PDF.co vs Amazon Textract: Which Document Processing API Should You Choose?

Amazon Textract and PDF.co can both extract information from scanned documents, PDFs, invoices, and forms. However, they are designed for different kinds of document workflows.

Amazon Textract is an AWS document AI service focused on recognizing text, handwriting, forms, tables, expenses, identity documents, and lending documents. It is especially well suited to AWS-based applications that need structured document extraction at scale.

PDF.co is a broader document automation platform. In addition to OCR and data extraction, it can create, convert, edit, fill, split, merge, compress, classify, and add barcodes to PDFs. It also offers integrations for tools such as Zapier, Make, n8n, Bubble, and Microsoft Power Automate.

The better choice depends on whether you primarily need an AWS-native extraction engine or an API that can handle more of the complete PDF workflow.

The Short Answer

Choose Amazon Textract if:

  • Your application is already built on AWS.
  • Your main requirement is extracting text, handwriting, forms, or tables.
  • You need specialized APIs for invoices, receipts, U.S. identity documents, or mortgage packages.
  • You want to ask document-specific questions using the Queries feature.
  • You need extraction results that can feed AWS services such as S3, Lambda, SNS, or SQS.
  • Your team is comfortable designing and operating AWS infrastructure.

Choose PDF.co if:

  • You need to process PDFs before or after extracting their data.
  • Your workflow includes PDF creation, conversion, editing, splitting, merging, compression, or form filling.
  • You need OCR and data extraction as part of a larger document automation process.
  • You want output in formats such as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, text, HTML, or images.
  • You are building automations in Zapier, Make, n8n, Bubble, or Microsoft Power Automate.
  • You prefer a single API platform with published subscription plans and access to a broad range of PDF endpoints.

Consider using both if:

  • Amazon Textract provides the extraction model you need, but your documents must first be split, converted, repaired, or otherwise prepared.
  • You want to run Textract on selected pages and then use PDF.co to generate, merge, fill, or deliver the resulting documents.
  • Your workflow needs AWS-native analysis together with broader PDF processing.

What Is Amazon Textract?

Amazon Textract is a machine-learning service from AWS that extracts printed text, handwriting, layout information, and structured data from documents.

Its available capabilities include:

  • Printed-text and handwriting recognition
  • Form and key-value extraction
  • Table extraction
  • Document queries
  • Signature detection
  • Invoice and receipt analysis
  • U.S. identity-document analysis
  • Mortgage-document classification and extraction
  • Bounding boxes and confidence scores
  • Custom adapters for specialized query extraction

Textract is not a general-purpose PDF editing platform. Its core function is understanding documents and returning structured extraction results that developers can use in other systems.

What Is PDF.co?

PDF.co is a document-processing API platform for extracting information from PDFs and automating the larger document lifecycle.

Its documented capabilities include:

  • OCR for scanned PDFs and images
  • AI invoice parsing
  • Template-based document parsing
  • PDF-to-JSON, CSV, XML, Excel, text, HTML, and image conversion
  • HTML, URL, email, image, and document conversion to PDF
  • PDF editing and form filling
  • PDF splitting and merging
  • PDF compression
  • Document classification
  • Barcode generation and recognition
  • Searchable PDF creation
  • Asynchronous processing, callbacks, and webhooks
  • No-code and low-code integrations

Developers can explore the available operations in the PDF.co API documentation.

The Main Difference

The central difference is scope.

Amazon Textract is primarily a document-understanding service. It specializes in locating and interpreting information inside documents.

PDF.co combines document extraction with broader PDF processing. It can prepare a document, extract its data, modify the document, convert the result, and pass it to another application.

A typical Textract workflow might look like this:

  • Upload a document to Amazon S3.
  • Send it to the appropriate Textract API.
  • Receive structured AWS JSON output.
  • Validate the confidence scores.
  • Transform the extracted fields.
  • Store the results in a database or send them to another AWS service.

A typical PDF.co workflow might look like this:

  • Receive a PDF from an email, URL, form, or automation platform.
  • Split or convert the document if necessary.
  • Apply OCR or extract selected fields.
  • Return JSON, CSV, Excel, text, or another requested format.
  • Edit, fill, merge, compress, or generate a new PDF.
  • Send the result to an ERP, CRM, cloud-storage service, or automation platform.

OCR and Handwriting Recognition

Amazon Textract’s Detect Document Text API extracts printed text and handwriting. It returns information such as detected lines, words, locations, relationships, and confidence scores.

Textract is a strong choice when handwriting recognition or detailed document geometry is a primary requirement. It can also process multipage documents through its asynchronous architecture.

