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Grow your serverRetention playbook

Grow your server

Retention playbook

A checklist of small changes that keep players coming back. Pulled from what works on real servers.

Retention is the single biggest lever on a server. A 10% bump in D1 is worth more than a new creator deal, and it's usually free to fix.

This page is a checklist of things that actually move retention on real servers. Work through it in order. Each one is small. Each one can be tested, measured, and undone.

Before you start

Open Retention and write down your current D1 and D7. This is your baseline. Every change should move at least one of these numbers. If it doesn't, it didn't matter.

The first-minute checklist

Half your churn happens in the first 60 seconds. If a new player lags, crashes, or spawns to chaos, they leave and never come back. Fix this first.

  • Spawn loads in under 3 seconds on a mid-tier PC
  • No scoreboard, no action bar, no bossbar popping before the player has fully rendered
  • No chat spam in the first 5 seconds
  • A visible, clickable tutorial start, not a command they need to type
  • Bedrock clients can actually see the spawn (test on a phone)

The first-session checklist

Once they're past the first minute, you need to give them something to do in the next 5.

  • A clear "what do I do first" signal. NPC, hologram, book, anything.
  • A free starter kit (or a cheap first rank) to reward them for getting engaged
  • An easy first-win moment. A first kill, a first sale, a first level, whatever fits your gamemode.
  • No hostile PvP at spawn. You can have PvP, just not on newbies.
  • Store menu accessible but not pushed. Never auto-open the store in the first 2 minutes.

The come-back checklist

D7 is mostly about giving people a reason to come back tomorrow.

  • Daily login rewards that escalate through the week
  • Weekly events that only happen at a fixed time (Friday 20:00 UTC becomes "their" time)
  • A progression system visible in the first session. They need to see "I can grow here"
  • Social friction is low. Adding friends, teams, guilds should take one command
  • Your Discord link is surfaced. Community members retain better than solo players

The store checklist

Weirdly, your store can hurt retention. Fix these.

  • No pay-to-win item that makes new players feel cheated in their first week
  • Cosmetic items visible in-game (capes, trails) so ranks feel like status, not utility
  • No popup ads, banners, or announcements pushing the store in the first 30 minutes
  • A cheap "newbie pack" exists (around $3) to remove the first-purchase friction

Measuring the impact

After every change, wait 3 to 7 days, then compare the retention curve for the cohort that joined after the change vs the one just before.

The single biggest win

If you can only do one thing this month, fix whatever happens in the first 60 seconds after a player joins. That's always the biggest lift.

When retention doesn't move

If you've done the checklist and retention still isn't moving, the problem is usually one of:

  • Bad player source. Your Campaigns are driving people who were never going to stick. Switch creators.
  • Wrong expectations. Your landing page / creator's video promises one thing, your server is another. Align them.
  • Gamemode mismatch. A viral TikTok about Survival sending players to a Skyblock spawn is DOA. Use per-Campaign spawn if you run multiple gamemodes.

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