DigitalOcean Credits and GPU Promotion Guide | Generated by AI
Question: How does the DigitalOcean credits system work — specifically the AMD Dev Cloud GPU Promotion credits shown in the billing dashboard?
Answer:
This is straightforward billing mechanics:
What you’re seeing:
| Field | Value | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Total Available | $99.97 | Credits usable against your next invoice |
| Promotion name | AMD Dev Cloud GPU Promotion | Likely a partnership/promo credit from AMD or DO |
| Expiration | June 26, 2026 | Credits expire ~25 days from now |
| Initial | $100.00 | You were granted $100 |
| Amount Remaining | $72.36 | You’ve burned ~$27.64 so far |
How it works mechanically:
- When your monthly invoice is generated, DO automatically applies available credits before charging your payment method
- Credits are consumed in FIFO order (oldest expiring first)
- The $99.97 shown as “total available” = $72.36 remaining promo + any other small credits (maybe $27.61 from a referral or other source — explains the $99.97 vs $72.36 discrepancy)
The math that matters for you:
- You’ve spent ~$27.64 of the promo → at ~$2/hr for MI300X, that’s ~13.8 hours of GPU time used
- $72.36 remaining → ~36 hours left on the promo credit
- Promo expires June 26 — you have 25 days but only ~36 billable hours before it runs on your card
Action items:
# Check your current droplet/GPU spend rate
# DigitalOcean API — list current resources
curl -X GET "https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/droplets" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $DO_TOKEN" | jq '.droplets[] | {name, size, status}'
- If you have training runs queued, front-load them before June 26
- Don’t let idle GPU droplets burn credits — make sure nothing is running when you’re not using it
- $72.36 at $2/hr = budget for a focused sprint (fine-tuning run, GPT-2 experiment, etc.)