# DigitalOcean

> Ordinary Linux VMs at a flat monthly price, with a hardened one-click OpenClaw image and a separate managed agent runtime.

Website: https://www.digitalocean.com/products/droplets  
Guide page: https://botperch.com/providers/digitalocean/  
Checked: 2026-10-29

**Short answer:** One always-on personal agent (2 vCPU / 4 GiB / 20 GiB) costs about $24.00 a month here, the 5th cheapest of the 12 providers that run it as described. The AI model adds about $14.70 a month on top (GLM 5.3, 30 requests a day at 40k tokens each, median zero-retention price; from $6.84 at the cheapest host). Fits well: An always-on agent on a normal Linux box: root, Docker, SSH, a public IPv4 and a flat $24 a month for 2 vCPU / 4 GiB.

DigitalOcean sells Linux virtual machines called Droplets: pick a size, a region and an image, and the machine is yours to administer over SSH. There is no sandbox API and no pause, so it behaves like the VPS a developer would rent for a web server.
Two catalogues sit behind the same product. Bundled plans are fixed shapes in five families, from 512 MiB for $4 a month to 32 vCPU / 256 GiB; v5 configurations on 5th-gen AMD EPYC let you choose vCPU, memory and boot disk independently, but only in four US datacenters.
For agents specifically, the Marketplace carries 1-Click Droplet images for OpenClaw, Hermes Agent and Docker Agent. DigitalOcean also sells Managed Agents, a separate product whose sessions run in Firecracker microVMs with pause, resume and fork; its monthly plan is branded Agent Droplets and is not a VM.

**Who it is for:** People who want a normal Linux server per agent, a flat monthly bill, a choice of 16 regions and a public IP, and who are happy to install and patch the agent themselves.

**Isolation:** A VPS (virtual private server), not a sandbox built for agents. Full Linux virtual machine with its own kernel, root and SSH. RAM, disk and network are dedicated; the vCPU is shared on Basic plans and dedicated on the four optimized families. Docker runs inside, and nested virtualisation is not documented.

**Sizes and regions:** 31 bundled CPU shapes: Basic shared CPU from 512 MiB / 1 vCPU / 10 GiB to 16 GiB / 8 vCPU / 320 GiB, plus CPU-Optimized, General Purpose, Memory-Optimized and Storage-Optimized up to 32 vCPU / 256 GiB / 4,690 GiB. v5 sizes CPU, memory and boot disk freely, 1-8 shared or 2-64 dedicated vCPU. GPU Droplets go up to 8x H200. 16 datacenters, two of them in the EU.

## How it charges

- model: Pay-as-you-go per Droplet, with no plan fee and no commitment.
- meter: Per second with a 60-second minimum, at the published hourly rate. Bundled plans cap at 672 hours a month, so an always-on machine costs the flat monthly price.
- stopped: A powered-off Droplet is billed in full, because its compute stays reserved on the hypervisor. Only destroying it ends the charge, and that also deletes the disk unless you snapshotted it.
- planFee: None. Agent Droplets ($50 or $200 a month) is a separate plan for Managed Agents, not for VMs.
- minimum: $4 a month for the smallest Basic Droplet. A $5 signup credit lasts 90 days, and a payment method is required before the first Droplet.

A flat hourly rate per bundled size, billed per second and capped at 672 hours a month; a powered-off Droplet keeps billing at the same rate.
- Bundled sizes bill per second up to 672 hours a month, so an always-on Droplet costs the flat monthly price shown on the pricing page.
- A powered-off Droplet is billed in full because its compute stays reserved on the hypervisor; only destroying it ends the charge. To pay only for the hours used, destroy the Droplet and keep a snapshot instead.
- Each Droplet is billed at least 60 seconds or $0.01, whichever is higher, so a ten-minute run on a small size costs a cent. The calculator applies this to every run.
- Disk is included in each size; the calculator's only disk charge is a volume at $0.10 per GiB-month when the request is bigger than the size's own disk.
- Snapshots cost $0.06 per GB-month and are kept until deleted. Backups cost 20% (weekly) or 30% (daily) of the Droplet price. Neither is in the calculator.
- v5 Droplets price resources separately at $0.0158219 per shared vCPU-hour, $0.0040411 per GiB-hour and $0.000137 per GiB of boot disk an hour, with no monthly cap, but only in ATL1, RIC1, MKC1 and MEM1.
- Agent Droplets and Harness Runtime are a different product on a different meter and are not priced by this card.

