How is the Rust upkeep cost worked out?

Rust

Upkeep Cost

In Rust you pay rent. Every block within a tool cupboard’s range costs resources every twenty-four hours, and the share you pay grows as the base gets bigger, which is how a build that seemed cheap at fifty blocks turns into a second job at four hundred.

Upkeep Cost

Include every block in the tool cupboard's range — floors and foundations too, not only walls.

Wood blocks

Stone blocks

Sheet metal blocks

Armoured blocks

Upkeep rate by building size

blocks 1–15 — 10%
blocks 16–65 — 15%
blocks 66–190 — 20%
blocks 191+ — 33.3%

Server defaults (decay.bracket_* settings). Your rate is the average across all your blocks. Servers can change these, and a surcharge for many authorised players is not included.

17.5%

Your upkeep rate

160 blocks total

6,300

Stone per day

1,400

Metal Fragments per day

How the numbers are worked out

Upkeep is a share of each block’s build cost, charged daily. The share works like tax brackets: the first 15 blocks are charged at 10%, the next 50 at 15%, the next 125 at 20% and every block beyond that at 33.3%. Your base pays the average of those across all its blocks, applied to every block’s cost. The calculator does that sum for you, and the bracket table sits next to the inputs so you can compare it with your server.

The formula

rate = average over all blocks: first 15 at 10%, next 50 at 15%, next 125 at 20%, rest at 33.3%
daily cost = blocks × cost per block × rate
wood 200 · stone 300 · sheet metal 200 frags · armoured 25 HQM per full block

Common mistakes

Floors, ceilings, foundations and stairs are blocks too, and they are the ones people forget to count. Because the rate is an average, a bigger base never jumps in price all at once: each extra block is charged at the top bracket’s rate and nudges the average up a little. Servers can change the brackets with the decay.bracket settings, so a modded server may differ.

A worked example

A 20-block base pays 11.25%: fifteen blocks at 10% and five at 15%, averaged. A base of 120 stone and 40 sheet metal blocks, 160 in all, averages 17.5%, which comes to 6,300 stone and 1,400 metal fragments a day. At 300 blocks the average is about 23.5%, and at 500 about 27.5%, still far from the third you might expect from the top bracket.

What it leaves out

Each block is costed as a full wall or foundation of its tier. Half walls, triangles and other smaller pieces cost less to build and so less to keep, which makes the figure here a slight overestimate for bases with many of them. Recent updates also add a surcharge when a cupboard has many authorised players; it is not included, so a large group should expect to pay somewhat more.

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