PDF.co is a PDF toolkit API from Artifex Software that covers the whole PDF lifecycle: HTML to PDF, HTML templates with Handlebars, form filling, merge and split, OCR, barcode reading and AI document parsing. It connects to Zapier, Make, n8n, Power Automate and UiPath, holds SOC 2 Type II, and runs on AWS in the US. Plans start at $8.99 a month in credits charged per page and per operation. It is a broad PDF processing API, which makes it a different offer to PDF Generator API. The comparison below breaks down where each fits.
PDF.co pricing vs PDF Generator API
PDF.co sells monthly credits that each operation spends per page, from $8.99 to $270/month and custom Enterprise plans. PDF Generator API is a document generation platform from €8/month with a 14-day free trial, an embeddable editor, and dedicated or on-premises deployment.
PDF.co
PDF toolkit API · billed by credits per page
- Trial10,000 credits
- From$8.99/mo (16,500)
- Scales to$270/mo (483,000)
Basic $8.99 for 16,500 credits, Personal $22.49 for 37,000, Business 1 $44.99 for 80,500, Business 2 $89.99 for 159,850 and Business 3 $270 for 483,000, with 10% off yearly and Enterprise above 500,000 credits. HTML to PDF costs 9 credits per page, form filling 21, merging 2 and OCR 35, and the free trial gives 10,000 credits for a month. It is SOC 2 Type II, GDPR compliant through AWS contractual clauses, and hosted in the AWS Oregon region. There is no drag and drop template editor, embeddable editor, EU hosting, or dedicated deployment of the API.
PDF Generator API
Cloud plans · billed by credits · 14-day free trial
- Individualfrom €8/mo
- Teamfrom €52/mo
- Scales to250k credits/mo
Individual starts at 50 credits and 5 templates; Team starts at 1,000 credits, 25 templates and 10 workspaces, with unlimited templates and the embedded editor on higher tiers. Every plan includes a 14-day free trial, and on-premises deployment is available on request.
PDF.co alternative: which one fits
PDF.co is a wide toolbox: convert HTML, URLs, emails and spreadsheets to PDF, fill and create form fields, add text, images and signatures, merge, split, compress and encrypt, make scanned PDFs searchable, read and generate barcodes, and extract data with the AI invoice parser or Document Parser templates. Asynchronous jobs with webhooks, templates in Handlebars, a large set of no code connectors and SOC 2 Type II make it a common choice in automation workflows. It fits teams that need many PDF operations from one API and are comfortable writing HTML templates. Templates are code in a dashboard, credits vary by operation and page count, and the API runs in one US region.
PDF Generator API focuses on generating documents from templates and adds what a product team or a regulated buyer asks for: a drag and drop embeddable editor your own customers use in their own workspace, signature fields and document signing, web forms, HTML to PDF, PDF services for forms, watermarks and encryption, XRechnung and Factur-X electronic invoices, ISO 27001 certification with GDPR and HIPAA compliance, shared cloud in the US, EU, UK and Australia, and dedicated or on premises deployment. Billing is per document of up to 5 pages, not per page. To compare, rebuild one of your PDF.co templates during the free trial and send it the same JSON.
PDF.co vs PDF Generator API: FAQ
Is PDF.co cheaper than PDF Generator API?
It depends on what you run. PDF.co costs $8.99 a month for 16,500 credits up to $270 for 483,000, and HTML to PDF uses 9 credits per page, so the Basic plan covers about 1,800 pages of HTML conversion. PDF Generator API costs €8 a month for 50 credits and €52 for 1,000, where one credit covers a whole document of up to 5 pages. For high volume HTML conversion PDF.co is usually cheaper; for multi page template documents with an editor, compare your own page counts.
What is the best PDF.co alternative?
For another PDF toolkit API, pdfRest and PDFShift are the closest. If your main job is generating documents from templates, and your own customers need to edit those templates in a drag and drop editor inside your product, or you need ISO 27001 and dedicated or on premises hosting, PDF Generator API covers those.
Does PDF.co have a template editor?
PDF.co stores HTML templates written in Mustache or Handlebars in its dashboard, so you edit them as code. PDF Generator API has a drag and drop template editor that you can also embed, white label, in your own application.
Comparing more tools? See pdfRest vs PDF Generator API and PDFShift vs PDF Generator API, or all comparisons. Last updated: October 2026.