## Monthly cost for each preset workload

- A personal agent that stays on (Hermes, OpenClaw): $24.00
- A coding agent for one developer: $48.00
- A code interpreter inside your product: $200.00
- A browser agent for a small team: $300.00
- Self-hosted n8n for a small team: $24.00
- A Discord or Slack bot for one server: $12.00
- Claude Code for a team of five: $240.00
- A scraper that runs four times a day: $1.20
- Your own remote MCP server: $6.00
- A: 1,000 short tasks: $10.00
- B: one always-on box: $48.00
- C: three hours a day: $24.00

## Fits well

- An always-on agent on a normal Linux box: root, Docker, SSH, a public IPv4 and a flat $24 a month for 2 vCPU / 4 GiB.
- A hardened OpenClaw deployment from the Marketplace: TLS, a gateway token, device pairing and container isolation are configured before you log in.
- Teams that need a region choice (16 datacenters, including Amsterdam and Frankfurt) and a 99.99% per-Droplet SLA.
- Agents that must reach the internet on arbitrary ports, or be reached on them: no port restrictions beyond SMTP.

## Fits badly

- Anything that needs to stop and resume mid-process: powering off loses memory and keeps billing.
- Bursty, short-lived work: you pay for the whole hour the Droplet exists, so 1,000 ten-minute tasks cost the same as 1,000 hours of idling.
- A reader who wants the provider to install and run the agent: outside the three Marketplace images, you do the setup.
- Point-in-time recovery or a fork of a running machine: snapshots are disk-only and newest-state only.

