- Give things that only matter to a player: a rank, a cosmetic, crate keys, a spot in an event. Never Minecraft accounts, which Mojang's and Microsoft's terms do not let you transfer.
- Entry must be free and by chance (or judged on skill). Write short official rules, keep it 13+, and follow the platform: Discord bans bought or induced joins, YouTube bans like-and-subscribe manipulation, TikTok caps prizes at $500.
- Rewarding votes is fine and counts toward your rank here. Buying or botting votes costs up to 10 Server Score points when we catch it.
- Measure the giveaway by your 7-day player chart a week after it ends, not by entries.
A giveaway is the easiest promotion to run and the easiest to waste. Run it on a random Discord with a prize anyone would want, and you collect entries from people who will never join. Run it with a prize that only a player of your server cares about, entered from inside the game, and every entry is someone who has already logged in.
This guide covers what to give (and the one thing you must not), the Discord, YouTube and TikTok rules as of September 2026, the US legal basics, vote-to-enter without a penalty, and how to tell afterward whether anyone stayed. None of it is legal advice; for a prize worth real money, read the linked platform pages and your state's rules.
What to give away
The prize decides who enters. Pick something with no value to anyone who does not play on your server.
| Prize | Who it attracts | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| A rank for a month | Current and near players | Keep the perks cosmetic or convenience only, the same test your store has to pass under the EULA. Ideas in the ranks guide. |
| Cosmetics (particles, pets, hats, chat colors) | Players who already like the server | Cheap to grant, no balance impact. See the cosmetics plugin guide. |
| Crate keys or in-game currency | Active players | Fine as a free prize. Watch the economy if you hand out large sums. |
| Event access (a boss fight, a tournament seat, a custom warp) | Your regulars | Costs nothing, makes people log in at a fixed time. |
| Store credit on your own Tebex or CraftingStore | Players close to buying | Real value, but it stays inside your server. |
| Physical items or gift cards | Everyone on the internet | Brings entries from people who will never join and triggers the full legal checklist. TikTok bans cash and gift cards outright. |
Discord, YouTube and TikTok: the rules that apply
Each platform has its own lines, and they changed recently enough that older advice is wrong. Here is what each one says as of September 2026, with the source.
Discord
Most server giveaways run through a bot. GiveawayBot is the standard one: /gstart with a time, a number of winners and a prize, /gend to finish early, /greroll to pick a replacement winner. It is open source and picks winners at random, so nobody can accuse you of picking a friend.
Discord's platform manipulation policy lists "purchasing or inducing server joins" and "using fake accounts to boost member count" as violations, next to selling accounts and invite links, and its guidelines ban "unsolicited bulk messages". In practice: no extra entries for invites, no DMs about the giveaway, no posting in other servers unless the channel exists for ads, and no requiring a join to a third server. Everyone entering must be 13 or older, because Discord's terms require it. Our Discord guide covers the channel setup.
YouTube
YouTube's contest policies and guidelines (in the YouTube Help Center) require that a contest is free to enter, that you post official rules, that you say YouTube is not a sponsor, and that you release YouTube from liability. They forbid running contests through ads, and they forbid manipulating "numbers of views, likes, dislikes, or subscribers". So "like and subscribe to enter" breaks the policy of the platform you are posting on, even though thousands of videos do it. Ask for a comment with an in-game username instead.
TikTok
TikTok's Giveaways and Promotions Policy (written for TikTok Shop sellers and creators, effective September 2, 2026 for the US) says a giveaway must be entirely free, the prize must be worth under $500, cash and gift cards are not allowed, gamified mechanics are not allowed, and you must state how to enter, how many winners there are and who is eligible. If you are not using TikTok Shop, the Community Guidelines still apply, and the same disclosures are the safe default.
The legal basics for a US giveaway
US law splits prize promotions into three kinds. A sweepstakes is prize plus chance, and it must be free to enter. A contest is prize plus skill (a build contest judged by criteria you publish). A lottery is prize plus chance plus payment, and only governments and state-approved operators can run one. The FTC's consumer guidance puts it plainly: "Real sweepstakes are free and by chance. It's illegal to ask you to pay or buy something to enter or to increase your odds of winning" (consumer.ftc.gov).
