Getting started as a Marketplace Vendor

Being a Part of the Marketplace

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 to deploy fully-tested app environments with the click of a button.

Today, Vendors can list 1-Click Apps that run on DigitalOcean Droplets.

Later this year we'll expand the Marketplace to include Kubernetes and SaaS solutions as well.

Getting Your App Ready for the Marketplace

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, or after your application to the Marketplace is accepted you can join us in the DigitalOcean Developer Forum. It's where DigitalOcean employees and Marketplace Vendors collaborate and share best practices about building, launching, and promoting apps in the Marketplace.

Creating Your First Listing

Once we've reviewed and approved your application to become a Marketplace Vendor, you'll get a link to a short form. That form is where you will tell us about your app – where the bits can be found, and the benefits that it will deliver to DigitalOcean's community of 1 million+ developers. The Marketplace is searchable, by Google and through a built-in search function. So make sure that you're including keywords in your listing that will help the community when they're searching for a solution to their problem.

Representation Guidelines

To ensure that your brand and DigitalOcean's is 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 image. Take credit for your hard work! We build and support the Marketplace, and Vendors like you build and support the apps 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".

Launching and Promoting Your Listing

By making your app available in the DigitalOcean Marketplace, it will be searchable and visible to our global community of 3.5 million developers.

You can also promote your listing in the Marketplace in the following ways.

Place a Branded Create Button on Your Site

We have branded DigitalOcean Create buttons that you can embed on your site or blog to help drive your community to your 1-Click App. These Create buttons and other DigitalOcean brand assets can be found in this ZIP file.

Your Create buttons should link out as described below, which are designed to increase the chance that your 1-Click App will be spun up.

Share Your Listing Page with Your Community

Once your listing is published at the URL marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/<name-of-your-app>, feel free to share it with your community via social media or other channels.

To help encourage users to spin up your 1-Click App, you can, via specific URLs:

• Let users who already have a DigitalOcean account skip your App Listing Page and go directly to the Droplet create page to deploy your app. To do this, you can add the 'action=deploy' query string to your URL, like so: https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/<name-of-your-app>?action=deploy. (If a user doesn't have a DigitalOcean account -- no worries. When they hit this link they'll simply land on your Detail Page.)
• Get more users with our $50 / 30 day free trial program for new DigitalOcean users. If a visitor to your listing is new to DigitalOcean, we'll offer them a free trial if you've attached a valid DigitalOcean referral code to your Marketplace App Listing URL. For example, if your referral code was 12345678, then you would use a URL like this one: https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/<name-of-your-app>?action=deploy&refcode=12345678 or https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/<name-of-your-app>?refcode=12345678

Note that the links above can also be used within your own site, blog, and any other properties where you have permission to link out. Use them liberally!

Engaging with Our Community

Once you've launched your app, there are even more ways to engage with DigitalOcean's community.

Join the DigitalOcean Developer Forum

The Developer Forum is where Vendors and DigitalOcean Marketplace team members will be sharing best practices and trading tips on how to see the most impact from the Marketplace. If your application to join the Marketplace is approved, we'll send you a link with instructions about how to join the forum.

Apply to Be a Writer

Through our Write For DOnations program, you can share your knowledge about your apps with the millions of visitors a month who read our technical tutorials and guides. Check out the FAQ and apply to become a writer.