## Features

- **Isolation** (yes): Full VM; root, Docker, SSH. A full VM with dedicated RAM, disk and network, and a shared or dedicated vCPU. Docker is an apt install or a 1-Click image. Nested virtualisation is mentioned in one docs page but never documented as available. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/features/) [docs](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/features/)
- **Sizes and regions** (yes): 2 vCPU / 16 GiB, EU available. 31 bundled shapes across five families, from 512 MiB to 256 GiB, plus v5 sizing in four US datacenters. Sixteen datacenters, two of them in the EU. Resizing needs a power-off and the disk can never shrink. [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets) [docs](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/concepts/choosing-a-plan/)
- **Lifecycle** (no): Power off bills in full. There is no pause and no idle stop. Power off keeps the disk and the bill; destroy ends both, and the disk goes with it unless snapshotted. Managed Agents is the only product here that pauses a session and resumes it. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/pricing/) [docs](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/pricing/)
- **Snapshots and forks** (partly): Disk only; $0.06/GB-mo. On-demand disk snapshots kept until deleted, any of them restorable, usable as a template for new Droplets. Automatic backups at 20% (weekly) or 30% (daily) of the Droplet price. No memory snapshot and no fork of a running machine; only Managed Agents forks, and only from a checkpoint. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/snapshots/details/features/) [docs](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/snapshots/details/features/)
- **Storage** (yes): Whole disk + 16 TiB volumes. The whole boot disk persists with the machine. Volumes run from 1 GiB to 16 TiB at $0.10/GiB-month and attach to one Droplet at a time. Volumes are billed whether attached or not, and are not included in Droplet backups. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/volumes/details/pricing/) [docs](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/volumes/details/pricing/)
- **Idle and waking** (yes): No idle stop; runs for weeks. No idle timer, no session lifetime and no wake-on-request for a Droplet; billing starts at create and ends at destroy. Managed Agents is the opposite: a 15-minute idle suspend by default, resuming on new input. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/pricing/) [docs](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/pricing/)
- **Reaching it** (partly): Public IPv4; SSH; console. A public IPv4 per Droplet, real SSH, a browser console and any TCP port except SMTP. There is no tokenised preview link and no port-forwarding service; standard ssh -L works. The OpenClaw image adds a gateway token and TLS in front of its own port. [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets) [docs](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/how-to/connect-with-console/)
- **Custom domains** (partly): DNS yes; HTTPS is yours. DigitalOcean runs DNS for your domain, but automatic certificates are a Load Balancer and Spaces feature. A plain Droplet needs Caddy or Certbot. The OpenClaw 1-Click image is the exception: it ships Caddy with a Let's Encrypt certificate for the IP. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/networking/dns/) [docs](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/networking/dns/)
- **Outbound network** (yes): $0.01/GiB after 500-11,000. Allowances are pooled at team level with no rollover. Cloud firewalls filter by protocol, port and address in both directions at no extra cost. Each Droplet keeps its public IPv4 for its life, and Reserved IPs give a movable inbound address. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/pricing/) [docs](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/networking/firewalls/details/features/)
- **Keys and secrets** (partly): Scoped tokens; no store. API tokens have granular custom scopes. A Droplet has no secret manager: keys go in cloud-init, files or environment variables. Only Managed Agents stores secrets and injects them at session start, and only Action Gateway brokers credentials so the model never sees them. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/reference/api/scopes/) [docs](https://docs.digitalocean.com/reference/api/scopes/)
- **Ways to drive it** (yes): Dashboard, CLI, 3 SDKs, MCP. Control panel, doctl, official Python (PyDo), TypeScript (DoTs) and Go (Godo) clients, a documented REST API v2, an official MCP server, SSH and a browser console. No PTY or file API for Droplets; Harness Runtime has both for sessions. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/reference/mcp/) [docs](https://docs.digitalocean.com/reference/mcp/)
- **Built-in agents** (partly): OpenClaw/Hermes 1-Click. Marketplace 1-Click images for OpenClaw (hardened, from $12/month), Hermes Agent and Docker Agent. A Droplet has no prompt API. Managed Agents runs Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Hermes and LangGraph as a separate, separately priced product. [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/blog/moltbot-on-digitalocean) [docs](https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/openclaw)
- **Teams and accounts** (partly): Roles, OIDC SSO; no cap. Six predefined roles plus custom roles, OIDC single sign-on, and spend alerts at percentage thresholds of a budget. The docs say a budget is not a cap; the only pause exists for model access key alerts. Account-wide audit logs are not published for Droplets. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/billing/spend-alerts/) [docs](https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/teams/)
- **Billing models** (partly): $0.03571/h, 672 h cap. Per-second billing with a 60-second or $0.01 minimum. Bundled plans stop charging at 672 hours, so always-on costs the monthly price. A powered-off Droplet bills in full, and the $0.01 floor makes 1,000 ten-minute runs cost $10 rather than $5.95. [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets) [docs](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets)
- **Trials and free tiers** (partly): $5 credit, 90 days. No free tier. A $5 signup credit expires after 90 days, and a card or PayPal must be on file before any Droplet can be created. Managed Agents has a separate $5 trial that the blog says needs no card; that is a different product. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/billing/signup-credit/) [docs](https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/billing/signup-credit/)
- **The company** (yes): LLC; 99.99% SLA; SOC 2. DigitalOcean, LLC, founded 2012, listed on the NYSE as DOCN with more than 680,000 customers. SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3 Type II, a published DPA and a public status page. [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/sla/cpu-droplets) [docs](https://www.digitalocean.com/sla/cpu-droplets)

