- Bedrock's in-game Featured Servers are a partner program for registered businesses, not a list you can join. A Java server with Geyser, listed as crossplay, is the realistic Bedrock route.
- Paid spots here (header card, sidebar cards, promoted rows) are always labeled Promoted, hidden if you go offline, and never change your rank.
- The free placements (Rising spots on page one, the Hot flame, vote spotlight) come from a claimed listing with a strength of 8 or more out of 12, an honest count and real growth. When we checked in late September 2026, almost nobody had reached 8.
Featured means three different things, and only one of them is open to a normal server. On Bedrock, the Featured Servers tab inside the game is a partner program between Mojang Studios and about a dozen companies, and you apply as a business, not as a hobby server. On server lists, featured is a paid spot: on our list those are the featured header card, the sidebar cards and the promoted list spots on the advertise page, always labeled Promoted. And then there are the placements you cannot buy at all, which is where most owners should start: the three Rising spots on page one, the Hot flame, the fresh-season pages and the vote spotlight.
The short version: pay for a feature only after your first five minutes work, and earn the free ones first, because when we checked in late September 2026 almost nobody had claimed them.
Bedrock's Featured Servers: a partner program for companies
Open Bedrock Edition on a phone, a console or Windows, tap Play, then Servers, and the servers you see first are the Featured Servers. They are not a list anyone can join by filling in a form. According to the Minecraft Wiki's featured servers page, "server owners with registered business identities can apply for the partner program", and the partners get backend support from Mojang Studios in return for running large, moderated networks of minigames and custom maps built with add-ons.
Look at who is on it: The Hive (Hive Games), CubeCraft (Ziax), Lifeboat (Hydreon), Mineville (InPvP), Galaxite (Blockception) and Enchanted, plus a rotating set of featured experiences from studios such as Noxcrew, Gamemode One and Shapescape. Those are companies with staff, legal entities and years of Bedrock-only development. If that is not you, the honest answer is that the Featured tab is not a growth channel for your server, and any Discord DM offering to get you featured on Bedrock is a scam.
What Bedrock players can do is add any server by address. On Windows, Android and iOS that is the Add Server button; consoles cannot add a custom address in the normal game and rely on community workarounds, which our crossplay guide explains. So the realistic Bedrock route for a small server is a Java server with Geyser, listed as crossplay: our daily Bedrock probe checks port 19132, and a server that answers appears on the crossplay list automatically.
Featured spots on server lists: what you are buying
Every server list sells placements. The names differ (featured, sponsored, premium, top slot) but they come down to the same thing: your server shown somewhere players look before they reach the ranking. Here is exactly what ours are.
| Spot | Where it shows | How many at once | What it shows |
|---|---|---|---|
| Featured header card | The top of the home page, the first thing every visitor sees | One server | Your cover image or banner, logo, live player count and a Copy IP button |
| Sidebar card | Beside the server list on the home page and every game-mode, edition and region page | Up to three servers share it | A card with your logo, name and count |
| Promoted list spot | Your row above the ranking on the home page, on every list page, or on one game-mode page you choose | Up to three per page | Your normal row, in gold, labeled Promoted, with no rank number |
Four rules apply to all of them. Your server has to be listed first. If it goes offline it is hidden from the spot until it is back. Every paid spot says Promoted in plain words and never takes a rank number. And paying never changes votes, counts, flags or rank: when the spot ends you are back wherever your Server Score puts you. We don't publish a price list; you pick the spot and the dates and ask for a quote, and we don't sell spots to servers that break our terms.
What a paid feature does, and what it can't do
A feature is a multiplier on whatever your server already does to new players. If your listing is thin and your first five minutes are confusing, you have paid to find that out faster. If new players stick, it compounds: more players online raises the players part of your Server Score (38 points, the biggest part), and their votes and address copies raise two more.
Before you pay for anything, run the ten-minute test from our get-players guide, and check three things on your own listing:
- A cover image or banner. The header card is built from it. A listing with no art gets a plain card next to servers with a full-width scene.
- A video. On our list the 2% of servers with a trailer have a median of about 75 players online against 11 for the rest. That is a correlation, not magic, but a card that sends players to a page with a trailer converts better than one that sends them to a wall of text.
- Peak hours you know. Your server page shows a 24-hour chart and a 7-day chart from our own checks. Buy dates that cover your busy evenings, and have staff online during them.
