DigitalOcean has no ongoing free tier; what it offers is a credit grant that runs out. New accounts get a $5 signup credit, applied automatically to the first team and expiring 90 days… Verified October 2026.

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DigitalOcean Free Credits 2026 stable

Limits, pricing history. Verified October 2026. Last updated 2026-10-02.

DigitalOcean has no ongoing free tier; what it offers is a credit grant that runs out: New accounts get a $5 signup credit, applied automatically to the first team and expiring 90 days after signup; a… We rate it stable. One recorded limit reduction narrowed the terms, on 2026-04-07.

One of 15 Cloud IaaS services we track. See our full Cloud IaaS Free Tier Comparison →
⚠️ Pricing change: As of 2026-05-13, DigitalOcean's startup credits exclude Dedicated and Serverless Inference, third-party AI models, Paperspace Machines, Cloudways and Bare Metal GPUs as well as GPU Droplets and H100 GPU products, the two exclusions its page stated before. The page also now puts the monthly credit limit at $10,000; its April capture mentioned a monthly limit without an amount. Source ↗ (effective 2026-05-13) View in changelog →
Tier
Credits
Categories
Cloud IaaSStartup Perks
Pricing Page
https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing
Verified
2026-10-02
Last read
2026-10-02
The day we last read the vendor's page, and the day we last confirmed the terms we publish.

Free Tier Details

New accounts get a $5 signup credit, applied automatically to the first team and expiring 90 days after signup; a payment method is required before creating resources. Basic Droplets from $4/mo (1 vCPU, 512 MB RAM, 10 GB SSD). Per-second billing (min 60s or $0.01). App Platform: 3 free static sites (1 GiB outbound/mo each). Functions: 90,000 GiB-seconds/mo free. Spaces: 250 GB + 1 TB transfer for $5/mo. Managed databases start at $15/mo (not free). No perpetual free compute tier

We read that on 2026-10-02 from https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing, and our check recorded: the page names DigitalOcean as "digitalocean" and states "$4" and "$0.01" and "$ 0.01" and "$15".

When DigitalOcean's Free Credits Run Out

Pricing Change History (8 recorded)

corrected effective 2026-09-28 low impact
Data correction - DigitalOcean's startup programme changed which services its credits cover on 2026-05-13, the date its page gives, not on 2026-08-28, and GPU Droplets were excluded before that. Our re-read of 2026-08-28 recorded it as a change dated the day it read the page. Source ↗
Before: Recorded 2026-08-28 as restriction, dated 2026-08-28
After: restriction, dated 2026-05-13 from the programme page ("As of May 13, 2026")
corrected effective 2026-09-26 medium impact
Data correction - DigitalOcean did not cut Basic Droplet prices in January 2026; its page listed the $4.00 Droplet in 2025 as well. Functions' free allowance is 90,000 GiB-seconds a month, not 25,000. Source ↗
Before: Recorded 2026-03-31 as: Basic Droplets down from $5/mo to $4/mo in January 2026, and Functions' free tier increased to 25,000 GiB-seconds/mo
After: Basic Droplets from $4.00/mo, as in the page's 2025 captures. "Use 90,000 GiB-seconds per month for free with DigitalOcean Functions."
increased discovered 2026-09-19 · effective date unknown medium impact
Retracted — this record was our error (2026-09-26). Retracted 2026-09-26: DigitalOcean's Functions allowance did not grow. Its Functions pricing page stated "90,000 GiB-seconds of compute free per month per account" in September 2025 as well. The 25,000 in this record's before-state was our own error, corrected 2026-09-26. Source ↗
restricted effective 2026-05-13 medium impact
As of 2026-05-13, DigitalOcean's startup credits exclude Dedicated and Serverless Inference, third-party AI models, Paperspace Machines, Cloudways and Bare Metal GPUs as well as GPU Droplets and H100 GPU products, the two exclusions its page stated before. The page also now puts the monthly credit limit at $10,000; its April capture mentioned a monthly limit without an amount. Source ↗
Before: Credits came as a fixed amount each month over the 1-year programme, with a monthly credit limit of unstated amount, and could not be used on GPU Droplets or H100 GPU products (Internet Archive capture of 2026-04-11)
After: Credits cannot be used on GPU Droplets, NVIDIA H100 GPU Kubernetes, Bare Metal GPUs, Dedicated Inference, Serverless Inference, third-party AI models hosted outside DigitalOcean, Paperspace Machines or Cloudways services; participants generally have a $10,000 monthly limit
reduced effective 2026-04-07 medium impact
DigitalOcean's new-account credit fell from $200 for 60 days to $5 for 90 days. Its pricing page changed between the Internet Archive's 2026-04-05 and 2026-04-07 captures. The $200 offer page (try.digitalocean.com/freetrialoffer/) was still up on 2026-05-15 and now redirects to the homepage. Source ↗
Before: $200 credit for 60 days for new accounts
After: $5 signup credit, applied automatically and expiring 90 days after signup
corrected effective 2026-03-21 medium impact
Managed databases are not part of the free tier. Pricing starts at $15/month. Previous listing incorrectly included '1 basic cluster' as a free tier benefit Source ↗
Before: Listed as: Free static sites (up to 3), functions (90K GiB-seconds/mo), and managed databases (1 basic cluster)
After: Free static sites (up to 3) and functions (90K GiB-seconds/mo). Managed databases start at $15/mo, not free
increased effective 2026-01-01 medium impact
Droplets moved from hourly to per-second billing (with a minimum charge of 60 seconds or $0.01, whichever is higher) Source ↗
Before: Hourly billing
After: Per-second billing (with a minimum charge of 60 seconds or $0.01, whichever is higher) for Droplets
increased effective 2025-01-22 medium impact
Hatch startup program expanded to up to $100K compute credits plus up to 3 months free H100 GPU access for AI/ML startups Source ↗
Before: Standard Hatch startup credits program
After: Up to $100K compute credits (12 months, excludes GPU). Separate GPU benefit: discounted H100 at ~$1.90/hr (vs $3.39 standard) plus up to 3 months free GPU access