## Capabilities

- Its own virtual machine: yes (full VM, own kernel) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/features/)
- Root access: yes (root over SSH) [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets)
- Docker inside: yes (Docker 1-Click or apt) [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/blog/moltbot-on-digitalocean)
- Nested virtualisation: not-published [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/live-migration/)
- Your own image: yes (qcow2/VMDK, up to 100 GB) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/custom-images/details/features/)
- Any size you like: partly (v5: 1-8 shared vCPU). Only v5 Droplets size CPU, memory and disk independently, and v5 is offered in four US datacenters, none in the EU. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/pricing/)
- Large machines: yes (up to 64 vCPU / 512 GB) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/concepts/choosing-a-plan/)
- Resize while running: no (power off first). Resizing powers the Droplet off first, and the disk can never be made smaller. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/how-to/resize/)
- GPUs: yes (H100 $4.41/h; RTX 4000 $0.76/h) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/pricing/)
- Choose the region: yes (16 datacenters) [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets)
- Runs in the EU: yes (Amsterdam, Frankfurt) [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets)
- Pause keeps memory: partly (Managed Agents only). A Droplet has no pause: powering off loses memory and running processes and still bills in full. Only Managed Agents sessions pause and resume. [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/products/managed-agents)
- Pre-started pools: partly (autoscale pools). Autoscale pools keep Droplets running behind a load balancer, but there is no way to hand a pre-started machine to a job. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/limits/)
- Starts in under a second: partly (~1 min; 1 s sessions). A Droplet takes about a minute to boot; only Managed Agents sessions start in about a second. [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets)
- Snapshots of files: yes ($0.06/GB-month) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/snapshots/details/features/)
- Snapshots with memory: no (disk only). A snapshot copies the disk, not memory or running processes. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/snapshots/details/features/)
- Copy a running machine: partly (fork from a checkpoint). Managed Agents forks a new session from a checkpoint; nothing copies a running Droplet. [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/products/managed-agents)
- Pick an older snapshot: yes (kept until deleted) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/snapshots/details/features/)
- Reusable templates: yes (snapshot -> new Droplet) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/snapshots/details/features/)
- Automatic backups: yes (20% weekly, 30% daily) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/backups/details/pricing/)
- Files survive a stop: yes (disk survives power-off) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/pricing/)
- Separate volumes: yes (1 GiB-16 TiB, $0.10/GiB-mo) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/volumes/details/pricing/)
- One volume, several machines: no (one Droplet at a time). A volume attaches to one Droplet at a time, so two agents cannot share it. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/volumes/details/limits/)
- Mount outside storage: partly (S3 client, not a mount). Spaces is S3-compatible, but DigitalOcean does not document mounting a bucket as a folder on a Droplet. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/llms.txt)
- Large disk: yes (16 TiB volume) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/volumes/details/pricing/)
- Can stay on indefinitely: yes (no session limit) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/pricing/)
- Choose the idle timeout: yes (nothing stops it) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/pricing/)
- Wakes on a request: partly (Managed Agents resume). A powered-off Droplet stays off until something calls the API; only Managed Agents sessions wake on new input. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/managed-agents/agent-harness-runtime/details/features/)
- Scheduled runs: partly (cron inside the VM). Scheduling means cron inside a Droplet that is already on; nothing starts a machine on a timer, and scheduled triggers exist only for Managed Agents sessions. [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/products/managed-agents)
- Public link to a port: yes (public IPv4 per Droplet) [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets)
- Private link: partly (firewall by address). A cloud firewall can limit access to your own addresses, but there is no token or login link in front of a port. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/networking/firewalls/details/features/)
- Real SSH: yes (standard SSH) [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets)
- Terminal in the browser: yes (Droplet Console) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/how-to/connect-with-console/)
- Tunnel to your computer: yes (ssh -L, no service) [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets)
- Non-web ports: yes (any port except SMTP) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/limits/)
- Your own domain: yes (DNS + A record) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/networking/dns/)
- Automatic HTTPS: partly (LB/Spaces only). Automatic certificates exist only on Load Balancers and Spaces; a plain Droplet needs Caddy or Certbot. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/networking/dns/)
- Outbound data included: yes (500 GiB-11,000 GiB) [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets)
- Allow only some sites: yes (firewall by address) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/networking/firewalls/details/features/)
- Turn the internet off: yes (deny-all egress rule) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/networking/firewalls/details/features/)
