You've finished a draft, or you're close. You've read it enough times that the sentences have stopped meaning anything, and you genuinely can't tell any more whether it works.
Maybe you suspect something is off but can't name it. Maybe nobody has read it yet and you'd like that to be someone whose job is books rather than someone who loves you.
All of those are the same question: is this working, and what would I fix first?
What an evaluation is
I read your manuscript from beginning to end, the way a reader would, and then I write you a letter about it.
What it isn't: I don't make changes inside your document. Nothing gets rewritten. You get a plan, and the revising stays yours.
This is the right stage if
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Nobody with editorial experience has read the manuscript yet
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You want to know what the work involves before you commit to it
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You'd rather do the revising yourself and just need to know what to revise
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You're working to a budget and want to spend it in the right place
Evaluation or developmental editing?
Both stages look at the same things: whether your argument builds, whether the chapters are in the right order, whether a reader can follow you. The difference is what happens next. With an evaluation, you take the letter and do the revising. With developmental editing, I'm in the manuscript with you doing it.