PDF.co can apply OCR to scanned PDFs and images and make PDFs searchable. It is particularly useful when OCR is one stage in a workflow that also needs conversion, document editing, page extraction, or file generation.

Choose Textract when the quality and structure of text recognition are the center of the project. Choose PDF.co when OCR needs to connect directly to several other PDF operations.

For either service, test recognition on a representative sample. Scan quality, handwriting style, document layout, language, resolution, and image noise can all affect results.

Forms and Key-Value Pairs

Amazon Textract’s Forms feature detects relationships between labels and values. For example, it may associate “Invoice Number” with the corresponding number or “Customer Name” with the name entered in a form.

This is useful for documents with recognizable label-and-value structures, including:

  • Application forms
  • Registration forms
  • Tax documents
  • Claims forms
  • Account-opening documents
  • Standard business forms

PDF.co offers multiple approaches to form processing.

Its Document Parser can use templates to extract known fields from documents with repeatable layouts. PDF.co can also read information from PDF forms and fill supported PDF form fields.

This creates an important distinction:

  • Textract Forms is mainly for recognizing and returning form data.
  • PDF.co can participate in both extracting data and updating the PDF itself.

If the workflow only needs to understand an incoming form, Textract may be the more specialized option. If the workflow must extract information and later populate, edit, or generate a PDF, PDF.co may reduce the number of services required.

Table Extraction

Amazon Textract can identify rows, columns, cells, headers, merged cells, and other table relationships. Its output is designed for applications that need to reconstruct a document’s table structure programmatically.

PDF.co can convert PDF tables and document content to formats such as CSV, JSON, XML, and Excel. It can also use templates when the documents follow a consistent layout.

Amazon Textract may be a stronger fit when your developers need access to detailed table relationships and geometry inside AWS-native output.

PDF.co may be more convenient when the desired result is a familiar business format, such as a CSV or Excel file, or when table extraction is one step in a larger PDF automation.

Complex tables should be tested with both systems. Irregular headers, nested tables, missing borders, page breaks, and scanned pages can produce different results across extraction engines.

Query-Based Extraction

Amazon Textract offers a Queries feature that lets an application request specific information from a document.

Example questions might include:

  • What is the invoice number?
  • What is the payment due date?
  • What is the applicant’s address?
  • What is the total amount due?

Textract returns an answer, its location, and a confidence score when it can identify the requested information. AWS also supports custom adapters for adapting query extraction to particular document types.

This is useful when documents vary in layout but the required business questions remain consistent.

PDF.co offers AI Invoice Parser for invoice-focused extraction and Document Parser for template-based data capture. It also provides general text and structured-format conversion that can feed another AI or rules-based extraction step.

Choose Textract Queries if question-based extraction is central to the application. Choose PDF.co if the extraction task is better handled through invoice parsing, reusable templates, format conversion, or a broader automation sequence.

Invoices and Receipts

Amazon Textract Analyze Expense is designed for invoices and receipts. It normalizes common fields so that variations such as “Invoice No.,” “Invoice Number,” and “Inv #” can be returned in a more consistent structure.

It can identify information such as:

  • Vendor name
  • Invoice or receipt number
  • Transaction date
  • Due date
  • Subtotal
  • Tax
  • Total
  • Line items

PDF.co provides an AI Invoice Parser for extracting invoice information and a Document Parser for documents that need template-controlled extraction.

PDF.co may be particularly useful when invoices arrive as email attachments and the workflow also needs to:

  • Convert the email or attachment
  • Split a batch into separate invoices
  • Extract the invoice data
  • Return JSON or another structured format
  • Add a barcode or internal reference
  • Send the data to an ERP
  • Archive or merge the processed files

Textract may be preferable when invoices are already stored in AWS and the main requirement is standardized AWS-native expense analysis.

Neither platform should be selected solely from a feature list. Run a controlled test using real invoices from your most common vendors, along with difficult samples such as scans, photographs, multi-page invoices, credit notes, and invoices with unusual line-item structures.

Identity Documents

Amazon Textract Analyze ID is a specialized API for extracting normalized fields from supported U.S. identity documents, including passports and driver’s licenses.

This may be valuable for:

  • Customer onboarding
  • Account verification
  • Insurance applications
  • Rental workflows
  • Financial-services processes
  • Identity-data entry

PDF.co can OCR and convert identity-document images or PDFs, but organizations should evaluate whether general OCR or template-based extraction is sufficient for the required document types.

Choose Analyze ID when supported U.S. identity-document extraction is a primary requirement. Choose PDF.co when identity documents are one part of a broader PDF conversion and automation process.

