Serverless Inference — Prepayment Terms

Last Updated on June 27, 2026

1. Prepayment required.

To create a Model Access Key, and to send billable requests to Serverless Inference (“SI”), non-exempt accounts must first add and maintain a positive prepaid balance. DigitalOcean collects funds before usage; SI usage draws the balance down as it accrues.

1A. Access gating and relationship to the TOS.

Creation of a Model Access Key, which is required to call any SI API endpoint, is conditioned on first adding a prepaid balance. When your available balance is zero or negative (that is, not positive), new SI requests and the creation of new Model Access Keys are blocked until you add funds. These Prepayment Terms are Service Terms under Section 4.2 of the Terms of Service Agreement (“TOS”) and form part of the Agreement. To the extent these terms require a positive prepaid balance as a condition of access, they modify and supersede the recurring post-pay billing default in TOS Section 6.3 with respect to SI. Your authorizations under TOS Sections 6.1 and 6.3 to charge your Payment Method continue to apply to all amounts payable under these terms.

1B. Outstanding balances

To access Serverless Inference, your account must not have any outstanding balance. If you have an outstanding balance, you must pay it in full, in addition to establishing a positive prepaid balance, before you can create a Model Access Key or send billable requests to Serverless Inference. Any funds you add are applied first to satisfy any outstanding balance on your account before any prepaid balance is established, and SI access requires a net positive prepaid balance after those amounts are applied. For example, if your account carries an outstanding balance of $100 and you add $50, the $50 is applied to the outstanding balance, your account balance remains negative, and SI access remains blocked until the outstanding balance is paid in full and a positive prepaid balance is established.

2. What the balance is.

The prepaid balance is part of your general account balance and is not reserved to SI as other DigitalOcean services may also draw it down. Maintaining a balance does not guarantee any specific amount of SI usage.

3. Credits.

Applicable platform credits are applied to the balance only where the credit is valid for all SI charges. Credits restricted to non-passthrough services (i.e., models hosted by DigitalOcean) do not satisfy the SI prepayment requirement and may be consumed only by the services they cover.

4. Suspension on depletion.

When your available balance reaches zero or becomes negative (that is, is not positive), SI requests are blocked until you add funds. We may provide advance low-balance notifications, but you are responsible for maintaining a sufficient balance. Balance-depletion suspensions are not service downtime and are excluded from any service-level commitments.You acknowledge and agree that DigitalOcean shall have no liability for any service interruption, loss of data, or operational impact resulting from your failure to maintain a positive balance.

5. Usage between billing cycles.

Usage metered after your balance reaches zero, for example, usage in flight between billing cycles remains payable. We may charge it to your payment method on file or apply it against your next prepayment.

6. Auto top-off (optional).

If you enable auto top-off, you authorize us to automatically charge your designated payment method by your selected amount each time your available balance falls below your selected threshold, on a recurring basis until you disable it. Because the prepaid balance is part of your general account balance (Section 2), you acknowledge that amounts charged under auto top-off are subject to the payment priority in Section 1B, and may be applied first to any outstanding balance on your account, including amounts owed for DigitalOcean services other than SI, before any balance becomes available for SI usage. You may disable auto top-off at any time in the console; changes apply to future charges. We will send a receipt for each automatic charge.

7. Refunds and Usage Estimates.

(a) Refunds. To the fullest extent permitted by law, all prepayments are final, non-cancelable, and non-refundable. (b) Usage Estimates. Any tools, calculators, or notifications provided by DigitalOcean to estimate SI usage or balance depletion are for informational purposes only. You are solely responsible for monitoring your own usage and balance and DigitalOcean makes no warranty regarding the accuracy of such estimations and disclaims all liability for costs or service disruptions arising from reliance on them.

8. Exemptions and Grandfathering.

Exempted Accounts. Specific qualifying accounts designated by us prior to the effective date of these terms are exempt from the prepayment requirement and shall continue to be governed by their existing billing terms. We may, at our sole discretion, exempt additional accounts from the prepayment requirement based on internal eligibility criteria. Such discretionary exemptions may be revoked at any time.

9. Changes.

We may modify these terms on notice as provided in the Terms of Service.

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