Vendor Guidelines and Resources

Information on offering your solution in the DigitalOcean Marketplace

The DigitalOcean Marketplace Has Endless Opportunities

The DigitalOcean Marketplace is designed with simplicity at its heart. We work closely with partners to deliver a truly seamless experience for users, creating the ability for developers and businesses to deploy in a few clicks. 

Vendors can list software installed on VMs, software for Kubernetes, and Software as a Service with developer or business use cases. Over the years, we have seen useful and interesting technologies favored by our builder community. That said, the DigitalOcean Marketplace is diverse, offering everything from eCommerce, email, logging, development stacks, blockchain solutions, and much more – even Minecraft modpacks!

Types of Solutions

There are 4 types of solutions on the DigitalOcean Marketplace: Droplet 1-Click Apps, Kubernetes 1-Click Apps, SaaS Add-Ons and License Add-Ons.

The following lists each solution’s basic composition and a few reasons why you may choose to offer one over another:

Droplet 1-Click Apps 

  • Preconfigured Droplets (VMs) with at least one software installed
  • Catered to users who want to get started with software quickly
  • Developers have control over software maintenance and management
  • Vendors choose when to update their image in the DigitalOcean Marketplace 

Kubernetes 1-Click Apps 

  • Software packages deployed to a Kubernetes cluster for the user using Helm
  • One or more solutions can be included in the deployment
  • Developers have control over software maintenance and management
  • Vendors choose when to update their solution in the DigitalOcean Marketplace 

SaaS Add-Ons 

  • Provide swift and simple 3rd party Software as a Service (SaaS) 
  • For builders who want to leave maintenance and management to Vendors
  • Developers pay monthly through DigitalOcean’s billing platform
  • SSO allows users to access your management portal, so they can integrate with your service without VMs or Kubernetes
  • SaaS Vendors receive a 75% share of revenue collected

License Add-Ons 

  • Provide customers a simple way to purchase a license for their software deployed on a Droplet 1-Click
  • For builders who want an easy way to provision and manage their software licenses
  • All billing for License Add-Ons is done through the DigitalOcean Billing Platform, simplifying procurement for business customers

To become a Vendor, submit an application to get started.

If you are startup looking to build out your infrastructure on DigitalOcean cloud, know that our Hatch Partnerships offer valuable incentives, in addition to being a vendor in the marketplace. See the last section "Join DigitalOcean for Startups" on this page on how to become a Hatch partner.

Getting Your Solution Ready

While you wait for your software to be approved, you can see what's involved in preparing it for the DigitalOcean Marketplace and get a head start if you like. The process is a little different depending on what you are offering: you might have to do some engineering work to integrate with our API, submit tax and financial documents for payment, and prepare your listing.

Droplet 1-Click Apps

We’ve provided a set of guidelines and scripts in our DigitalOcean Marketplace Github repo to help you build your 1-Click app.

If you have questions or concerns that come up as you build your image, you can always open a Github issue in our repo.

Kubernetes 1-Click Apps

For instructions on how to create and submit your Kubernetes 1-Click App, visit our Contributing page in the DigitalOcean Marketplace Github repo.

SaaS Add-Ons

DigitalOcean Marketplace engineers will support your team as they onboard your Software-as-a-Service onto the DigitalOcean Marketplace. 

License Add-Ons

A License Add-On can be attached to your Droplet 1-Click or sold as a standalone license. DigitalOcean Marketplace engineers will support your team as they onboard your License onto the DigitalOcean Marketplace. 

To get started, you need a DigitalOcean account and to create a Team to later associate with your Add-On. Afterwards, integrate your solution with our API and submit needed Tax documents. Taxation requirements differ depending on vendor and customer location; see SaaS Vendor Tax Information for more details.

API Documentation

The SaaS Add-On API Documentation has details on how to integrate with the DigitalOcean Marketplace.

The License Add-On API Documentation has details on how to integrate your license service with the DigitalOcean Marketplace.

Tax and Financial Forms

For your Add-On to be listed in the Marketplace, you’re required to submit additional information to ensure you are paid for all customer installations from the Marketplace. You can fill out these documents anytime during the onboarding process and submit them to one-clicks-team@digitalocean.com.  

Fill out and return:

ACH Authorization Form

You can acquire an ACH Authorization Form from your financial institution. It likely contains your financial institution’s official letterhead, your account, routing number, and your signature. 

Tax Forms

To legally accept payment from users all over the world, please submit tax forms dated for the current year. Any previous years can not be accepted.

US-based entities must provide a new W-9 form with appropriate fields and signatures completed.

Non-US-based entities must provide a W-8 BEN-E and a VAT certificate with appropriate fields and signatures completed.