Identity-document workflows can involve privacy, security, retention, and regulatory requirements. Review the platform’s current security documentation and configure storage and deletion policies appropriately.

Lending Documents

Amazon Textract Analyze Lending is a specialized workflow for mortgage-document packages. It can classify and split supported lending documents, extract relevant information, and report signature detection.

This specialization gives Textract a clear advantage for supported mortgage-processing use cases.

PDF.co can split, merge, classify, OCR, parse, and convert documents, but it does not position a single endpoint as the equivalent of Textract Analyze Lending.

Choose Textract when your primary requirement is supported mortgage-package analysis. Consider PDF.co as an additional preprocessing or post-processing layer when the package also needs file conversion, page manipulation, PDF generation, or delivery.

Signature Detection Is Not Electronic Signing

Amazon Textract can detect signatures and initials within documents. This helps an application determine whether a signature appears in an expected area.

Signature detection does not execute a legally binding signing ceremony, authenticate a signer, send signature requests, or maintain a complete electronic-signature audit trail.

PDF.co can add images, text, and other content to PDF pages, which can include placing a signature image on a document. That is also different from a dedicated electronic-signature workflow.

If the requirement is to send documents for signature, authenticate signers, or maintain legal signing records, use a dedicated electronic-signature service. Textract or PDF.co can then support document preparation, detection, extraction, or post-signing processing.

PDF Creation, Conversion, and Editing

This is one of the largest differences between the platforms.

Amazon Textract analyzes documents. It does not provide a general set of APIs for creating, editing, merging, splitting, compressing, or filling PDFs.

PDF.co provides APIs for tasks such as:

  • HTML to PDF
  • URL to PDF
  • Email to PDF
  • Image to PDF
  • Office document to PDF
  • PDF to JPG or PNG
  • PDF to CSV, JSON, Excel, XML, text, or HTML
  • PDF splitting
  • PDF merging
  • PDF compression
  • Adding text, images, links, or annotations
  • Filling PDF forms
  • Adding and reading barcodes

If your workflow needs extraction plus several of these operations, PDF.co may replace multiple single-purpose components.

PDF-to-Image Conversion

PDF.co can convert entire PDFs or selected pages to JPG, PNG, TIFF, and other supported image formats.

This is useful for:

  • Creating document previews
  • Producing thumbnails
  • Sending page images to another OCR or computer-vision model
  • Displaying PDFs in systems without a native PDF viewer
  • Preparing selected pages for Amazon Textract
  • Archiving pages as images

Amazon Textract can analyze supported document and image inputs, but it is not intended to serve as a general PDF-to-image conversion API.

A combined workflow can use PDF.co to split a PDF or convert selected pages to images before sending only the relevant content to Textract.

Barcode Processing

PDF.co can generate and recognize barcodes, including barcodes embedded in PDF pages or images.

Barcode processing can help with:

  • Separating document batches
  • Matching documents to customer records
  • Routing files to the correct workflow
  • Adding internal tracking identifiers
  • Reading shipping or inventory information

Amazon Textract focuses on text and document-structure extraction rather than providing a general barcode-processing toolkit.

If barcodes drive the document workflow, PDF.co can handle the barcode step alongside PDF manipulation and extraction.

Output Formats

Amazon Textract returns detailed JSON structures composed of blocks and relationships. These results can include words, lines, pages, cells, key-value pairs, geometry, confidence scores, and entity relationships.

This output is powerful but often requires application code to transform it into the exact schema required by an ERP, database, spreadsheet, or downstream API.

PDF.co can return extracted content or converted documents in formats including:

  • JSON
  • CSV
  • XML
  • Excel
  • Plain text
  • HTML
  • JPG
  • PNG
  • Searchable PDF

Amazon Textract may be better when developers need granular access to document relationships. PDF.co may be more convenient when the final output needs to be a common document, image, spreadsheet, or data format.

Integrations and Workflow Automation

Amazon Textract integrates naturally with the AWS ecosystem. A production architecture may use:

  • Amazon S3 for document storage
  • AWS Lambda for processing logic
  • Amazon SNS for completion notifications
  • Amazon SQS for job queues
  • Amazon CloudWatch for monitoring
  • AWS Identity and Access Management for permissions
  • AWS Key Management Service for encryption controls

This gives AWS teams extensive control, but the implementation may require cloud architecture and development work.

PDF.co provides a REST API as well as integrations and guides for automation platforms, including:

These integrations can make PDF.co more accessible to operations teams, automation consultants, and low-code developers.

