TL;DR: A DigitalOcean Droplet costs $4 a month for 512 MiB of RAM and $24 for 4 GiB. A small app (a web service, a worker and Postgres) costs about $35 a month on App Platform with Managed Postgres, or $29 on a 4 GiB Droplet with weekly backups.
- Pick App Platform if you run one small app, want a managed database with point-in-time recovery, and never want to SSH into anything.
- Pick a Droplet if you want to stay on DigitalOcean but need more than 2 GiB of RAM or more than a few hundred GB of traffic. At 5 TB of traffic and a 100 GB database, the same app costs $236 on App Platform and $115 on a Droplet.
- Pick a cheaper server if the bill is the point: Hetzner or Netcup in Europe sell the same 4 GB for under 40% of the Droplet price.
- Watch the database: Managed Postgres is the line that grows fastest, and from 30 November 2026 Standard Edition stops at 4 GiB of RAM.
- Get App Platform's deploy workflow on a server with Ployz, which I build: push to GitHub, preview environments, zero-downtime deploys, free on your own servers.
DigitalOcean sells compute two ways. A Droplet is a virtual server you run yourself, billed per second. App Platform is its PaaS: you push code and it builds, deploys and serves each service as a container, billed per container.
| Product | Starts at | What a small app pays |
|---|---|---|
| Basic Droplet | $4 (512 MiB) | $24 (2 vCPU, 4 GiB, 4,000 GiB transfer) |
| App Platform container | $5 (512 MiB) | $10 (1 GiB) or $25 (2 GiB) per service |
| Managed Postgres | $15.15 (1 GiB, 10 GiB storage) | $15.15, plus $0.215 per GiB past 10 GiB |
| Droplet backups | 20% of the Droplet (weekly) | $4.80 on a $24 Droplet |
| Kubernetes | Free control plane | Nodes at Droplet prices; $40 for an HA control plane |
| Free tier | 3 static sites | Nothing with a backend |
What would your app cost on DigitalOcean?
Pick the app closest to yours, or customize it. App Platform gets one container per service plus a Managed Postgres cluster. The server rows put everything on one box with the same total RAM. Ployz is free on them.
- App Platform transfer included
- 200 GB
- Managed Postgres
- $15.15 (1 GiB plan)
- Droplet that fits
- 4 GiB Droplet (3 GiB needed)
- App Platform + Managed Postgres$35/mo
Shared containers ($5 to $50), Postgres Standard from $15.15 plus $0.215/GiB storage, transfer past the allowance at $0.02/GiB. No preview environments.
- Droplet + Ployz$29/mo
Smallest Basic Droplet with the RAM ($12 to $96), weekly backups (+20%), overage at $0.01/GiB. Ployz is free.
- Your own server + Ployz (Netcup)$9/mo
Netcup VPS 500, 1000 or 2000 (€8.26 to €26.92 listed price, 12-month term), traffic included.
- Your own server + Ployz (Hetzner)$7/mo
Hetzner CX23, CX33 or CX43 ($6.49 to $18.49) plus about $0.56 (€0.50) IPv4, 20 TB traffic in the EU.
What does the same app cost on App Platform vs a Droplet?
These are the calculator's three presets, line by line:
- Small: web 1 GiB, worker 1 GiB, 10 GB Postgres, 100 GB transfer.
- Medium: web 2 GiB, worker 1 GiB, 25 GB Postgres, 1 TB transfer.
- Large: web 4 GiB, worker 2 GiB, 100 GB Postgres, 5 TB transfer.
App Platform uses the fixed $10 container for 1 GiB. The server is sized to the sum of the App Platform RAM, which is conservative, because services on one box share memory. Ployz adds nothing to the server rows: it's free on your own servers, custom domains included.
| Line | Small | Medium | Large |
|---|---|---|---|
| App Platform web | $10 | $25 | $50 |
| App Platform worker | $10 | $10 | $25 |
| Managed Postgres | $15.15 | $19.45 | $69.50 |
| Transfer overage at $0.02/GiB | $0 | $14 | $91 |
| App Platform total | $35 | $68 | $236 |
| Droplet | $24 (4 GiB) | $24 (4 GiB) | $96 (16 GiB) |
| Weekly backups (20%) | $4.80 | $4.80 | $19.20 |
| Droplet total | $29 | $29 | $115 |
| Netcup + Ployz | $9 (VPS 500) | $9 (VPS 500) | $30 (VPS 2000) |
| Hetzner + Ployz | $7 (CX23) | $11 (CX33) | $19 (CX43) |
Two things stand out. DigitalOcean's own Droplets aren't cheap: at the small size they cost about the same as App Platform, and only pull ahead once you need more RAM or bandwidth. And Managed Postgres grows fastest. At 100 GB it's $69.50, which is more than the whole Hetzner bill.