- Fixed outgoing IP: yes (public IPv4 for its life) [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets)
- Stored secrets: partly (Managed Agents only). A Droplet has no secret store, so keys sit in cloud-init, files or environment variables; only Managed Agents stores and injects secrets. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/managed-agents/agent-harness-runtime/details/features/)
- Secrets the agent cannot read: partly (Action Gateway only). Only Action Gateway brokers credentials so the model never sees them; an agent on a Droplet can read the keys in its own environment. [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/products/managed-agents)
- Limited API keys: yes (custom token scopes) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/reference/api/scopes/)
- Create from the website: yes (control panel) [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets)
- Command-line tool: yes (doctl) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/how-to/resize/)
- Python SDK: yes (PyDo) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/reference/pydo/)
- TypeScript SDK: yes (DoTs) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/reference/dots/)
- Documented HTTP API: yes (REST API v2) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/reference/api/)
- MCP server: yes (official MCP servers) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/reference/mcp/)
- Interactive terminal over the API: partly (attach, no PTY API). Harness Runtime can attach to a live session, but Droplets expose no PTY over the API; you use SSH. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/managed-agents/agent-harness-runtime/details/features/)
- Files over the API: partly (Harness upload/download). Only Harness Runtime uploads and downloads files over the API; a Droplet needs SSH or SFTP. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/managed-agents/agent-harness-runtime/details/features/)
- Coding agents preinstalled: partly (OpenClaw/Hermes images). The default Ubuntu image has no coding agent; OpenClaw, Hermes and Docker Agent are separate 1-Click images. [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/blog/moltbot-on-digitalocean)
- Send it a prompt: partly (Harness sessions). Managed Agents runs the harness and takes new input to resume a session, but a Droplet has no send-a-prompt call. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/managed-agents/agent-harness-runtime/details/features/)
- One-click Hermes: partly (Marketplace image). A 1-Click Hermes image exists, but its listing publishes no post-deploy steps, so how much needs a terminal is unclear. [source](https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/hermes-agent)
- One-click OpenClaw: yes ($12/month 1-Click) [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/blog/moltbot-on-digitalocean)
- Browser built in: partly (chromium in sessions). Harness Runtime sessions include chromium and a browser-automation tool; a Droplet image does not. [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/products/managed-agents)
- Desktop for computer use: no (none). There is no graphical desktop on a Droplet or in a Harness Runtime session. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/features/)
- Runs other platforms' agents: not-published [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/products/managed-agents)
- Team workspace: yes (teams share billing) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/teams/)
- Roles and permissions: yes (6 roles + custom) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/teams/roles/)
- Single sign-on: yes (OIDC (Okta, Entra ID)) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/teams/settings/)
- Hard spending cap: no (alerts, not a cap). A spend alert emails you at a percentage of a budget; it cannot stop a Droplet or the bill. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/billing/spend-alerts/)
- Usage alerts: yes (email at % thresholds) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/billing/spend-alerts/)
- Audit log: partly (per-resource events). API actions are recorded per resource, but Droplets have no published account-wide audit log; audit logs are listed only for Managed Agents IAM. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/reference/api/scopes/)
- Billed per second: yes (per second, 60 s minimum) [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets)
- CPU billed only while working: no (billed while it exists). CPU is billed for every hour the Droplet exists, whether the agent is working or waiting. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/pricing/)
- Paused costs only storage: no (full price when off). A powered-off Droplet bills exactly like a running one; only destroying it stops the charge. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/pricing/)
- No monthly fee: yes (no plan fee) [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets)
- Flat monthly price: yes ($24/mo for 2 vCPU / 4 GiB) [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets)
- Ongoing free tier: no ($5 credit only). Nothing keeps running for free each month; the only free usage is a one-off $5 credit. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/billing/signup-credit/)
- Free starting credit: yes ($5 for 90 days) [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/billing/signup-credit/)
- Try without a card: no (card before Droplets). You must add a payment method before you can create a Droplet. [source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/billing/signup-credit/)
- Public status page: yes (status.digitalocean.com) [source](https://status.digitalocean.com/)
- Uptime promise (SLA): yes (99.99% per Droplet) [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/sla/cpu-droplets)
- SOC 2 report: yes (SOC 2 Type II + SOC 3) [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/trust/certification-reports)
- Data processing agreement: yes (DPA published) [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/data-processing-agreement)
- Open source or self-hostable: no (hosted service only). Droplets are a hosted service; DigitalOcean publishes clients and tools, not a self-hostable platform. [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/open-source)

