I'm confused. What does the $30 pre-order get you? Is it a subscription service? Their FAQ [1] mentions a subscription for a private server after the beta.
The subscription fee after the beta period is for use of a private server for you and your friends to use learntomod. Alternatively you can opt for a lower fee to play on a public learntomod server.
After the beta: we haven't decided on a final pricing system. We're shooting around ideas of doing a tier system.
And about running your own learntomod server:
At this stage we aren't letting people run their own learntomod server, the only exception being 3rd party hosting companies that want to make it available to their users.