How is DigitalOcean billing calculated?

This question was answered by @Lajamerr:

Digital Ocean charges by the hour for all droplets. The cost per hour is dependent on the hardware tier you select when creating a droplet and whether you decide to add the backup option enabled. Also please note that at minimum $0.01 is charged even if you use the lowest tier for even a minute as that’s the lowest that can be billed for. However Digital Ocean sets a cap on expenses for each tier.

For example, if you had a droplet with lowest tier, it charges $0.007 per hour. However the cap for that tier is $5 a month. You can not be charged more than that for that single droplet. However you must calculate each droplet instance separately. Let’s say you create a droplet with the lowest tier and you run it for half a month but you decide snapshot it and destroy it. But then you figure out you actually need a new droplet with this snapshot. Since this is a new droplet instance you start with a cap reset. You don’t really need to worry about this because the monthly cap cost is closely aligned with hourly cost * hours in a month. Only a 11 cent difference.

Under your expenses is, “View this month’s usage and charges.”, I would suggest clicking on it as it tells what you were charged for.

If you want actual calculations you need to provide us with the number of droplets you have and the features of each one(hardware tier level & whether it has backups enabled.)

View the original comment

Hello, all

Thanks so much for the question, here is how our billing works:

At the end of each calendar month, we calculate the cost of your server based on the size of your droplet. All droplets are billed at an hourly rate up to a maximum monthly cap, which we have set at 672 hours (28 days).

Therefore, if you use the server for less than the monthly cap, you will be billed for each hour that you used it. However, if you use your server for more than 672 hours during that month, you will be billed at the monthly cost, which will be no greater than the cost of 672 hours.

Additional services (automatic backups, etc.) may lead to further charges. Any payments made with PayPal add credit to your balance, we ask that you maintain a credit on your account balance equal to the estimated monthly charge of your droplets if you only use PayPal.

If you have added a credit card to your account, any due balances will be billed automatically on the first of the month. Should there be any issues with charging your card for the month we will notify you via email.

If you have promotional credits as well, then promotional credits will be utilized first and then credits applied from PayPal will be used before charging any remaining balance to the credit card.

Hope this helps! Alex