Most Downloaded Minecraft Economy Plugins on Modrinth

These Minecraft economy plugins are the seven most downloaded on Modrinth among those that handle money, shops or player trading on Paper or Spigot servers, read on 7 October 2026. EssentialsX is the broadest and the most downloaded, QuickShop-Hikari is the one built around chest shops, and Donut Auction and Auction House Plugin cover auctions. All are Java Edition only, and our full plugin listing holds everything else.

How we picked these economy plugins

We started from the 14 economy plugins we list for Java. Eight of them deal with money, shops or player trading. ItemEdit, ExcellentCrates, Quests, Ultimate Teams, AxVaults and SimpleClaimSystem are about other jobs, so they are out. We then took the seven most downloaded of the eight by Modrinth downloads, read on 7 October 2026, which leaves out ChestShop. We did not benchmark or play-test any of them. Downloads favour older projects, and a count is not a score.

Money and the economy base

EssentialsX

EssentialsX

@mdcfe · Server Plugin

JavaBukkit, Paper, Spigotv 1.8.8 to 26.1.2

Checked Sep 5, 2026Source and install notes ↗

Pick this when you want one plugin that covers the basics of a Paper or Spigot server, money included. Its Modrinth page describes a suite of over 130 commands and lists economy among its categories. Other plugins here point at it: Auction House Plugin names Essentials as an example of the economy it needs, and Donut Auction lists EssentialsX as a compatible Vault provider. The trade-off is scope. Money is one part of a large suite, so a server that wants only a currency carries every other feature too. Its page suggests LuckPerms for permissions and says Vault is needed for chat prefixes and suffixes.

Vault

Vault

@TheNewEconomy (creatorfromhell) · Server Plugin

JavaBukkit, Folia, Paper, Purpur, Spigotv 1.12.2 to 26.2

Checked Sep 15, 2026Source and install notes ↗

Players never see this one. The project our Vault page tracks is VaultUnlocked, a fork of the original Vault that gives plugins a single interface to permissions, chat and economy systems. Choose it when a plugin on this list asks for Vault. Its page adds multi-currency support, BigDecimal precision and Folia support over the original, and QuickShop-Hikari says multi-currency shops need an economy that supports VaultUnlocked. The limit is that it supplies no money itself. You still need an economy plugin such as EssentialsX on top of it.

Player shops

QuickShop-Hikari

QuickShop-Hikari

@creatorfromhell · Server Plugin

JavaFolia, Paper, Purpur, Spigotv 1.18.2 to 1.21.11

Checked Jul 9, 2026Source and install notes ↗

Choose this for chest shops where a player clicks and types a price, which its Modrinth summary says needs no commands. Its page lists tax and ongoing fees, per-shop permissions and multi-currency shops, and it requires Vault plus a Vault-compatible economy plugin. The limit is the Spigot loader. Spigot builds stopped at 6.2.0.10 on 28 July 2025 while Paper, Purpur and Folia builds continued, and the page itself says Spigot is no longer supported and points to Paper. The code is dual licensed under GPLv3 and AGPLv3, with later contributions under AGPLv3.

ShopkeepersAddon

ShopkeepersAddon

@_w41k3r · Server Plugin

JavaBukkit, Paper, Purpur, Spigotv 1.16 to 26.2

Checked Sep 28, 2026Source and install notes ↗

This suits servers that already run the Shopkeepers plugin and want players to browse its shops more easily. Its page says plainly that it is not a full shop plugin. It adds sorting, GUI navigation and Vault-based price formatting to Shopkeepers, which you install first. The newest build also requires PacketEvents, while older builds listed no requirement. Modrinth labels it MIT, but it links no source code, so that label could not be checked against a repository.

Auctions and trading

Auction House Plugin

Auction House Plugin

@ElaineQheart · Server Plugin

JavaBukkit, Folia, Paper, Purpur, Spigotv 1.21 to 26.2

Checked Sep 30, 2026Source and install notes ↗

Pick it for an /ah command that opens a server-wide auction house with both buy-it-now listings and bidding auctions. Its page shows defaults of a 1% tax, 48-hour buy-it-now listings and two-hour bidding auctions, and a permissions file can raise slot counts and durations per rank. It requires Vault (VaultUnlocked on Folia) and an economy plugin. The source is public under GPL-3.0, but the project is young, first published on 7 September 2025, and no issue tracker is linked.

Donut Auction

Donut Auction

@NightBeam Studio · Server Plugin

JavaBukkit, Folia, Paper, Purpur, Spigotv 1.20 to 26.3

Checked Sep 30, 2026Source and install notes ↗

Choose this for a browsable marketplace. Its page describes a 54-slot inventory with pagination, sorting, category filters, search, and screens for active, sold and expired listings. Storage is SQLite by default, with MySQL for larger networks. It works with any Vault-compatible economy, and a DonutCore hook is optional. Its own summary calls it a Paper and Folia plugin inspired by DonutSMP, and its README lists Java 17 or newer. It does the same job as Auction House Plugin, so most servers will want only one of the two.

Currencies beyond money

PlayerPoints

PlayerPoints

@Rosewood Development · Server Plugin

JavaFolia, Paper, Spigotv 1.8 to 26.2

Checked Sep 30, 2026Source and install notes ↗

Use this when you want a points currency, either alongside money or as the main one. Rosewood Development's page lists giving and taking points, payments between players, balance lookups, a leaderboard, SQLite and MySQL storage, and optional Vault support. The catch is integration. Other plugins use it only if they support PlayerPoints directly or you connect it through Vault. Its README says CraftBukkit is not supported and Paper is the suggested software.

Which plugin fits which server

Start with the money layer. A plain Paper survival server can take EssentialsX for the balance, add Vault if a plugin asks for it, then choose one shop plugin and one auction plugin. Chest shops point to QuickShop-Hikari, and Shopkeepers owners point to ShopkeepersAddon. If you run Spigot rather than Paper, QuickShop-Hikari is the pick with a stopped loader. Our Paper vs Spigot comparison covers that choice, and the plugin install guide covers the steps. For permissions, see how to use LuckPerms.

For plugins beyond money, our survival server plugin roundup is the next stop, and the full plugin listing has every economy page we left out.