The server rows don't include what Managed Postgres does for you: point-in-time recovery, a standby option and someone else patching it. The Netcup and Hetzner rows also have no backups. Hetzner sells them as an add-on, and a pg_dump to object storage costs pennies. Hetzner's CX servers are in Germany and Finland only; in the US, Netcup's Manassas datacenter is the cheap option.
How much does a Droplet cost?
A Basic Droplet runs from $4 a month for 512 MiB of RAM to $96 for 16 GiB. Every size includes outbound transfer, pooled across your team.
Basic Droplets, Regular CPU, from the Droplet pricing page:
| RAM | vCPU | Transfer included | SSD | $/month | $/hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 512 MiB | 1 | 500 GiB | 10 GB | $4 | $0.00595 |
| 1 GiB | 1 | 1,000 GiB | 25 GB | $6 | $0.00893 |
| 2 GiB | 1 | 2,000 GiB | 50 GB | $12 | $0.01786 |
| 2 GiB | 2 | 3,000 GiB | 60 GB | $18 | $0.02679 |
| 4 GiB | 2 | 4,000 GiB | 80 GB | $24 | $0.03571 |
| 8 GiB | 4 | 5,000 GiB | 160 GB | $48 | $0.07143 |
| 16 GiB | 8 | 6,000 GiB | 320 GB | $96 | $0.14286 |
Compare the 4 GiB Droplet with the servers I'd rent instead:
| Server | vCPU / RAM / disk | Monthly | Regions | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean Basic 4 GiB | 2 / 4 GiB / 80 GB | $24 | every region | DigitalOcean |
| Hetzner CX23 | 2 / 4 GB / 40 GB | $6.49 + €0.50 IPv4 | Germany, Finland | price list, IPv4 |
| Netcup VPS 500 | 2 / 4 GB / 64 GB | €8.26 on a 12-month term (€9.50 with 19% German VAT) | Europe; Manassas (US) | Netcup |
What does App Platform cost?
App Platform charges per container, from $5 a month for 512 MiB. Workers cost the same as web services.
From the App Platform pricing page and pricing docs:
| Container | CPU | RAM | Transfer included | $/month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| apps-s-1vcpu-0.5gb | 1 shared | 512 MiB | 50 GiB | $5 |
| apps-s-1vcpu-1gb-fixed | 1 shared | 1 GiB | 100 GiB | $10 |
| apps-s-1vcpu-1gb (scales manually) | 1 shared | 1 GiB | 150 GiB | $12 |
| apps-s-1vcpu-2gb | 1 shared | 2 GiB | 200 GiB | $25 |
| apps-s-2vcpu-4gb | 2 shared | 4 GiB | 250 GiB | $50 |
| Dedicated CPU | 1 to 8 dedicated | 512 MiB to 32 GiB | 100 to 900 GiB | $29 to $392 |
| Dev database | 512 MB | $7 | ||
| Dedicated egress IP | $25 per app |
The free tier covers up to three static-site apps with 1 GiB of transfer each. It doesn't run a backend.
The $7 dev database is the trap. The docs call it "intended for development use", it comes in one size, and it can't move regions with your app. So a real app on App Platform pays for a Managed Database as well, which is why every App Platform number here includes one.
Look at the RAM per dollar. $50 buys a 4 GiB container on App Platform. $48 buys an 8 GiB Droplet with 4 vCPU and 5,000 GiB of transfer. You pay roughly twice as much per GiB for the build-and-deploy layer.
I think App Platform is fair for one small app where you don't want to touch a server. It stops being worth it when you need more RAM, more bandwidth or preview environments, because each of those is billed per container.
What does Managed Postgres cost?
Managed PostgreSQL starts at $15.15 a month for 1 GiB of RAM and 10 GiB of storage. Each plan doubles the price of the last, and extra storage is $0.215 per GiB a month.
Standard Edition, single node, from the Managed Databases pricing page:
| RAM | vCPU | Storage range | $/month | $/hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GiB | 1 | 10 to 30 GiB | $15.15 | $0.02254 |
| 2 GiB | 1 | 30 to 60 GiB | $30.45 | $0.04531 |
| 4 GiB | 2 | 60 to 120 GiB | $60.90 | $0.09063 |
| 8 GiB | 4 | 140 to 280 GiB | $122.10 | $0.18170 |
| 16 GiB | 6 | 290 to 580 GiB | $244.35 | $0.36362 |
The Postgres pricing docs still say single nodes "begin at $15.00 per month". The pricing page says $15.15, so I used that. The same docs list the rest of the rules:
- High availability "begin[s] at $30.00 per month for a 2 GiB RAM/1 vCPU primary node with at least one $30.00 per month matching standby node". So the cheapest HA cluster is about $60.
