General Terms and Conditions (GTC)

§ 1 Scope

(1) These General Terms and Conditions (GTC) apply to all contracts between mcfreehost.com (hereinafter "Provider") and the Customer concerning the provision of game server hosting services, application hosting and related add-on services.

(2) Deviating terms and conditions of the Customer shall not be recognized unless the Provider expressly agrees to their validity in writing.

§ 2 Conclusion of Contract

(1) By completing the order process on the website, the Customer submits a binding offer to conclude a contract.

(2) The contract is concluded upon confirmation of the order by the Provider or upon provision of the server — whichever occurs first.

(3) The Customer must be at least 18 years old or have the consent of a legal guardian.

§ 3 Services

(1) The Provider makes virtual server resources (RAM, CPU, storage space) available to the Customer for operating game servers. The servers are provided on the Pterodactyl platform.

(2) Every server receives access to the control panel and, where stated for the selected plan and assigned infrastructure, a custom subdomain, network protection, and manual or scheduled backup functions. The scope shown in the configurator before purchase is decisive.

(3) Free add-on services (e.g. Uptime Kuma, Sinusbot, Game Server Watcher) are provided without any warranty of availability. The Provider reserves the right to discontinue free services at any time or to make them chargeable, subject to a notice period of 30 days.

(4) The Provider aims for an availability of 99.5% on a monthly average. Scheduled maintenance work is announced in advance where possible and does not count as downtime.

§ 4 Prices and Payment

(1) All prices are quoted in euros including statutory value added tax (where applicable).

(2) Payment for the selected billing period (1, 3, 6 or 12 months) is made in advance through a Stripe subscription or by account credit. A subsequent billing period is charged only while automatic renewal remains enabled.

(3) The customer may top up their account with credit. A distinction is made between paid-in credit (acquired by the customer through payment) and bonus credit (granted free of charge by the provider, e.g. welcome, referral or goodwill credit). Before the customer account is deleted, the customer is shown how much of the remaining balance is paid-in credit.

(4) When paying by account credit, the amount is deducted from the credit balance immediately. For the purpose of determining the refundable remaining balance, bonus credit is deemed to be used up first.

(5) Paid-in credit does not expire. The customer may at any time – in particular before termination of the contract or before deletion of their account – request a refund of the remaining paid-in credit. The refund is generally made via the payment method originally used; where this is not possible, by bank transfer to an account named by the customer. No automatic payout is made without a request by the customer. The claim is subject to the standard limitation period (§§ 195, 199 German Civil Code).

(6) Bonus credit is non-refundable and expires when the customer account is deleted.

(7) Credit is not transferable to third parties and does not bear interest.

(8) Term discounts for payment in advance (10% for 3 months, 15% for 6 months, 20% for 12 months) apply only to the respective billing period. For monthly payment with a minimum term (§ 5), a separate, lower discount scale applies (5% for 3 months, 10% for 6 months, 15% for 12 months); this discount is tied to the agreed minimum term and remains unchanged for its duration and for the subsequent monthly continuation.

§ 5 Term and Termination

(1) The contract begins when the server is provided and initially runs for the selected billing period.

(2) For bookings without a minimum term, automatic renewal is enabled by default. While it remains enabled, the contract renews for the selected billing period. The Customer can disable automatic renewal at any time in the customer area.

(3) A cancellation or disabling automatic renewal takes effect at the end of the billing period already paid for. The server remains usable until then. No early refund is granted for an unused part of that paid period. After the contract ends, the retention and deletion periods shown in the customer area and service description apply.

(4) The Provider may terminate the contract without notice in the event of a breach of § 6.

(5) For terms of 3, 6 or 12 months, the Customer may choose monthly payment with a minimum term as an alternative to payment in advance. In this case the contract runs for the selected minimum term; the discounted monthly amount is charged automatically one month in advance via the payment service provider Stripe, thereby extending the term by one further month each time. Payment by account credit is not available with this payment method.

