Datadog vs Poolside — Pricing, Plans, and Verified Costs (2026)
Datadog starts at $18/mo. Poolside uses custom pricing — request a quote to compare.
How pricing works
These two tools don't price the same way, so the headline numbers below aren't directly comparable until you plug in your own volume.
- Datadog (Per Usage) — Datadog bills on usage — host on top of a paid plan starting at $18/mo. The plan includes an allowance; anything beyond it is metered.
- Poolside (Per Usage) — Poolside bills purely on usage. There is no fixed per-seat fee, so the monthly cost depends entirely on how much you consume.
Per-minute, per-credit and per-token rates exclude any downstream model, speech or telephony costs unless the vendor states otherwise.
The dominant cloud observability platform (metrics, logs, traces, APM), publicly traded (DDOG), ~$45B market cap. Positioned as the alternative to New Relic + Splunk + PagerDuty stitched together. Distinctive for its notorious usage-based pricing that has surprised engineering teams with 6-figure monthly bills (Coinbase's leaked contract was ~$65M/year in 2022). Priced by seat + host + volume across 20+ meters. Popular with engineering teams; feared by finance teams.
Autonomous AI coding startup building custom foundation models trained specifically for software engineering. Enterprise-only, all pricing custom-quoted. Reported deals target Fortune 500 engineering orgs at multi-million-dollar annual contracts. No self-serve or public tier. Raised $500M+ across seed and Series A, positioning as a direct competitor to Cognition (Devin) and GitHub Copilot Enterprise.
All plans compared
| Tier role | Plan | Datadog monthly | Datadog annual | Poolside monthly | Poolside annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free / starter | Free / — | Free | Free | — | — |
| Entry paid | Infrastructure Pro / — | $18 | $15 | — | — |
| Enterprise | Infrastructure Enterprise / Enterprise | $27 | $23 | Custom | Custom |
Tier names differ across vendors. Rows are aligned by tier role, not name. Full tier structures on each tool's page.
What each is best for
Datadog is worth it if… infrastructure teams (10+ engineers) that need APM + logs + metrics + synthetics + RUM in one platform — the observability default at mid-market and enterprise scale. Infrastructure covers hosts; APM, Logs, RUM, Synthetics, Database Monitoring each priced separately per module.
Poolside is worth it if… Poolside is only worth engaging with if you're a Fortune 500 engineering org considering a strategic AI coding partnership — typical deal size is $1M+/year. The pitch is a foundation model trained end-to-end for code with your data pipeline embedded.
Bottom line: Similar positioning, closer to a preference call than a strategic one.
Choose Datadog over Poolside if…
Choose Datadog if…
- You want to pay only for actual usage (per usage, from $18/mo).
- You match the profile Datadog is built for: infrastructure teams (10+ engineers) that need APM + logs + metrics + synthetics + RUM in one platform — the observability default at mid-market and enterprise scale.
- You need a general-purpose developer & infrastructure option rather than a vertical-specific one.
Choose Poolside if…
- You want to pay only for actual usage (per usage, a free entry tier).
- You match the profile Poolside is built for: only worth engaging with if you're a Fortune 500 engineering org considering a strategic AI coding partnership — typical deal size is $1M+/year.
- You need a general-purpose developer & infrastructure option rather than a vertical-specific one.
At a glance
| Datadog | Poolside | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Entry price | $18/mo | Custom pricing |
| Enterprise available | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing model | Per Usage | Per Usage |
| Verification | Pricing under review | Pricing under review |
| Full pricing | View full pricing | View full pricing |
Pricing last verified September 26, 2026. Verification cadence varies by tool; check each tool page.