- Read-only nodes start at $15 a month.
- Advanced Edition starts at $130 a month for 8 GiB and 2 vCPU, with storage at $0.115 per GiB.
- The 2026 change: "Beginning 15 October 2026 for new accounts and 30 November 2026 for all accounts, new Standard Edition clusters cannot use plans with more than 4 GiB of RAM or add standby or read-only nodes." Past 4 GiB or with a standby, you're on Advanced Edition at $130 and up. That's why my calculator stops at a 100 GB database.
What you get for that money is real: "Full cluster backups are taken daily and write-ahead-logs are maintained to allow you to restore to any point-in-time within the previous seven days" (features). Traffic to managed databases doesn't count against your transfer allowance either.
What do DigitalOcean's other products cost?
Bigger Droplets start at $42 a month (CPU-Optimized, 4 GiB) and Kubernetes adds nothing on top of its nodes unless you want a high-availability control plane.
From the Droplet pricing page and each product's pricing docs:
| Product | Starting price | Source |
|---|---|---|
| CPU-Optimized Droplet | $42 (2 vCPU, 4 GiB) | Droplets |
| General Purpose Droplet | $63 (2 vCPU, 8 GiB) | Droplets |
| Memory-Optimized Droplet | $84 (2 vCPU, 16 GiB) | Droplets |
| Storage-Optimized Droplet | $131 (2 vCPU, 16 GiB) | Droplets |
| Kubernetes | Free control plane, nodes at Droplet prices; $40 for an HA control plane | docs |
| Load Balancer | $12 per node (HTTP), $15 per node (network) | docs |
| Volumes (block storage) | $0.10 per GiB a month, so $10 for 100 GiB | docs |
| Spaces (object storage) | $5 for 250 GiB and 1,024 GiB of transfer, then $0.02/GiB stored and $0.01/GiB out | docs |
For a small app, the only ones you're likely to need are Spaces, for uploads and database dumps, and maybe a Volume.
What changes the bill?
Three things: bandwidth, backups and how long things run.
Bandwidth
Droplets include 500 to 6,000 GiB of outbound transfer and charge $0.01 per GiB past that. App Platform containers include 50 to 250 GiB each and charge $0.02 per GiB. Inbound is free on both.
Both pool their allowance at the team level: "Transfer allowance and usage is pooled cumulatively across all Droplets at the team level" (bandwidth docs). Private VPC traffic doesn't count, and neither does traffic dropped by a DigitalOcean firewall.
For the small app (web 1 GiB, worker 1 GiB):
| Monthly transfer | App Platform (200 GiB included) | 4 GiB Droplet (4,000 GiB included) | Hetzner CX23 (20 TB included) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 GB | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| 1 TB | about $16 | $0 | $0 |
| 5 TB | about $96 | about $10 | $0 |
I treat a GB and a GiB as the same here; the difference is under 7%. Netcup's plan page says "traffic included" without a metered overage price.
Backups and snapshots
Droplet backups cost 20% of the Droplet's price for weekly or 30% for daily, so $4.80 or $7.20 on a $24 Droplet. Managed Databases include daily backups.
From the Backups pricing docs and Snapshots pricing docs:
| Option | Price |
|---|---|
| Weekly backups (basic) | 20% of the Droplet's monthly cost |
| Daily backups (basic) | 30% of the Droplet's monthly cost |
| Usage-based, weekly | $0.04 per GiB a month |
| Usage-based, daily | $0.03 per GiB a month |
| Usage-based, every 12 / 6 / 4 hours | $0.02 / $0.015 / $0.01 per GiB a month |
| Droplet snapshot | $0.06 per GB a month, $0.01 minimum |
A Droplet backup is a disk image, so it catches your Postgres data. A disk image of a running database isn't the same as a clean dump, though. If you run Postgres on a Droplet, also run pg_dump on a schedule and copy the file somewhere else, like Spaces or another provider.
Per-second billing
DigitalOcean has billed per second since 1 January 2026. Droplets are "billed per second with a minimum charge of 60 seconds or $0.01, whichever is higher", capped at 672 hours (28 days) a month (Droplet pricing docs).
