DigitalOcean Droplets
- Free allowance
- No current signup amount is published.
- Verdict
- paidno free allowance; listed for its price
- Cost
- free tierpaid plans from USD 10.71/month
- Identity
- cardcard required, no phone
- Binding limit
- write-gatedno credit amount is published, so the first spend is a card charge at list price
- Evidence
- documented6 sources; a first-party page was read and the sentence quoted
- Freshness
- stale on 2026-11-25checked 2026-10-25 (live); stale on 2026-11-25
| Free tier | No current signup amount is published. Both pricing pages carry the same conditional example: 'How does the $5 free credit work? ... For example, if you received a $5 credit for 90 days'. The USD 200 for 60 days survives only in the 2026-05-15 archive of a trial URL that now redirects to the homepage. unit mixed; metered on wall-clock |
|---|---|
| Price | none stated |
| Limits |
not stated |
| Binding | write-gated the card is the gate and the first charge is the price; no credit balance softens it |
| Identity | card card at signup; the pre-authorisation amount is not published for a card and the hold may show for up to 7 days; PayPal connection uses a USD 5 authorisation and crypto a one-time USD 25 charge; debit accepted; prepaid, virtual and electron cards refused in writing |
| Egress | not stated |
| Per-object cap | not stated |
| Retention | not stated |
| Interface | unknown |
| Reliability | no reliability event recorded |
| Notes | Per-second billing starts 2026-01-01 with a 60-second or $0.01 minimum. The USD 200 for 60 days is a historical offer and is not countable against the current page. The card pre-authorisation amount is genuinely unpublished and is recorded as a dash. |
| Evidence note | documented the pricing pages, the archived offer and the droplet table were read on 2026-10-23; the live offer is a conditional example, so no current amount can be ranked | Payment facts re-read on 2026-10-24: the card types, the hold and the identity gate each come from a first-party page quoted in evidence[]. |
| Parsed numbers |
|
Evidence 6
| date | source | what it proved |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-23 | www.digitalocean.com/pricing | quoted: 'For example, if you received a $5 credit for 90 days, then that $5 credit is automatically applied to your account' and 'Since the credit is valid for 90 days' |
| 2026-10-23 | try.digitalocean.com/freetrialoffer/ | redirects to the homepage on 2026-10-23; the 2026-05-15 archive reads 'Start your free trial with a $200 credit for 60 days' |
| 2026-10-23 | www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets | quoted: s-2vcpu-2gb $18.00/mo $0.02679/hr; s-2vcpu-4gb $24.00/mo $0.03571/hr; s-4vcpu-8gb $48.00/mo $0.07143/hr |
| 2026-10-24 | docs.digitalocean.com/platform/billing/manage-payment-method | quoted: 'Credit and debit cards. We accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, UnionPay, Diners Club, and JCB credit cards.' and 'We do not accept virtual, electron, or prepaid cards.' (page states 'Last verified 30 Jul 2026') |
| 2026-10-24 | docs.digitalocean.com/platform/billing/manage-payment-method | quoted, the hold: 'We may send a preauthorization request to the issuing bank to verify that the bank issued the card and can authorize charges. These temporary preauthorization holds may appear on your statement for up to 7 days' and 'you allow a $5 authorization charge' for PayPal |
| 2026-10-24 | docs.digitalocean.com/support/why-was-my-card-declined/ | quoted: 'You are trying to pay with a prepaid card. We currently do not accept prepaid cards.' |
More fields 15
{
"keep_rate": 1.0,
"keep_rate_basis": null,
"billing_model": "flat-pool",
"shape": null,
"session_cap": null,
"persistent_storage": null,
"network_out": null,
"price_note": "a VPS bills by the month with an hourly rate capped at the monthly figure, so the two columns answer two questions: destroying the box between runs versus keeping it up.",
"free_tier_kind": "none",
"m10h_usd": 10.71,
"m24h_usd": 24.0,
"price_basis": "10 h/day column = 300 h at the hourly rate, which is what a server destroyed between runs costs; 24/7 column = the monthly cap, because a VPS kept up all month stops at the cap. Rates re-read on the vendor pricing page on 2026-10-23.",
"granularity": {
"min_billed_s": 60,
"rounding_s": null
},
"burst_x": 1.0,
"payment_methods": {
"card_at_signup": "yes",
"debit": "accepted",
"prepaid": "refused",
"virtual": "refused",
"hold_amount": null,
"hold_detail": "amount not published for a card, hold may show up to 7 days; PayPal USD 5, crypto USD 25",
"identity": "card, used to verify identity",
"source_url": "https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/billing/manage-payment-methods/",
"read_on": "2026-10-24"
}
}Unknown values 10
$.chaininga source was read and is silent on this field$.egress.meteredegress metering was not published$.egress.termsa source was read and is silent on this field$.interfacethe access interface was not established$.limits_notea source was read and is silent on this field$.per_object_cap.stateda source was read and is silent on this field$.reliability_notenothing of this kind was observed$.retention.notesthe field may be stated in a source that was not read$.retention.stateda source was read and is silent on this field$.toolinga source was read and is silent on this field
Corrections
- 2026-10-23 Corrected on 2026-10-23: compute/databricks, compute/digitalocean, compute/linode and 6 more records
- 2026-10-23 Corrected on 2026-10-23: compute/alibaba-cloud-international, compute/amd-developer-cloud, compute/blaxel and 5 more records