Do you actually need a dedicated IP for your game server?

A dedicated IP is one of the most reliably upsold add-ons in game hosting, and for most servers it does nothing you cannot get for free. It is also occasionally exactly what you need. Here is how to tell which you are.

What you get by default

Shared IP with a unique port. Your server address looks like 198.51.100.20:28016 rather than 198.51.100.20. Functionally identical: players connect, mods work, the server appears in browsers.

When it genuinely helps

1. The game does not support a custom port properly. A handful of titles — and more often their server browsers — behave badly on non-default ports. Query ports get mismatched, the server shows as offline in the in-game list despite being reachable, or mod downloads fail. When that happens it is usually a game bug, and a dedicated IP is the practical workaround.

2. You are whitelisting inbound connections. If you run a firewall rule, a tournament allowlist or a partner integration keyed to an address, sharing that address with other servers is a problem.

3. You are running a service alongside the game — a website, a voice server, a webhook endpoint — that wants port 80 or 443. Those are single-occupancy per IP.

4. You want the address to be the brand. Some communities put the raw IP on a banner, a video thumbnail or a merch print. Fair enough, but see the next section first.

When it does not help, despite what you have been told

"It is faster." It is not. Routing is identical; the packets take the same path. Any host implying otherwise is guessing or worse.

"It protects against DDoS." Also no — and if anything it makes you marginally easier to target, because you are no longer one of several servers behind the same address. Our filtering is per-server and always on regardless.

"Players need a clean address." This is the common one, and there is a better answer.

The better answer for a memorable address

Point a domain at your server. An SRV record lets players connect with play.yourclan.gg and no port at all — the record carries the port for them. An A record gets you play.yourclan.gg:28016, which is still a great deal nicer than an IP.

Both work fine on a shared IP. Both cost you the price of a domain, once a year, rather than four pounds a month. And both survive you moving the server to another region, which a raw IP does not.

Our knowledgebase has the exact records per game, and support will set them up with you if DNS is not your idea of a good evening.

The honest recommendation

Do not buy one on day one. Run on the shared IP with a domain in front of it, and if you hit one of the four situations above, add the dedicated IP then — it takes about ten minutes and does not require moving anything.

On our plans it is $3.99/month as an add-on, and included on Citadel and on the community packages. If you are on Citadel already, you have one; you may as well use it.

If a host has bundled one into a plan you are otherwise happy with, that is fine too — just do not let it be the reason you pick the plan.