View all 441 pricing changes across all vendors →

Recommended Migration Targets

These alternatives were identified from DigitalOcean’s pricing changes as recommended replacements.

Neon Free Supabase Free Vultr Free PlanetScale Retired AWS Activate Startup Credits Hetzner Paid
Recompute today's order yourself. The order above is a permutation seeded only on the UTC date and the query key — no vendor name, slug, id or offer field is an input. The list above is every one of the 6 entries in that order, not a prefix of it. The algorithm is published, so anyone can reproduce this page's order without asking us.
date
2026-10-11
query_key
curated-alternatives:DigitalOcean
seed
51df63657876d22967ca7dcaef02a4ae2b3dab7636c8cc69e4eab9b4876cdfbf
tie_count
3

Comparisons

DigitalOcean vs Vultr Akamai Cloud vs DigitalOcean

Alternatives Guides Featuring DigitalOcean

Hetzner Alternatives After April 2026 Price Increase Heroku Alternatives Startup Credits Comparison 2026 DigitalOcean Free Tier Complete Guide 2026

Featured in Monthly Reports

September 2026 Report May 2026 Report April 2026 Report March 2026 Report January 2026 Report January 2025 Report

Referral Program

You Earn
$25 credit
They Get
No credit stated on the referral page
View program details → Terms read 2026-10-08

Watch DigitalOcean for Pricing Changes

We do not push notifications. Every change we record is readable the moment it lands, and the JSON answer carries an ETag — send it back as If-None-Match and an unchanged answer costs one 304.

curl https://agentdeals.dev/api/changes?vendor=DigitalOcean curl https://agentdeals.dev/pricing-changes/feed.xml?vendor=DigitalOcean

API docs →

Related Guides

Cloud IaaS Free Tier Comparison Cloud IaaS Alternatives Guide Free Next.js Stack Free Django Stack Setup Guide Stability Dashboard

Query via MCP

Look up DigitalOcean programmatically with the AgentDeals MCP server:

{ "tool": "search_deals", "arguments": { "query": "DigitalOcean", "limit": 5 } }

Frequently Asked Questions

Is DigitalOcean free?
No. What DigitalOcean offers is a credit grant that runs out: New accounts get a $5 signup credit, applied automatically to the first team and expiring 90 days after signup; a payment method is required before creating resources. Basic Droplets from $4/mo (1 vCP...
Is DigitalOcean's free offer reliable?
DigitalOcean's free offer is considered stable. One recorded limit reduction narrowed the terms, on 2026-04-07. See the pricing history below.
Is DigitalOcean's free offer good for production?
Not for long. It is a credit grant that runs out, so plan for paid usage before you depend on it.
What changed in DigitalOcean's pricing?
DigitalOcean has had 4 recorded pricing changes. Most recently: As of 2026-05-13, DigitalOcean's startup credits exclude Dedicated and Serverless Inference, third-party AI models, Paperspace Machines, Cloudways and Bare Metal GPUs as well as GPU Droplets and H100 GPU products, the two exclusions its page stated before. The page also now puts the monthly credit limit at $10,000; its April capture mentioned a monthly limit without an amount. Source: https://www.digitalocean.com/startups (2026-05-13).
What category is DigitalOcean in?
DigitalOcean is categorized under Cloud IaaS, Startup Perks on AgentDeals.