Question
For billing what constitutes 'use'?
- Posted December 26, 2014
In the billing FAQ there is this statement: If you use your server for less than 672 hours during the month, you will be billed for each hour that you used it.
My question is: what constitutes use? Is this just how long the droplet is active or is it time you exceed some cpu/ram usage?
Sorry if this is a super obvious question!
Thanks.
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Billing is charged hourly, so that’s what use is. So if you have a droplet up for 600 hours, you’ll be charged for 600 hours. This goes all the way up to the monthly cap of 672 hours, at which point you’ll be charged the monthly cost – even if you use 744 hours (that’s 31 days). Basically, if you keep your droplet up for over 672 hours, you’re essentially saving money as you’re not charged past that amount of hours; you’re charged the monthly cost (28 days). So you get three days for free during months with 31 days.
The droplet needs to be destroyed for you not to be charged. So even if you power it down, it’s still using up time.
Deploying a droplet any time, even just for five minutes, will cost the hour.
As noted in the FAQ at the bottom of the pricing page the 512MB droplet rate is $0.0074 which accounts for the difference you are seeing. The total cost of your droplet for the month is calculated based on this and rounded to the nearest cent.