## Usability

- Dashboard: Yes. Create a Droplet in a few clicks, watch graphs, open a browser console, resize, snapshot, rebuild, resize disks and manage firewalls, DNS and volumes.
- Without code: Partly. Creating the machine and opening its console needs no terminal, and the OpenClaw image arrives configured. Installing and running any other agent does need one.
- Signup: Email, password and a payment method. The $5 signup credit expires after 90 days, and no Droplet can be created until a card or PayPal is on file.
- Docs: A large docs site with an llms.txt index, a release-notes feed, a public API reference, official Python, TypeScript and Go clients, and an official MCP server. Support is tickets plus community Q&A.
- Trips people up: Powering off does not stop the bill; only destroying the Droplet does.
- Trips people up: Destroying deletes the disk, so a snapshot is the only thing that survives.
- Trips people up: The 672-hour monthly cap is invisible in the hourly rate: 730 hours costs the monthly price, not 730 × the rate.
- Trips people up: Resizing needs a power-off and can never shrink the disk.
- Trips people up: A plain Droplet has no HTTPS: you install Caddy or Certbot, or put a Load Balancer in front.
- Trips people up: The $5 credit expires in 90 days and is not a free tier.
- Trips people up: Agent Droplets are a Managed Agents plan, not a VM; the name invites the wrong purchase.

## Company

- Legal entity: DigitalOcean, LLC, a US company. The DPA names it as the contracting party. [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/data-processing-agreement)
- Founded and listed: Founded in 2012; public since its 2018 IPO and listed on the NYSE as DOCN, with more than 680,000 customers. [source](https://investors.digitalocean.com/)
- Uptime promise: 99.99% monthly uptime per Droplet, with a 100% service credit if missed. [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/sla/cpu-droplets)
- Certification: SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3 Type II, audited by Schellman & Company; a DPA is published. [source](https://www.digitalocean.com/trust/certification-reports)
- Status page: status.digitalocean.com lists Droplets and each datacenter separately. [source](https://status.digitalocean.com/)

## Caveats

- **A powered-off Droplet bills in full** (open): DigitalOcean keeps the compute reserved on the hypervisor, so stopping the machine changes nothing on the invoice. Workload C therefore costs the full $24 monthly price, not the $3.21 the running hours suggest.
- **The monthly cap and the hourly rate disagree at 730 hours** (open): Bundled plans are capped at 672 hours, so 730 hours costs the flat monthly price. The shared calculator has no cap rule and multiplies 730 by the hourly rate, overstating B by $4.14.
- **OpenClaw's minimum Droplet size changed** (contradiction): The January technical deep dive says the image needs a $24/month Droplet; the February announcement says it now runs on the $12 tier. This profile uses $12 and treats the earlier figure as superseded.
- **Nested virtualisation is mentioned but never documented** (open): The live-migration page tells people with nested VMs to restart them afterwards, but no plan page says nested virtualisation is available or how to enable it. Treat it as unknown, not as supported.
- **Agent Droplets is not a Droplet** (open): The name describes the $50 or $200 monthly plan for Managed Agents, whose compute is per-session Firecracker microVMs at $0.044 per vCPU-hour plus $0.0095 per GB-hour. It is a different product with a different meter and should not be priced as a VM.

## Sources

- [Droplet pricing](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets)
- [Docs: Droplet pricing and billing](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/pricing/)
- [Docs: Droplet features](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/features/)
- [Docs: choosing a Droplet plan](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/concepts/choosing-a-plan/)
- [Docs: resizing](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/how-to/resize/)
- [Docs: snapshots](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/snapshots/details/features/)
- [Docs: backups pricing](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/backups/details/pricing/)
- [Docs: volumes](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/volumes/details/pricing/)
- [Marketplace: OpenClaw](https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/openclaw)
- [Blog: OpenClaw 1-Click](https://www.digitalocean.com/blog/moltbot-on-digitalocean)
- [Managed Agents](https://www.digitalocean.com/products/managed-agents)
- [Agent Droplets pricing](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/agent-droplets)
- [Harness Runtime pricing](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/harness-runtime)