Choose Textract when AWS is the natural center of the architecture. Choose PDF.co when documents need to move through SaaS applications and no-code or low-code workflows.

Synchronous and Asynchronous Processing

Both products can support automated document processing, but their workflow models differ.

Amazon Textract provides synchronous operations for appropriate single-page use cases and asynchronous operations for multipage documents. Asynchronous workflows commonly involve documents in Amazon S3 and completion notifications handled through AWS services.

PDF.co supports synchronous responses for suitable jobs and asynchronous processing for longer operations. Applications can check job status or use callbacks and webhooks to receive results.

For either platform, verify current file-size, page-count, format, throughput, and API quota limits before selecting an architecture. Limits can vary by operation and may change over time.

Pricing

Amazon Textract generally uses per-page pricing based on the API and analysis features selected. Pricing varies by AWS region and volume.

At the time of this review, example pricing in the U.S. West (Oregon) region included:

  • Detect Document Text: $0.0015 per page for the first one million pages
  • Analyze Document with Tables: $0.015 per page for the first one million pages
  • Analyze Document with Forms: $0.05 per page for the first one million pages
  • Analyze Document with Queries: $0.015 per page for the first one million pages
  • Forms, Tables, and Queries together: $0.07 per page for the first one million pages
  • Analyze Expense: $0.01 per page for the first one million pages
  • Analyze ID: $0.025 per page for up to 100,000 pages
  • Analyze Lending: $0.07 per supported page for up to one million pages

New AWS customers may qualify for a limited three-month free tier, with the included page allowance depending on the selected API.

Review the current Amazon Textract pricing page and your chosen AWS region before estimating costs.

PDF.co uses credits, with consumption determined by the endpoint, number of pages, document characteristics, and selected options.

At the time of this review, annual-billing prices displayed by PDF.co included:

  • Basic: $8.99 per month with 16,500 credits
  • Personal: $22.49 per month with 37,000 credits
  • Business 1: $44.99 per month with 80,500 credits
  • Business 2: $89.99 per month with 159,850 credits
  • Business 3: $270 per month with 483,000 credits
  • Enterprise: custom pricing

All published plans include access to the available PDF.co APIs, but credit usage differs across operations. Confirm current plan prices and endpoint consumption on the PDF.co pricing page.

How to Compare the Real Cost

Do not compare only the advertised OCR price or subscription price.

Model the entire workflow, including:

  • Number of pages processed
  • APIs or features applied to each page
  • Preprocessing and file conversion
  • Document storage
  • Queueing and notifications
  • Custom transformation code
  • Human review
  • Failed-job retries
  • Data transfer
  • Monitoring
  • Workflow integrations
  • Development and maintenance time
  • PDF generation or modification after extraction

Amazon Textract may offer a low per-page cost for a focused extraction task, while the complete AWS architecture can include additional services and engineering.

PDF.co may have a higher effective cost for certain extraction operations, but its broader endpoint set may eliminate separate tools for PDF conversion, editing, generation, or no-code automation.

Use representative monthly volumes and actual documents to calculate the effective cost per successfully completed workflow.

Security and Data Handling

Amazon Textract benefits from AWS security and governance capabilities, including IAM permissions, encryption controls, regional infrastructure, logging, and integration with other AWS security services.

Organizations already operating in AWS may find it easier to incorporate Textract into their established cloud controls. Review the current Amazon Textract security documentation for implementation details.

PDF.co documents security practices, file handling, and available regional options in its security knowledge base.

Before selecting either platform, confirm:

  • Where documents are processed
  • Where temporary files are stored
  • How long files remain available
  • Whether automatic deletion can be configured
  • Which data regions are available
  • How API credentials are secured
  • What audit logging is required
  • Whether the relevant compliance programs cover your use case
  • Whether sensitive documents can be processed under your organization’s policies

Security suitability depends on the plan, configuration, region, document type, and regulatory environment.

When Amazon Textract Is the Better Choice

Amazon Textract is usually the stronger option when:

  • The application already runs on AWS.
  • S3 is the primary document repository.
  • The core requirement is OCR or structured extraction.
  • Handwriting recognition is important.
  • Developers need detailed geometry and confidence information.
  • The workflow needs Forms, Tables, Queries, or Custom Queries.
  • The documents are invoices, receipts, supported U.S. IDs, or mortgage packages.
  • AWS infrastructure, permissions, monitoring, and scaling are already in place.