What a feature can't do: it can't fix retention, it can't hide an offline server (the spot is pulled the moment we can't reach you), it can't make a fake player count look real, and it has no effect on where you rank once it ends. Our advertising guide compares paid spots with the free channels.
The free ways to be featured here
These placements can't be bought. They come from how a server is doing and how complete its listing is, and they are described in full on how we rank.
Rows 6, 13 and 20 of page one go to smaller servers that are growing, marked Rising. We pick from the fastest-growing servers not already on page one and rotate them every 30 minutes. To qualify: online with at least a few players, a believable count, and a listing strength of 8 or more out of 12.
In every list, up to 15% of servers can be Hot at once. You need to be online with at least 5 players, a believable count, and doing better than usual: more players than an hour ago, than you usually have at this hour, or than in past weeks. A mid-size server can be Hot on the roleplay list without being Hot overall. Browse them on Hot servers.
For a while after each vote, your server has a chance of a short boost up the list: 40% in each 10-minute window during the first hour, 25% for the next few hours and 10% until a day has passed. Daily voters keep you showing up higher.
Being new to the list, or opening a new season or launch in the last two weeks, is worth up to 4 Server Score points and puts you on new servers and fresh season. A coming-soon listing collects Notify me sign-ups before you even open.
Our team can boost a server in the Top order for a limited time, which multiplies its Server Score (a 20% boost is x1.2). Boosts never touch votes, counts or reviews. If a boost was paid for, the listing says Boosted with a blue glow for as long as it runs.
The Rising spots are the ones to aim for, and here is the honest state of them: the median listing strength on our list is 3.5 out of 12, 59% of servers are under 4, and when we checked in late September 2026 a single listing had reached 8. Three seats on page one were all but empty because almost nobody had filled in their listing.
How to reach listing strength 8
Claim your listing from its server page (put the one-time code in your MOTD) and the edit page shows a meter out of 12 with what each missing piece is worth. This is the whole table.
| Listing item | Points | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Description of 250+ characters | 2.5 | About three sentences; 120+ earns 1. See the description guide. |
| Trailer or video | 1.5 | A YouTube link, played at the top of your page. |
| Gameplay notes or 3 highlights | 1.5 | What players do, or three things worth joining for. |
| 3 photos | 1.5 | 0.5 each, up to three. Spawn, builds, an event. |
| Summary of 40+ characters | 1 | The one line under your name in list rows. |
| Two or more game modes | 1 | Pick a main mode too. |
| Logo | 1 | The square icon. See banner and icon. |
| Banner | 0.5 | The wide image in list rows. |
| Discord link | 0.5 | Also feeds the trust part of the score. |
| NuVotifier or Votifier | 0.5 | Vote rewards. Setup guide. |
| Cover image | 0.25 | The wide image across the top of your page (and the header card). |
| Website | 0.25 | Your site, store or wiki. |
| Live badge on your website (bonus) | up to 1 | Paste the embed code from your edit page onto your site. A bonus: the total still caps at 12. |
Description, video, gameplay notes, three photos, a summary and a logo add up to 9, an hour of work with screenshots you already have. Listing strength is also 12 of the 100 Server Score points, so it moves you on the main list whether or not a Rising seat is free.
Next: claim your listing, fill in the six items above, and check that the meter reads 8 or more. Then, if your new players stay, pick a spot and dates on the advertise page.
Quick questions
How do I get my server on the Minecraft Bedrock featured server list?
You apply to Mojang's partner program as a registered business, and the current partners are companies running large moderated networks. It is not open to hobby servers. The practical route is a Java server with Geyser so Bedrock players can join by address, listed as crossplay on server lists.
How much does it cost to get a Minecraft server featured?
Bedrock's Featured tab is not for sale. Paid spots on lists vary by list, spot and dates; ours are quoted per request from the advertise page. The Rising spots, the Hot flame and the vote spotlight cost nothing and are earned by a complete listing and real activity.
Does a promoted spot change my rank?
No. A promoted row sits above the ranking with no rank number, and when it ends you are exactly where your Server Score puts you. Paying never changes votes, counts or flags.
What is the difference between Promoted, Boosted and Hot?
Promoted is a paid placement above the list. Boosted is a paid, time-limited multiplier on a server's Server Score, shown with a blue glow. Hot is earned: an online server with at least 5 players doing better than usual, limited to 15% of any list at a time.