DigitalOcean Pricing (2026)
Pure usage-based, pay-for-what-you-consume model across a product catalog — you're paying for compute hours, storage GiB, database nodes, and token counts depending on the product. No per-seat fees anywhere; the value metric shifts by product (GPU/hour for compute, GiB/month for storage, tokens for AI evals).
- Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
- $0/mo
- Uptime
- $0/mo
- Virtual Private Cloud
- $0/mo
- Support Plans
- $0/mo
- App Platform
- $0/mo
- Functions
- $0/mo
- Container Registry
- $0/mo
- Droplets
- $4/mo
- Spaces
- $5/mo
- Volumes
- $10/mo
- Cloudways Managed Hosting
- $11/mo
- Kubernetes
- $12/mo
- Load Balancers
- $12/mo
- Databases
- $15/mo
- Network File Storage
- Contact Sales
- Backups
- Contact Sales
- Evaluations
- Contact Sales
- Additional GPU Options
- Contact Sales
- GPU Droplets
- Contact Sales
- Inference
- Contact Sales
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Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
- Agentless by design
- Prioritized findings
- Guided remediation
- Unified visibility
Uptime
- Uptime and latency checks
- Alerts by email and Slack
- One Uptime Check/month included with every account
Virtual Private Cloud
- Create unlimited VPCs at no additional cost.
- Ingress data transfer to VPCs is free. Egress data transfer from VPCs to the internet counts against bandwidth quotas.
- Intra-datacenter VPC peering is free. Inter-datacenter VPC peering is $0.01/GiB.
- VPC NAT Gateway: $40.00 per node, includes 100 GiB bandwidth (overage $0.01/GiB), supports up to 500,000 connections.
Support Plans
- Find answers to common questions, development guidelines written by experts and get free email support
- Ideal for those testing ideas and hosting small applications
App Platform
- Build, deploy and scale apps quickly
- Fully managed solution, zero infrastructure management
- Highly scalable
Functions
- Focus on building great apps
- Pay for what you use
- Scale automatically
Container Registry
- Easily store and manage private container images
- Transfer container images over high-speed HTTPs connections to servers across four continents
Droplets
- Per-sec billing with 60 sec minimum or $0.01, whichever is higher
- Deploy in seconds
- Scale up on demand
- Run any workload - from mission critical apps to low-traffic sites
Spaces
- S3-compatible object storage
- Highly scalable
- Built in CDN
Volumes
- Block storage
- Highly available
- Easily scale block storage, resize when needed, and move them between droplets
Cloudways Managed Hosting
- Optimized for Wordpress & PHP based apps
- SSD stack with PHP 8 & Redis
- Unlimited apps, Git & staging
Kubernetes
- Simple, managed Kubernetes built for scale
- Free control plane, free bandwidth allowance, and more
- Automate and optimize to peak performance
Load Balancers
- Improve availability, performance, and scalability
- Let's Encrypt and HTTP/3 support
- Compatible with Droplets and DigitalOcean Kubernetes
- Global Load Balancers now available
Databases
- Managed MongoDB, Kafka, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Caching, Valkey, and OpenSearch
- Worry-free setup, maintenance, and easy migration
- Free daily backups, automated failover, and more!
Network File Storage
- Standard tier: $0.15 per GiB-month
- High performance tier: $0.30 per GiB-month
- Starting from 50 GiB
- Flat pricing across all supported regions
Backups
- Choose flexible frequencies from Weekly, Daily, or Every 12/6/4 hours.
- Set custom retention periods from 3 days up to 6 months.
- Fast and fully-automated.
Evaluations
- Run LLM-as-a-Judge evaluations on any LLM, dedicated endpoint, or inference routing policy on DigitalOcean Inference
- Compare quality and performance in one run
- Use your own datasets and configurations
- Billed only for candidate + judge token usage
Additional GPU Options
- Simple provisioning interface
- Build, train, and deploy large models
- Scale AI/ML workloads on demand
GPU Droplets
- Run training and inference on AI/ML models
- Process large data sets and complex neural networks
- Serve additional use cases like high-performance computing (HPC)
Inference
- Access leading AI models
- Compare cost, speed, and capability
- Deploy with a single API
- No infrastructure management
- Pay only for what you use
Does DigitalOcean have a free plan?
Yes: the Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) plan is free forever, not a time-limited trial. When you outgrow it, paid plans start at $4/mo.
What the free plan includes
- Agentless by design
- Prioritized findings
- Guided remediation
- Unified visibility
AI Pricing Analysis
Pricing Model
Pure usage-based, pay-for-what-you-consume model across a product catalog — you're paying for compute hours, storage GiB, database nodes, and token counts depending on the product. No per-seat fees anywhere; the value metric shifts by product (GPU/hour for compute, GiB/month for storage, tokens for AI evals).
Tier Strategy
There aren't traditional tiers — it's a build-your-own stack from a menu of products, each with its own pricing floor. The natural upgrade trigger is workload growth: you start with a $4 Droplet, then bolt on Volumes, Load Balancers, and Databases as your app scales, with GPU and AI inference products sitting at the high end for teams moving into ML.
Competitive Positioning
DigitalOcean is firmly the developer-friendly, mid-market alternative to AWS/GCP — cheaper and simpler than hyperscalers, but not trying to compete on enterprise features. They're hunting indie developers, startups, and SMBs who find AWS overwhelming and overpriced for their actual needs.
Growth Lever
Expansion is almost entirely usage-driven — more traffic means bigger Droplets, more storage, more database nodes, and more backup costs that compound as a percentage of Droplet spend. The AI/GPU and inference products are the emerging upsell frontier, all sitting behind custom pricing that signals they're actively qualifying and negotiating those deals.
Want the strategist's read on the live page? Read the AI teardown of DigitalOcean's pricing page →
DigitalOcean Pricing FAQ
- How much does DigitalOcean cost?
- Paid plans start at $4/mo, going up to $15/mo for larger teams. There's also an Enterprise tier with custom pricing. You can get started on the free plan before committing.
- Is there a free plan?
- Yes. The "Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)" plan is free forever, not just a trial. You get agentless by design, prioritized findings, guided remediation — plus 1 more features. It's enough to evaluate the product before upgrading.
- Can I try it before paying?
- There's no trial per se, but the free plan lets you use the product indefinitely with some limits.
- How does the pricing work?
- Pure usage-based, pay-for-what-you-consume model across a product catalog — you're paying for compute hours, storage GiB, database nodes, and token counts depending on the product. No per-seat fees anywhere; the value metric shifts by product (GPU/hour for compute, GiB/month for storage, tokens for AI evals).
- Which plan makes sense for me?
- There aren't traditional tiers — it's a build-your-own stack from a menu of products, each with its own pricing floor. The natural upgrade trigger is workload growth: you start with a $4 Droplet, then bolt on Volumes, Load Balancers, and Databases as your app scales, with GPU and AI inference products sitting at the high end for teams moving into ML.
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Comparing DigitalOcean to something specific? Try DigitalOcean vs Heroku, DigitalOcean vs Render, or DigitalOcean vs Cloudflare. Or see the best DigitalOcean alternatives, ranked.
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