Stop Paying for Dedicated IPs: Why SRV Records Are Better

• BaoHost Team

Let's talk about one of the oldest up-sells in the Minecraft hosting industry: the Dedicated IP. You've probably seen the checkbox on checkout screens. 'Add a Dedicated IP so your players don't have to type a port! Only $5/mo!'

If you're paying for this in 2026, you are getting scammed. I'm going to explain exactly how to bypass this completely using something called an SRV record, and how you can do it for practically zero cost.

What You're Actually Buying

When you buy a standard server, you get a shared IP address and a random port (like 192.168.1.5:25599). A dedicated IP means you get the default Minecraft port, 25565, so players can just type the IP without the colon and the numbers.

That's it. You are paying $60 a year to hide five numbers. It doesn't make your server faster. It doesn't give you DDoS protection (in fact, shared IPs are often better protected by massive load balancers). It's purely cosmetic.

The SRV Record Loophole

Minecraft's client has supported SRV records for over a decade. An SRV (Service) record is a DNS rule that tells the game client, "Hey, when someone types play.myserver.com, silently redirect them to this specific IP and this specific weird port."

Here is how you set it up:

  1. Buy a cheap domain name (or use a free subdomain service). You can get a .xyz domain for about $1 a year.
  2. Connect that domain to Cloudflare. (It's free, and gives you DNS control).
  3. Create an A Record pointing to your host's shared IP address. (Let's call it node1.myserver.com).
  4. Create an SRV Record.
    • Service: _minecraft
    • Protocol: _tcp
    • Name: play (or whatever you want the prefix to be)
    • Priority/Weight: 0
    • Port: The ugly port your host gave you (e.g., 25599)
    • Target: node1.myserver.com

The Result

Now, your players just type play.myserver.com. The Minecraft client automatically reads the SRV record in the background, attaches the port, and connects them seamlessly. It looks hyper-professional, it hides the ugly port, and it didn't cost you a monthly fee.

At BaoHost, we actually provide free custom subdomains for all servers that handle this automatically. But even if you use another host, please, stop giving them $5 a month for an IP address.