DigitalOcean launches Evaluations: LLM-as-a-Judge pricing, pay per token used
What happened
Between the Jun 29, 2026 and Jul 6, 2026 captures of Digitalocean's pricing page, Pulse recorded one change: New AI/ML product 'Evaluations' launched: LLM-as-a-Judge evaluation runs on any LLM, dedicated endpoint, or inference routing policy; priced 'Prices vary', billed only for candidate + judge token usage. Pulse files it as a packaging change (new plan) with an upward direction. Pulse's latest capture (Sep 28, 2026) lists Droplets at $4, Spaces Object Storage at $5, Volumes Block Storage at $10, Cloudways Managed Hosting at $11 and Kubernetes at $12.
It lands 3 days after Digitalocean's previous change, "DigitalOcean: AI Inference price cut 67% ($0.15->$0.05/M) + new Security (CSPM)" (Jul 2, 2026). Before that Pulse recorded "Digitalocean rebrands AI Platform to Inference for broader ML reach" (Jun 8, 2026), "Digitalocean Slashes AI Inference Pricing 67% on Gradient Platform" (Apr 13, 2026) and "Digitalocean launches free Cloud Security Posture Management tool" (Apr 9, 2026). Digitalocean has been tracked since 2024-10-01.
In the same window Heroku and Google Cloud also changed their Cloud & DevOps pricing pages. Those moves are listed further down, and the Pulse Agent can compare them side by side.
- Evaluations, Inference · PlanAdded
BeforeNo AI/ML product 'Evaluations'
AfterAI/ML product 'Evaluations'
| Plan | Field | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Evaluations, Inference | Plan | No AI/ML product 'Evaluations' | AI/ML product 'Evaluations' | Added |
Values as written on Digitalocean's public pricing page in the two captures Pulse compared; where the page states no number, the cells give the wording before and after.
Evidence
The two captures Pulse comparedFull-page captures of Digitalocean's pricing page (digitalocean.com) from Jun 29, 2026 and Jul 6, 2026; the change is marked near the top of the page, where AI/ML product 'Evaluations' now appears.
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Digitalocean, the last 90 days
Full history- Sep 28, 2026packagingDigitalocean launches AI Harness Runtime and Action Gateway pricing tiers
- Jul 28, 2026increaseDigitalOcean: GPU Droplets starting price up ($1.88→$1.91/GPU/hour)
- Jul 6, 2026packagingDigitalOcean launches Evaluations: LLM-as-a-Judge pricing, pay per token used · this change
- Jul 2, 2026decreaseDigitalOcean: AI Inference price cut 67% ($0.15->$0.05/M) + new Security (CSPM)
- Jun 8, 2026packagingDigitalocean rebrands AI Platform to Inference for broader ML reach
- Apr 13, 2026packagingDigitalocean Slashes AI Inference Pricing 67% on Gradient Platform
- Apr 9, 2026packagingDigitalocean launches free Cloud Security Posture Management tool
Across Cloud & DevOps in the same window
All Cloud & DevOps changes- HerokuJul 3Heroku: new Postgres Advanced tier added (cluster-based pricing)
- Google CloudJun 15Google Cloud Datastudio pools AI tokens per platform, adds Thinking mode
- Google CloudJun 15Google Cloud Looker shifts Analytics tokens to pooled instance tiers
- Google CloudJun 8Google Cloud reveals search pricing: $2.50/1K requests, $6/1K queries
- HerokuMay 25Heroku splits Postgres into three tiers, adds $40K/mo Advanced plans
Questions about this change
Did Digitalocean raise prices in July 2026?
No list-price increase was recorded between Jun 29, 2026 and Jul 6, 2026. The change Pulse detected was a packaging change: new plan.
What changed on Digitalocean's pricing page between Jun 29, 2026 and Jul 6, 2026?
Evaluations, Inference plan: No AI/ML product 'Evaluations' → AI/ML product 'Evaluations', added. Pulse compared the captures it took on Jun 29, 2026 and Jul 6, 2026; the before/after table above lists each item as written on the page.
How often does Digitalocean change its pricing?
Pulse recorded 4 other pricing-page changes for Digitalocean in the 90 days before this one; the previous change was "DigitalOcean: AI Inference price cut 67% ($0.15->$0.05/M) + new Security (CSPM)" on Jul 2, 2026; Digitalocean has been tracked since 2024-10-01.