Method 2: The Minecraft Marketplace

The Minecraft Marketplace is a built in store inside of Minecraft Bedrock Edition, which is run my Mojang and Microsoft. They only accept certain companies of content creators to publish on the Marketplace, but content on the Marketplace makes lots of revenue.

While it is very difficult to join the Minecraft Marketplace yourself, you can apply to work for Marketplace companies on Bucket of Crabs. This is for advanced creators who have a portfolio of impressive creations, and who are willing to work a full time job on Minecraft content creation.

Reminders

Revenue is important, but do not forget about the people you are making content for. You want to give your audience a good experience, good quality content, and give them a reason to keep coming back. Do not over saturate your website or downloads with ads, as this can lead to upset users and slower growth. Keep your users happy!

Questions? Contact Us

Join our Discord to chat, request help, get update notifications, or leave suggestions.

Subscribe to content updates and new releases. We rarely send emails, so we won’t spam you!

Scroll to Top