GPU cloud · head to head

DigitalOcean GPU Droplets vs Modal

What each costs, whether there's a free plan, and what each is best for, from prices checked on their own sites.

DigitalOcean GPU Droplets and Modal at a glance
Fact	DigitalOcean GPU Droplets	Modal
From	$0.76/hr	$1.10/hr
Free plan	No · New-account credit; GPU use not confirmed	Yes · $30/month of free credits on the Starter plan
Best for	On-demand GPU Droplets (virtual machines) from DigitalOcean, which now includes Paperspace.	Serverless GPUs for Python: pay per second while your code runs.
Checked	Oct 17, 2026	Oct 17, 2026
Website	Visit	Visit

The difference in short

DigitalOcean GPU Droplets costs less to start: $0.76/hr against $1.10/hr for Modal.
Only Modal has a free plan, trial or credit.

DigitalOcean GPU Droplets plans and prices
Plan	Price	Specs / includes	Notes
HGX H200 141GB	$4.47/hr	H200 (HGX) · 24 vCPU · 240 GB RAM	Per GPU. 1 or 8 GPUs per Droplet. vCPU/RAM as listed for the Droplet (RAM 240 GiB). 720 GiB NVMe boot disk + 5 TiB NVMe scratch, 15,000 GiB transfer.
HGX H100 80GB	$4.41/hr	H100 (HGX) · 20 vCPU · 240 GB RAM	Per GPU. 1 or 8 GPUs per Droplet. Page says 'NVIDIA HGX H100' and does not say SXM explicitly. RAM 240 GiB.
L40S 48GB	$1.57/hr	8 vCPU · 64 GB RAM	1 GPU per Droplet. RAM 64 GiB, 500 GiB NVMe boot disk, 10,000 GiB transfer.
RTX 6000 Ada 48GB	$1.57/hr	8 vCPU · 64 GB RAM	1 GPU per Droplet. RAM 64 GiB.
RTX 4000 Ada 20GB	$0.76/hr	8 vCPU · 32 GB RAM	1 GPU per Droplet. RAM 32 GiB.
AMD Instinct MI300X 192GB	$2.59/hr	AMD MI300X · 20 vCPU · 240 GB RAM	AMD, not NVIDIA. Per GPU, 1 or 8 GPUs per Droplet. MI325X 256GB is $3.80/GPU/hr (20 vCPU, 164 GiB RAM).

Modal plans and prices
Plan	Price	Specs / includes	Notes
B200	$6.25/hr	—	Published only per second: $0.001736/sec. Hourly = x3600, exact arithmetic. GPU price only; CPU and memory billed separately. VRAM not stated on the pricing page.
H200 SXM	$4.54/hr	—	Published $0.001261/sec; hourly = x3600 exactly. GPU only. VRAM not stated on the pricing page.
H100 SXM5	$3.95/hr	—	Published $0.001097/sec; hourly = x3600 exactly. GPU only. H100 is 80GB, but the pricing page does not state VRAM.
A100 80GB	$2.50/hr	—	Published $0.000694/sec; hourly = x3600 exactly. A100 40GB is $0.000583/sec = $2.0988/hr.
L40S	$1.95/hr	—	Published $0.000542/sec; hourly = x3600 exactly. L40S is 48GB, but the pricing page does not state VRAM.
A10	$1.10/hr	—	Published $0.000306/sec; hourly = x3600 exactly. Also listed: L4 $0.000222/sec ($0.7992/hr), T4 $0.000164/sec ($0.5904/hr), RTX PRO 6000 $0.000842/sec ($3.0312/hr), B300 $0.001972/sec ($7.0992/hr).

Cheapest first where the prices compare.

Which is cheaper, DigitalOcean GPU Droplets or Modal?

DigitalOcean GPU Droplets costs less to start: $0.76/hr against $1.10/hr for Modal. Prices checked Oct 17, 2026 on each company's own site.

Do DigitalOcean GPU Droplets and Modal have a free plan?

DigitalOcean GPU Droplets: No free plan. New-account credit; GPU use not confirmed. Modal: Yes. $30/month of free credits on the Starter plan.

What else should I compare with DigitalOcean GPU Droplets and Modal?

Other GPU cloud options we've checked: RunPod ($0.34/hr), TensorDock ($0.35/hr), Vast.ai ($0.49/hr), Hyperstack ($1.35/hr).

Built from the prices and facts we checked on each company's own site. We haven't tested either hands-on.How we work