DigitalOcean free credits: $5

DigitalOcean’s standard signup credit is $5, and it expires 90 days after signup. It is applied automatically when you create your first team; no promo code is involved. Before you can create Droplets or other resources you must add a valid payment method, so plan on entering one even if you only intend to spend the credit. All of this comes from DigitalOcean’s own docs, checked on 2026-09-02.

Screenshot: DigitalOcean signup credit docs page

Last checked: 2026-08-20

What the credit covers

The signup-credit docs say the credit “applies to all products except SaaS Add-Ons”. That is the full official statement of scope. The page does not name Droplets, GPU Droplets, or any other product individually, so I will not claim GPU eligibility beyond that sentence. The docs also state the credit cannot be transferred to other teams, and that it is subject to DigitalOcean’s Promotional Credit and Discount Terms.

The payment method nuance

Official wording is “payment method”, not “credit card”. DigitalOcean’s billing docs list credit cards among several accepted options. The practical effect is the same: you cannot create resources on a fresh account without adding one. The pricing FAQ says your card is charged only after the credits are used or expire. I mark this entry as requiring a payment method for that reason.

Is the DigitalOcean $200 credit still available?

Many blog posts and coupon roundups still cite a $200, 60-day credit for new DigitalOcean signups. As of 2026-08-24 that figure is not on DigitalOcean’s official signup-credit page, referral docs, or referral marketing page. The current referral docs say a referred user receives the standard signup credit, which is the $5 described above. Treat posts citing $200 as stale until DigitalOcean’s own pages say otherwise.

The referral program, from the other side

If you refer someone, the docs say your team receives $25 once the person you referred spends and pays for $25 of usage. There is no stated cap on how much referral credit you can earn. How long that $25 stays valid is not stated officially. The referred person gets the standard $5 credit, nothing extra.

Bigger grants exist, but not at signup

DigitalOcean runs a separate application-based startups program at digitalocean.com/startups with different amounts. It is not the standard signup credit and approval is not automatic, so I keep its numbers off this page.

What $5 runs at listed Droplet prices

The Droplets pricing page lists the smallest Basic Droplet in the Regular CPU row at $4.00 per month, or $0.00595 per hour, for 512 MiB of memory, 1 vCPU, a 10 GiB SSD, and 500 GiB of transfer. Computed 2026-08-24 at those listed rates, the $5 credit covers about 840 hours, or roughly 35 days, of that one Droplet running nonstop, comfortably more than a month but only about 40 percent of the credit’s 90-day validity window. These are arithmetic ceilings from the official price list, not a promise: bandwidth overages, backups, or a second Droplet all shorten the runway, and the hourly figure assumes you never resize upward.

What I have done with it

Not tested yet. I have not personally signed up through this flow, so this page reports only what the official pages state.

If your workload needs GPUs or scales to zero when idle, a serverless platform may fit better than a VPS; see the Modal free tier entry or the guide on choosing between a VPS, GPU cloud, serverless, or a sandbox. If you are weighing DigitalOcean against a cheaper always-on box, the numbers are side by side in Contabo vs DigitalOcean. The full list of tracked grants is on the credits index.