Digital Realty publishes no price list for cabinets, power, or cross connects, and unlike its flagship rival it does not even publish list prices for its interconnection fabric. What it does publish, every quarter, is the one number no other colocation provider discloses: the base rent per kilowatt on the new leases it signs for deployments under a megawatt, which is the tier every cabinet and cage buyer sits in. Add a customer filed contract that shows how its bills are built, a reseller's live rack prices in its buildings, and the renewal uplifts it reports to investors, and a Digital Realty quote becomes something you can check. For how Digital Realty compares to the rest of the market, see our Best Colocation Providers ranking, our Equinix vs Digital Realty verdict, and our guide to how colocation pricing works.
What you will actually pay
| What is priced | Price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| New lease under 1 MW | about $280 /kW/mo | Base rent per kilowatt on new sub megawatt leases, company reported, four quarters through mid 2026 |
| Full cabinet via a reseller, Frankfurt | about $2,450 /mo | 47 rack units with 3 kW, one year minimum, taxes extra |
| Each additional kilowatt, same reseller | about $580 /mo | Power above the included 3 kW, priced by tier |
| Cross connect into the Chicago meet me room | $500 /mo + $500 install | An exchange's published pass through fee for a fiber link into the Digital Realty room |
| Cabinet, 2013 Arizona contract | $930 /mo + $231 /kW | A customer filed license: per cabinet plus a per kilowatt power license, metered usage on top |
| Renewal uplift, under 1 MW | 4 to 5 percent cash | Company reported rental rate change on sub megawatt renewals, 2025 to 2026 |
The first row is the one to carry into a negotiation. Across 2025 and the first half of 2026, Digital Realty reported base rent on new sub megawatt leases at $278, $282, $247, and $280 per kilowatt a month, with the Americas running higher than the global figure. That is rent for the space and the right to the power, before the electricity itself, which the company says it passes through to customers almost in full. For a 10 kilowatt cabinet that is roughly $2,800 a month before the utility bill and before cross connects, which matches what resellers charge for a full rack in its European buildings and sits above the $196 per kilowatt average the analysts report for 250 to 500 kilowatt requirements in primary markets. Digital Realty is not the cheap option; it is the scale option, and it prices like one.
The customer filed contract shows the bill's anatomy at smaller scale: a per cabinet license, a separate per kilowatt license for committed power, metered electricity charged at actual cost plus a cooling factor of 0.6 times the power consumed, circuits capped at 80 percent of their rating, and a 3 percent annual escalator compounding through a 51 month term. The dollar figures are a decade old; the structure is not.
What moves the price
- Metro. More than a fifth of Digital Realty's rent comes from Northern Virginia, where 250 to 500 kilowatt asking rates now run $190 to $235 per kilowatt a month on vacancy near zero, and Chicago, its next largest US metro, rose nearly 15 percent in a year to $200 to $230. The same cabinet in Dallas, where asking rates were flat, quotes lower.
- Power as pass through. The company tells investors the vast majority of its power expense is passed directly through to customers. Your bill moves with the utility, and the cooling factor multiplies it; a quote that looks lean on rent can carry the real cost in the metered line.
- Growth path. Digital Realty's pitch is the move from cabinets to cages to suites without changing provider, and the pricing follows: new leases above a megawatt booked at $157 to $181 per kilowatt a month, roughly 40 percent below the sub megawatt rate. Buyers with a credible growth plan should ask for the larger tier's rate on the committed footprint, not the cabinet rate.
- Interconnection. Cross connects in its European buildings are sold month to month with a three business day install, and its fabric ports renew month to month at then current list after the minimum term. Those are the lines that grow quietly as a deployment touches more carriers and clouds.
- Term. The company's average remaining lease term is about five years, new sub megawatt leases average about four and a half, and sub megawatt renewals average under a year and a half. Short renewals in a rising market are how uplifts compound.
Contract factors to watch
- The renewal is where the increase lives. Sub megawatt renewals repriced 4 to 5 percent in cash through 2025 and into 2026, and the company raised its 2026 renewal guidance twice, to 9 to 11 percent across the portfolio, telling investors that expiring rates keep falling while market rates march up. A capped renewal is worth more than a discount on year one.
- Escalators and the cooling factor. The filed contract carries a 3 percent compounding escalator and bills electricity at cost times 1.6 to cover cooling. Ask for the escalator, the cooling multiplier, and whether the utility rate is fixed or floats.
- Holdover costs 50 percent. The same contract sets holdover at the greater of the then current rate for similar space and 150 percent of the scheduled fee. Plan the exit before the notice date.
- Credits are an hour at a time, capped at a month. Each hour of electrical interruption earns one thirtieth of the monthly fee, capped at that month's fee, as the sole remedy, with a termination right only after three outages of two hours or more in 90 days or twelve hours in aggregate.
- Fabric terms. The published interconnection terms renew month to month at list after the minimum term unless you give one month's notice, charge late fees of 1 percent a month, and set the early termination fee on a committed port at the lesser of the remaining term or three months' charges.
- Policy changes on notice. The interconnection terms let Digital Realty modify services by posting, with 30 days' notice for service level changes and a one month termination right if a change is material.
The honest summary: Digital Realty is priced for buyers who will grow inside it, and its own numbers say so: sub megawatt rent near $280 per kilowatt, megawatt scale rent near $170, and renewals repricing upward every quarter. A business that needs a cabinet or two in a flagship metro will pay flagship rates and get a scale operator's process; a business that will take a cage this year and a suite in three has real leverage, because the second lease is the one the provider is pricing for. Exact pricing is quote based. We pull real numbers across Digital Realty and every serious alternative at once, free, and you sign directly with whichever provider you choose.