- The cap means a Droplet never costs more than its monthly price: $0.03571 an hour times 672 hours is exactly $24.
- Powered-off Droplets are still billed, "because the compute resources stay reserved on the hypervisor". To stop paying, take a snapshot and destroy the Droplet.
- App Platform apps are billed by the second with a one-minute minimum, and their databases "by the hour, with a one-hour minimum" (App Platform pricing docs).
Per-second billing matters for preview environments and short-lived test servers. For an app that runs all month, you pay the monthly price either way.
Preview environments
App Platform does pull request previews through a GitHub Action that deploys a new app per pull request and deletes it when the PR closes. Each preview is a full app at container prices, so one preview of the small app running all month adds $20. The calculator leaves previews out. On a server, previews share RAM you've already paid for, until you need a bigger box.
Is DigitalOcean cheaper than Heroku, Render or Railway?
For compute, a Droplet usually is. DigitalOcean isn't a budget provider in 2026, though: in Europe, Hetzner and Netcup sell 4 GB for $7 to $9.25 against $24 for the Droplet, with more transfer included.
I priced the same web, worker and Postgres stack on Render, Railway and Heroku. The patterns repeat: every platform charges per service, the database is the biggest line, and bandwidth overage shows up the month you get popular. The hidden costs of PaaS has every fee type side by side, and if your app is mostly a frontend, Vercel pricing is the closer comparison.
I've paid for convenience myself: about $600 for my first month on Laravel Cloud, then $500+ a month on Railway, most of it for a busy database. Today one €80 dedicated server runs everything.
Where Ployz fits
What App Platform sells on top of compute is push-to-deploy, HTTPS, zero-downtime rollouts and logs. Ployz, which I build, gives a Droplet or any Linux server the same workflow:
ployz up --server root@your-dropletThat installs Ployz over SSH, builds the current directory and gives it an HTTPS address. Node, Python, Ruby, PHP, Go, Rust, Java and Elixir apps need no Dockerfile.
- Push to deploy: connect a GitHub repo and every push builds on your server, with no registry to run.
- Preview environments: every pull request gets its own HTTPS address on your servers, at no extra cost beyond the RAM it uses.
- Zero-downtime deploys: with a health check set, a new version has to pass it before the old one stops.
- One-click Postgres, MySQL, Redis and MongoDB, with a sealed generated password and a
DATABASE_URLyour app can reference. - Coding agents: every command takes
--json, andployz setup agentlets Claude Code deploy for you.
A database can keep a mirror on a second server, synced when you ask, so you can restore from it or move the database there with seconds of downtime. It doesn't create servers for you, so you rent the Droplet or server first.
It's free on your own servers, custom domains included, and every service gets a free ployz.app address. Start free.
FAQ
Does DigitalOcean bill per second or per hour?
Per second, since 1 January 2026, with a 60-second minimum and a monthly cap at 672 hours. Databases attached to App Platform are billed by the hour.
Does a powered-off Droplet cost money?
Yes. DigitalOcean keeps billing a powered-off Droplet because its resources stay reserved. Snapshot it and destroy it to stop paying.
Is the App Platform dev database good enough for production?
No. DigitalOcean's docs call the $7 dev database "intended for development use", it comes in one size, and it can't move regions with your app. Production apps need a Managed Database from $15.15 a month.
Does DigitalOcean have a free tier?
Only for static sites. App Platform's free tier covers up to three static-site apps with 1 GiB of transfer each, and it doesn't run a backend.
Is DigitalOcean cheaper than AWS?
For a plain server, they match: a 4 GiB Droplet and a 4 GB AWS Lightsail bundle are both $24 a month, with 4 TB of transfer. AWS gets more expensive once you use its usual building blocks, like containers behind a load balancer and metered egress; AWS Fargate pricing has that math.
How much does high-availability Postgres cost on DigitalOcean?
About $60 a month at the smallest size: a $30 primary with 2 GiB of RAM plus a $30 standby. From 30 November 2026, Standard Edition clusters can't add standby nodes, so new HA clusters move to Advanced Edition at $130 and up.
How I checked
I checked every price on 2026-10-08 on DigitalOcean's, Hetzner's and Netcup's own pricing pages and docs, linked next to each number. DigitalOcean bills in USD before tax. Euro prices are converted at the ECB rate of about $1.12 (1.1177 on 7 October 2026). The three example apps are my own sizing, not DigitalOcean's. I build Ployz, so weigh the "Where Ployz fits" section with that in mind; the DigitalOcean numbers don't depend on it.
Run your app on a Droplet or any server with Ployz, free: get started.