For a server giveaway that means:
- No purchase necessary, and say so. Buying a rank cannot be the way in, and it cannot buy extra entries. A free entry route has to exist and be as easy as the paid one.
- Post short official rules where people enter: who can enter (age, regions), start and end dates, how to enter, how winners are chosen (random draw or judging criteria), how many winners, the prize and its value, and how winners are told. Odds depend on the number of entries; say that.
- Keep it 13 and up. Discord requires 13, and US privacy law (COPPA) restricts collecting personal data from under-13s. Ask only for a Minecraft username. Never ask for an email or address unless you are shipping a physical prize, and then only from the winner, in private.
- Deliver exactly what you promised. Undelivered prizes turn into one-star reviews on every list you are on.
- Physical prizes need more: shipping regions, tax rules above certain values, and state registration for large prizes. Get advice first.
Vote to enter, and why you must not buy votes
The best entry method for a server giveaway is one that also helps the server. "Vote for us and you are entered" does that: every vote is a real player, it raises your rank on the list, and the bot or plugin can draw a winner from the vote log. On our list one vote per Minecraft username counts each day (the day resets at midnight UTC), votes reach your server through NuVotifier, and the monthly vote count is 15 of the 100 points in our Server Score. Rewarding votes is fine; our vote rewards list exists for servers that do it.
What is not fine is manufacturing votes. Vote exchanges, paid vote packages and vote bots all leave patterns: many votes from one connection, machine-regular intervals, usernames that have never joined. When we catch it, staff can take up to 10 points off the server's score, and the change is logged. A giveaway that pushed you up for a week and then cost ten points for a month was not worth it.
A giveaway plan that ends with players, not entries
- Set a goal you can measure. Not "more members". Something like "peak of 20 players on Saturday" or "ten new players who are still here next week".
- Choose a prize from the top of the table above. A rank for a month or a cosmetic bundle. Value it honestly in the rules.
- Make entry an in-game action. Vote, play an hour, reach a milestone, or enter a build. Discord is where you announce and draw, not where people enter.
- Run it five to seven days. Long enough for word to spread, short enough that the announcement is still fresh. End on your busiest evening.
- Announce in four places, once each. Your Discord announcements channel, your MOTD's second line, your listing description, and one clip on TikTok or Shorts if you post there. Nothing else. No DMs.
- Draw live. Run the bot or the draw during an event with people online, then hand the prize over in game in front of them.
- Post the result within a day. Winner names, a screenshot, and the date of the next one. Pair it with an event from our event ideas guide so the crowd has something to do once they are there.
Measuring who stayed
Entries are a vanity number. The number that matters is players online a week after the giveaway ended, compared with the week before it started. You have three free ways to read it.
- Your listing's 7-day chart. We ping every server at least every five minutes and keep the history. Compare the week before, the giveaway week and the week after; if the third looks like the first, the prize brought visitors, not players.
- New-player retention. The free Plan plugin tracks daily active players and new player retention on its web panel, so you can see how many of the people who first joined during the giveaway were still playing seven days later.
- Discord members against Discord online. If members jumped by 200 and your in-game count is unchanged, you collected prize hunters, and they will leave when the next giveaway elsewhere starts.
A giveaway that adds five players who are still online two weeks later did its job. On our list the median server has 12 people online, so five retained players is real growth, not a rounding error.
Before the first one, make sure the entries land somewhere: claim your listing from its server page, connect NuVotifier so votes count as entries, and fill in the description so the people your giveaway sends here find a complete page.
Quick questions
Is it legal to give away a Minecraft account?
It breaks the terms you agreed to. Minecraft accounts are Microsoft accounts, and Microsoft's services agreement says you cannot transfer your account credentials to another person. Give a rank, a cosmetic or store credit instead.
Can I require people to join my Discord to enter?
Requiring membership in the server where it runs is normal and the bots assume it. What Discord's policy names is inducing joins for their own sake, so skip extra entries for invites and do not chain in other servers. Better still, make entry an in-game action.
Can I make "like and subscribe" the entry?
YouTube's contest policy prohibits using a contest to manipulate views, likes or subscriber counts, so do not make those the entry method. Ask for a comment with a Minecraft username and draw from the comments.