I am wondering if DigitalOcean charges an entire hour if aI create a droplet for lees time than an hour. I have an Image for maintenance mode, thta runs in the minimum configuration server. Sometimes the maintenance droplet lasts 15 to 20 minutes. Therefore I am not sure whether I am being charge each time minimum for an hour, or if I am charged actually for the time the droplet has been up and running.
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Thank you for the answer, I already cjecked the biling statements and is charged hourly.
Until someone can give a better official answer, this is what I see, and has been my experience:
https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/ "Do I have to pay the cost of the server every time I create a new one?
No — you only need to pay for 1 hour of usage. Spinning up a new 512MB server just to test something for a couple of minutes will only cost you $0.0074"
I have two relatively idle VPS, and the charge for each is less than the contracted monthly fee limit.
Hi there,
Quick update here, as of January 1, 2026, DigitalOcean bills Droplets per second, with a minimum charge of 60 seconds or $0.01 (whichever is higher).
This update means you’re only billed for the exact amount of time your Droplet runs, instead of by the hour as before. You can find the full details in the DigitalOcean changelog.
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