I’m currently looking for a VPS to host my projects and comparing a few providers.
I noticed that DigitalOcean’s $24 plan (2vCPU, 4GB RAM) comes bundled with a massive 4TB of outbound transfer. Coming from AWS and other providers where bandwidth costs an arm and a leg, this sounds almost too good to be true.
Honestly, how are they not losing money on this? Is it even physically possible for a small 2vCPU instance to push 4TB of traffic in a month without maxing out the CPU first?
Or is it just a marketing trick because they know 99% of people will never use that much?
Just genuinely curious about the economics behind this! Would love to hear your thoughts.
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If I had to guess, it’s probably a mix of network scale and pricing models.
Providers like DigitalOcean operate large networks and buy bandwidth in bulk, which makes the cost per TB much lower than what individuals would pay.
Also worth noting that while 4TB is definitely possible to push, depending on the workload a small 2vCPU instance might hit application, CPU, or Memory limits before consistently pushing that much traffic. Of course, if well optimized, it’s still possible.
But that’s just my understanding, curious if others here have more insight as well.
Heya, @48715b00af104b1f91d4f6de6a9e1a
Bandwidth is genuinely cheap at scale. The difference is AWS treats it as a profit center while DO just bakes a generous allowance into the droplet price. Different business models, different target markets.
Most people won’t hit 4TB on a small instance though, that’s just the reality. A typical web app or a few side projects won’t come close. So it’s not a trick — it’s just that bandwidth is cheap for them to provision and they know the average user won’t use it all. They’d rather give you a flat predictable bill than nickel-and-dime you per GB.
Regards
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