(6) A termination during the minimum term is accepted but only takes effect at the end of the agreed minimum term — not already at the end of the current billing month. Until then the server remains usable and the monthly amount continues to be charged. No early refund is granted for monthly amounts already charged.

(7) After the agreed minimum term expires, the contract continues indefinitely on a monthly basis and may be terminated at any time with effect from the end of the current billing month. The discount granted with the minimum term remains unchanged for the continuation.

§ 6 Terms of Use

(1) The Customer undertakes to use the servers exclusively for operating game servers and permitted applications.

(2) In particular, the following are prohibited:

• Operating illegal content or services
• Sending spam or carrying out DDoS attacks
• Mining cryptocurrencies
• Exceeding the allocated resources through deliberate manipulation
• Reselling server resources without authorization

(3) In the event of a breach, the Provider is entitled to suspend the server immediately.

§ 7 Data Backup

(1) Where stated for the selected plan, the Customer can create manual backups and configure backup schedules. Storage location, scope, retention and maximum count are governed by the service description shown before purchase.

(2) Separate internal copies maintained by the Provider serve disaster recovery only and are not a guaranteed or individually retrievable customer backup.

(3) The Customer remains responsible for an additional copy of important data, in particular by downloading available backups before the contract ends or a permanent data deletion is requested.

§ 8 Liability

(1) The Provider is liable without limitation for damages arising from injury to life, body or health as well as for intent and gross negligence.

(2) In all other respects, liability is limited to the foreseeable damage typical for the contract and capped at the amount of the fee paid within the billing period.

(3) Liability for data loss is limited to the typical recovery effort that would have been incurred had the Customer performed regular data backups.

§ 9 Description of Services

(1) The Provider makes virtual game servers based on the Pterodactyl management software available to the Customer. The servers are operated on dedicated servers in German data centers.

(2) The scope of services depends on the plan selected by the Customer (RAM, CPU, storage space). Add-on services (monitoring, music bot, etc.) are included free of charge.

(3) The Provider aims for an availability of 99.5% on a monthly average. Scheduled maintenance work is announced in advance where possible.

§ 10 Right of Withdrawal

(1) Consumers have a statutory right of withdrawal. You can find the full withdrawal instructions at: Withdrawal Instructions.

(2) For a paid service, Section 356(5) BGB provides that the right of withdrawal expires only once the service has been fully performed, provided that the Provider began performance with the Customer's prior express consent and the Customer acknowledged that the right would expire upon full performance.

(3) During the checkout process, the Customer is asked to consent to the immediate commencement of server provision.

§ 11 Data Protection

The processing of personal data is carried out in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

§ 11a Community Priority for Free Servers

(1) Adult customers with a free MCFREEHOST server may participate once in the optional community-priority programme. They must publish their own original public post on X using the advertising text supplied by us without a material change. The post must be labelled “Ad” and use X’s paid partnership designation.

(2) The post must remain publicly accessible from the first manual review until the second manual review at least 14 days later. Before final approval, the customer may withdraw and the participation data will be deleted.

(3) After a successful second review, the account receives community priority for free-server start requests for exactly 30 days from the displayed grant time. During high load, paid servers remain first, followed by approved community accounts and then other free servers. No specific start or waiting time, nor continuous technical availability, is guaranteed.

(4) Priority is tied to the account, cannot be transferred, and ends automatically at the displayed expiry time or earlier when the account is deleted. The post does not have to remain published after final review. Only one participation is permitted per customer account, X account, and post.

(5) The Provider may suspend or close new submissions at any time. Accounts with an active grant retain the expiry time fixed when it was granted.

§ 12 Final Provisions

(1) The law of the Federal Republic of Germany shall apply.

(2) The place of jurisdiction for disputes with merchants, legal entities under public law or special funds under public law is the registered office of the Provider.

(3) Should individual provisions of these GTC be invalid, the validity of the remaining provisions shall remain unaffected.

(4) The Provider is neither willing nor obliged to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.