Minecraft server economy: Vault, a provider and shops

In short: install Vault or VaultUnlocked plus one economy plugin — EssentialsX is the easiest, since its economy is built in. Check the link with /vault-info, set a starting balance and sell prices in worth.yml. After that, watch the balance: every source of money needs a place where money leaves, and dupes and automation cheats must be shut down.

How a server economy is built#

Vault itself holds no money: its README calls it an abstraction library for permission, chat and economy plugins. Without a provider, shops and jobs won't start or will log errors — the server reports the missing dependency at startup, see how to install a plugin. Run one economy provider: two plugins that both think they're the wallet is how balances get lost.

Vault or VaultUnlocked#

• Vault is the classic bridge: its last release on SpigotMC is 1.7.3 from July 2020. Its API is stable, and a huge number of plugins are built against it.
• VaultUnlocked is a fork its authors call "a modern drop-in Vault fork" with Folia support and enhanced APIs, multiple currencies included. It's updated regularly, with builds for 26.x on Modrinth. Only plugins that use the new API get the extra features; the rest treat it as Vault.

Whichever you choose, check the link with /vault-info (permission vault.admin, ops by default): it shows which permission, chat and economy plugins Vault found. /vault-convert <economy1> <economy2> moves balances from one economy to another — handy when you switch providers.

The EssentialsX economy#

EssentialsX is the most common provider: its docs describe a built-in economy with sign shops, command costs and full Vault support. Settings live in the Economy section of plugins/Essentials/config.yml. The rest of the EssentialsX command suite is covered in EssentialsX.

starting-balance: 100
currency-symbol: '$'
min-money: 0
economy-log-enabled: true
command-costs:
  kit-tools: 1500

worth.yml lists sell prices; items that aren't listed can't be sold to the server. [Buy] and [Sell] signs are off by default — you turn them on in the enabledSigns list of the same config.yml.

Shops and balance: where money comes from and where it goes#

An economy stays healthy while about as much money leaves as comes in. If players only sell to the server and collect rewards with nothing to spend on, prices climb and a newcomer's starting money is worth less and less — that's inflation.

• Start with low sell prices. Raising a price is easier than taking back money players already have.
• Don't buy from players what farms itself. Auto-farms and anything that runs without a person are the first to print money.
• Budget vote rewards into the balance — see Votifier and server lists. Selling in-game currency for real money is an EULA matter: monetization and the EULA.
• Watch `/baltop` and the trade log. A sudden jump in one balance is a reason to check the player, not congratulate them.

Dupes: an economy breaks in one evening#

One working dupe wipes out an item's price, and if duped items sell to the server, it prints money. Banning the culprit isn't enough: the items and money themselves have to be found and removed, or they've already spread through the market. What Paper fixes by default and how to track a duper through the logs is in exploits and dupes; chest and inventory history comes from CoreProtect.

The economy and wipes#

Decide in advance what a wipe does to money and put it in your rules: do balances reset with the world or carry over? A full reset in EssentialsX is /eco reset **: every player, offline ones included, gets the starting balance (* means online players only). Make a backup first. How to run the whole wipe without losing players is in server wipes.

Automation cheats and the anticheat#

Bugs aren't the only thing that breaks an economy. AutoFish fishes all night, Nuker and FastBreak clear fields and ore veins in seconds, AntiAFK keeps a character at a farm around the clock. All of it turns into resources to sell — and into money that devalues honest players' work. DGuard — the best anticheat for a modern Minecraft server — checks all 47 kinds of cheats in the comparison, these included: it gathers evidence on every front at once — combat, movement, packets, inventory, building, world — doesn't rush to a verdict, and you set how strict the punishments are.

DGuard runs on Paper and Leaf 1.21–26.3, and it's free up to 30 players online — with the same protection as the paid plans.

FAQ#