Creating Your First Listing

Once we've reviewed and approved your submission to become a DigitalOcean Marketplace Vendor, you'll get a link to a short form. Use that form to tell us about your software – where the bits can be found, and the benefits for DigitalOcean's community of developers. The DigitalOcean Marketplace is searchable by Google and by a built-in search function. Include keywords in your listing that will help developers find your solution for their problem.

Representation Guidelines

To ensure that your brand and the DigitalOcean brand are represented accurately and fairly to the community, keep these guidelines in mind when naming and writing the description of your image.

  • Be clear that DigitalOcean doesn't build or support your software. Take credit for your hard work! We build and support the DigitalOcean Marketplace, and Vendors like you build and support the software that you offer on our open platform.
  • Use our full, correct name. Our company name is "DigitalOcean", without a space. Don't use "DO", "Digital Ocean", or other names.
  • Don't disparage or dress down other products from other Vendors (or us!) in your listing. Let the quality of your product shine on its own by not using language like "better than OtherCompany's product" or "the best way to run SomeSoftware on DigitalOcean ''.

Sharing Your Listing 

Your software on the DigitalOcean Marketplace will be searchable and visible to our global community of builders and beyond.

Share Your Listing Page with Your Community

Share your listing on social media and through your channels as much as possible to create a buzz. You can share your Listing Page URL or your Deploy Link to auto create your software.

Listing Page URL pattern

Your published listing URL follows these patterns:

Droplet 1-Click Apps and Kubernetes 1-Click Apps

marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/name-of-your-app

Add-Ons

marketplace.digitalocean.com/add-ons/name-of-your-add-on

Deploy Link

A Deploy Link sends users with a DigitalOcean account directly to deploying your software skipping your listing page. If a user doesn't have a DigitalOcean account, they'll simply land on your listing page.

To compose a Deploy Link append the query string ?action=deploy to your URL 

Droplet 1-Click Apps and Kubernetes 1-Click Apps

like so: https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/name-of-your-app?action=deploy 

Add-Ons

marketplace.digitalocean.com/add-ons/name-of-your-add-on?action=deploy 

DigitalOcean Button on Your Site

“Create a Droplet” Button

Branded DigitalOcean Create buttons you can embed on your site or blog to drive your community to your software. These Create buttons and other DigitalOcean brand assets can be found in the Welcome Kit ZIP file. Your Create buttons should link out as described above in “Deploy link’, as they are designed to boost the likelihood your software is used.

"Deploy to DigitalOcean" Button

One of the fastest ways to deploy a product to DigitalOcean is with the Deploy to DigitalOcean Button, which is used to launch Github hosted apps onto the DigitalOcean App Platform. 

Promoting Your Solution 

Once you've launched your software, engage with the DigitalOcean's community so our builders know they can leverage your solutions. When you become a Vendor, we will provide a packet including information on Marketing guidelines and possible opportunities. It will also have examples of copy for newsletters, example blogs, other collateral, social media sharing, and other helpful tips, with details on the following opportunities:

Social Media Amplification

We love to amplify our Vendors in our channels when we can. Feel free to follow our social media presence on:

For more information on how we can work together on social media, register to be vendor.

Tech Talks

The DigitalOcean Community and guests present on Tech Talks using DigitalOcean solutions and their DigitalOcean Marketplace software. Our Tech Talks site has featured, upcoming, and past recordings of talks. We strive to provide events that are interesting, interactive, educational, and fun. 

Events and Hackathons

We host many events throughout the year where we share updates on DigitalOcean solutions, support startups, educate developers, and help Open Source projects. 

If you want to sponsor or participate in an event like our wildly popular Hacktoberfest (140k+ attendees in 2021) or if you want us to participate in yours, become a vendor.

Press Opportunities

Vendors open to engaging with media are on our press list for the next opportunity that arises to feature you. PR depends on circumstances out of our control and we cannot always guarantee press for everyone.

Case Studies, Blogs, Newsletters, and More

Other channels we use to raise awareness about solutions that can help builders are publications like blogs, newsletters, case studies, and ebooks. There are lots of examples of our content. Videos are also a good medium to show what builders are doing with DigitalOcean and Vendors solutions.

Advertising with DigitalOcean

Often Vendors and Partners ask to advertise with us, for campaigns, to sponsor ads, and other paid activities with DigitalOcean which we evaluate on a case-by-case basis.

Join DigitalOcean for Startups

Hatch is our global startup program that provides the cloud infrastructure startups like yours need to scale their businesses.

  • Up to $50K worth of DigitalOcean’s cloud for 12 months for eligible applicants
  • Technical training, mentorship, and support
  • Opportunities to connect with the global Hatch community through a dedicated Slack
  • Marketing help and promotions through DigitalOcean’s social channels, newsletters, and events
  • Invites to exclusive networking events
  • APPLY HERE (do.co/hatch)