Tebex vs Arcalotl for Hytale

Before we get into the product comparison, there is a widespread misconception worth clearing up. Many people believe Tebex is “the official Hytale payment platform” because Hytale has a published relationship with Tebex. That relationship is real, but it is narrower than most people realize.

Hytale's Support-a-Creator Program Terms (Version 1.1, effective March 18, 2026) state verbatim in Section 6.1:

Read that carefully. This clause is about paying commissions to content creators whose Creator Codes are used at checkout for the base game and in-game virtual items. That is the Hytale affiliate program. It is a revenue-share arrangement between Hypixel Studios Canada and individual creators, and Tebex is the processor that pays creators their cut.

This is notthe same as Tebex being the official server monetization platform for Hytale. The Hytale Server Operator Policies (the document that governs server monetization) do not mention Tebex at all. Section 4.1 only requires that monetization be “truthful and lawful,” that operators “comply with consumer protection, advertising, tax, and payment laws,” and that certain categories (NFTs, gambling, P2E) be prohibited. No specific payment provider is mandated, endorsed, or required.

In other words: Tebex is Hytale's creator-commission paymaster, not Hytale's default or required server monetization provider. Server operators are free to use any compliant platform. This matters because a lot of “just use Tebex, it's the official one” advice you will see on forums is based on a misread of the Creator Policy.

This is the biggest structural difference between the two tools. Every other trade-off flows from it.

The framing matters here. Arcalotl does notclaim “no browser ever.” Every PCI-compliant payment processor (including Stripe) requires hosted card entry for the initial charge. What Arcalotl does is make that the only browser step. Competitors have published “no browser ever” claims for Hytale monetization and they are false for anything that involves real card processing. The accurate claim is “one secure Stripe form on first purchase, then the supporter store lives where the player already is.”

The conversion math is meaningful. Baymard Institute's e-commerce checkout research puts cart abandonment on multi-page external checkout flows at over 70%. A single additional page in the checkout path measurably hurts conversion. Moving from “leave the game every transaction” to “leave the game once per account” is not a marginal UX improvement; it is a structural change in how much money a server makes.

Tebex publishes its fees at docs.tebex.io/creators/pricing-overview/tebex-fees-and-billing-overview. The headline number is a 5% standard platform fee per transaction (15% on FiveM). There are additional layered fees that are easier to miss: a 2% FX fee on foreign-currency withdrawals, a $20 chargeback fee plus the withheld transaction amount on ineligible disputes, an extra 1% fee when creator codes are used at checkout, and flat wire-transfer costs (around £12 per wire). Tebex is the merchant of record in its standard configuration, which means Tebex handles chargebacks and tax compliance but also holds the customer relationship and the funds.

There is a payout timing story worth knowing. Tebex's documentation advertises a 7-day payout cycle: “Receive payouts every 7 days — significantly faster than the typical 30-day delay.” Trustpilot reviews commonly report 14 to 30 days in practice, and Tebex's own Trustpilot response acknowledges the longer window verbatim:

Arcalotl has a single pricing tier: $0/month, 2% per successful transaction, and 5% on revenue actively recovered by dunning or cancel saves. Standard Stripe processing fees (2.9% + 30¢) apply on top. No monthly fee, no higher tier, no FX surcharge, no chargeback surcharge beyond what Stripe itself charges (and Stripe's chargeback fee is $15, not $20). Payouts go directly to your Stripe account on Stripe's standard rolling schedule — usually 2 to 7 days depending on your Stripe account history. You own the customer relationship and the payout timing is governed by Stripe, not by an intermediary wallet.

The practical implication for a typical Hytale community server earning $500/month in supporter tier revenue: Arcalotl's base cost is $10 (2% of $500). Tebex's base cost on the same $500 is $25 (5%). If dunning recovers an additional $100 that would have silently churned on Tebex, that adds $5 in Arcalotl recovery fee, so total Arcalotl cost is $15 and the server earns $600 minus Stripe processing. On Tebex, the same server earns $500 minus $25 platform fee minus PayPal gateway fees, loses the $100 to failed payments, and waits two to four weeks for the payout to land. Run your own numbers with the revenue recovery calculator.

The feature matrix below reflects public product documentation as of April 2026. If any of this has changed, file an issue on our repo and we will update the post.

The straight read: Tebex wins on maturity (14 years of iteration, $1.5B+ processed, massive feature surface for complex product catalogs) and breadth (gift cards, coupons, merch, multiple game integrations). Arcalotl wins on revenue protection (dunning, cancel saves, term optimization), checkout UX (in-game store, browser-once), and cross-platform subscriber management. The two tools optimize for different things.

There are several scenarios where Tebex is genuinely the better fit, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.

Large one-time product catalogs. If you are selling dozens or hundreds of individual cosmetic items, bundles, gift cards, and merch, Tebex's web store builder is mature, customizable, and built for e-commerce breadth. Arcalotl's in-game store is optimized for supporter tiers, not for a 200-item product catalog.

You want the merchant of record off your books. Tebex acts as the MoR in its standard configuration. This means Tebex handles chargebacks, tax compliance (for supported regions), and dispute resolution. If you want to outsource that operational burden entirely and you are willing to accept the higher per-transaction fees, Tebex's MoR model is a genuine convenience. Arcalotl's Stripe Connect model keeps you as the MoR (which Hytale's EULA Section 7.7 says you are regardless), but you handle those operational pieces through Stripe's tooling.

Multi-game operator with existing Tebex setup. If you already run Minecraft, Rust, FiveM, or ARK servers on Tebex and you want one vendor for everything, the convenience of adding Hytale to an existing Tebex account is real. Arcalotl is a subscription-first platform; we do not compete with Tebex's breadth across game genres.

You do not care about recurring revenue. If your entire monetization model is one-time cosmetic purchases and you have no interest in supporter tiers, the dunning / cancel save / term optimization features that Arcalotl is built around are irrelevant to you. Tebex's one-time purchase flow is solid, and the feature gap narrows.

Arcalotl is the better fit when any of the following apply:

You want recurring supporter tier revenue. Monthly and annual subscriptions with automatic renewal, lifecycle management, and retention flows. Arcalotl is built from the ground up for this, and the revenue protection layer ( dunning, cancel saves, term optimization) increases MRR compared to a platform that only processes payments. The supporter tier playbook walks through archetype-specific perks and prices.

You care about checkout conversion. In-game checkout with a single first-purchase Stripe form converts measurably better than multi-page external web stores. Over the 2-year 0% revenue share window Hytale provides, the compound difference is meaningful.

Your community spans multiple platforms. If your community lives on Hytale plus Discord (or Stoat, Fluxer, Root), Arcalotl manages subscriptions across all of them from one dashboard. Players who join your Hytale server get their supporter perks in your companion Discord automatically. Tebex does not have a cross-platform subscriber dashboard.

You want to own the customer relationship. Arcalotl uses Stripe Connect direct charges, so payouts flow directly to your Stripe account and the customer relationship lives in your Stripe dashboard. If you ever want to leave Arcalotl, your subscribers come with you. With Tebex's MoR model, migrating typically means asking subscribers to re-subscribe through a new platform.

You want compliance baked into the tooling. Arcalotl enforces Hytale's Server Operator Policy requirements at the configuration layer. Gameplay-affecting items get auto-tagged. Paid random items require the Section 5 disclosure metadata. Refund policies and pricing are surfaced before checkout automatically. This matters because the Policies are strict and getting a rule wrong can get you delisted.