Set up an economy and shops on your Minecraft server

Only one plugin should store money. Shop, auction and job plugins then talk to it through Vault. Without the bridge, a shop plugin often refuses to start with a message that no economy was found.

1. Make sure the server runs Paper or Purpur.
2. Open the Plugins tab and search the Plugin catalog for EssentialsX. Install it.
3. Search for VaultUnlocked and install it. It is a maintained version of Vault that plugins written for Vault can use.
4. Restart the server.
5. Check the Console for a line from EssentialsX or Vault saying an economy was hooked or registered.

If you already set up EssentialsX for homes and warps, it only needs the bridge. Install plugins covers uploading a plugin that is not in the catalog.

Give the player permissions to the default group with LuckPerms, for example lp group default permission set essentials.pay true. Keep essentials.eco for staff.

Economy settings in EssentialsX config.yml

• starting-balance is the money a new player starts with.
• currency-symbol is the sign shown before amounts.
• command-costs puts a price on commands, such as a cost for /home; a simple way to take money out of the economy.

EssentialsX can turn signs into shops. The sign types are off by default; switch on the ones you want under enabledSigns in plugins/Essentials/config.yml, for example buy and sell, and run essentials reload.

These signs are the server's own shop: the server hands out and takes in the items, without a chest behind them. Only staff should be able to make them; that is the permission essentials.signs.create.buy, while players need essentials.signs.use.buy to use one.

In a chest shop a player sells their own items from a chest. Buyers pay the owner, and stock runs out when the chest is empty. This is the most common shop on survival servers, because prices come from the players.

1. Install QuickShop-Hikari from the Plugin catalog and restart.
2. A player puts items in a chest, looks at it and follows the plugin's prompt to set a price.
3. Other players click the chest and type how many they want to buy.

Chest shops work best together with land claims, so nobody can break into a shop. See stop griefing for claims and block logging.

A server shop sells items at fixed prices from a menu, usually opened with /shop. It is useful for items players cannot farm themselves, or as a price floor for common items.

Pick one menu shop. Two shops with different prices for the same item let players buy in one and sell in the other for profit.

An economy goes wrong when money enters faster than it leaves. After a few weeks everyone is rich, prices mean nothing and the shop is empty. These rules keep it working:

• Sell prices below buy prices. If the server buys an item for 8 and sells it for 20, nobody can loop it for profit.
• Low prices for farmable items. Anything an automatic farm makes in thousands, such as cobblestone, sugar cane or rotten flesh, should sell for very little or not at all.
• Money sinks. Things that remove money: land claim blocks, ranks bought with game money, command-costs for teleports, repairs.
• A small starting balance. Enough for a bed and some food, not enough to skip the early game.
• Watch `/baltop` every week. One player far above the rest often means a price that can be abused.

Change prices in small steps and tell players before you do. Lowering a sell price overnight feels like a punishment to players who built a farm for it.

Vault, EssentialsX and the shop plugins are Paper plugins. Fabric and Forge servers need economy mods instead, and many modpacks include their own money or trading system. On a crossplay server with Geyser, Bedrock players can use the commands and most chest shops; some menu shops look different on Bedrock. Crossplay between Java and Bedrock lists what changes for Bedrock players.