When PDF.co Is the Better Choice

PDF.co is usually the stronger option when:

  • Extraction is only one stage of the document workflow.
  • PDFs must be created, converted, edited, compressed, split, or merged.
  • The workflow must fill PDF forms.
  • Documents arrive through email, URLs, cloud storage, or automation tools.
  • The desired output is CSV, Excel, XML, an image, HTML, text, or a new PDF.
  • Barcode generation or recognition is required.
  • The workflow is being built in Zapier, Make, n8n, Bubble, or Power Automate.
  • The team wants one API covering many PDF operations.
  • A no-code or low-code implementation is preferred.

When Using Both Makes Sense

Amazon Textract and PDF.co do not have to be mutually exclusive.

Prepare Documents for Textract

Use PDF.co to:

  • Download a PDF from a URL
  • Convert an email attachment
  • Split a large PDF
  • Extract selected pages
  • Convert pages to images
  • Repair or preprocess the file

Then submit the relevant pages to Amazon Textract.

Process Textract Results

After Textract extracts the required information, use PDF.co to:

  • Fill a PDF form
  • Add an internal reference number
  • Generate a summary PDF
  • Add a barcode
  • Merge supporting documents
  • Compress the final package
  • Convert the result into another format

Route Documents Before Analysis

Use PDF.co barcode recognition, text extraction, or document classification to route incoming files. Send only the documents requiring specialized form, query, expense, ID, or lending analysis to Textract.

A combined architecture can be valuable when AWS document intelligence and broader PDF automation are both required.

Example: Invoices Arrive as Email Attachments

A business receives invoices by email and needs the data entered into its ERP.

A PDF.co-centered workflow could:

  • Monitor the mailbox through an automation platform.
  • Retrieve the attachment.
  • Convert the email or document when necessary.
  • Split combined invoice batches.
  • Extract invoice fields and line items.
  • Send structured results to the ERP.
  • Add a processed marker or barcode.
  • Archive the final PDF.

A Textract-centered workflow could:

  • Move attachments into Amazon S3.
  • Invoke Analyze Expense.
  • Validate the returned fields and confidence scores.
  • Transform the AWS response.
  • Send approved data to the ERP.
  • Store the source document and processing records in AWS.

The better implementation depends on the existing technology stack, extraction performance, ERP connectivity, and amount of custom development the team can support.

Example: Extracting Tables from Reports

For reports already stored in S3, Textract Tables may provide the detailed cell relationships needed by an AWS application.

If users need the results directly as CSV or Excel files—or the workflow must also split, convert, and merge PDFs—PDF.co may provide a shorter path.

Test reports containing:

  • Borderless tables
  • Merged cells
  • Multirow headers
  • Tables spanning several pages
  • Rotated pages
  • Scanned content
  • Footnotes inside table areas

Compare usable output, not only whether each platform claims to support tables.

Questions to Ask Before Choosing

Before committing to either platform, ask:

  • Are we primarily extracting data, or automating the entire PDF lifecycle?
  • Are our documents already stored in AWS?
  • Do we need handwriting recognition?
  • Do we need key-value pairs, tables, or question-based extraction?
  • Are we processing invoices, receipts, IDs, or mortgage packages?
  • Do we need template-controlled extraction?
  • Must we create or modify the PDF after extraction?
  • Do we need PDF-to-image conversion?
  • Are barcodes part of the workflow?
  • Which output formats do downstream systems accept?
  • Will developers maintain the workflow, or will operations teams use no-code tools?
  • Which service performs better on our actual documents?
  • What happens when confidence is low?
  • How will failed jobs and human review be handled?
  • What is the complete cost per successfully processed document?
  • Do the available security, regional, and retention controls meet our requirements?

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Amazon Textract better than PDF.co for OCR?

Amazon Textract may be the better choice when OCR, handwriting recognition, document geometry, and AWS-native output are the primary requirements.

PDF.co may be the better choice when OCR is part of a workflow that also needs PDF conversion, page manipulation, form filling, barcode processing, or no-code integration.

Accuracy should be evaluated using your own documents.

Can PDF.co replace Amazon Textract?

PDF.co can replace Textract in workflows involving general OCR, invoice parsing, template-based extraction, or PDF conversion.

It may not be a direct replacement when the workflow depends on Textract-specific capabilities such as Analyze Lending, Analyze ID, Custom Queries, or detailed AWS block relationships.

Can Amazon Textract edit or create PDFs?

No. Amazon Textract analyzes documents and returns extracted information. It is not a general PDF creation or editing API.

PDF.co can create PDFs from HTML, URLs, emails, images, and documents, as well as edit, split, merge, compress, and fill PDFs.

Which platform is better for invoice extraction?

Amazon Textract Analyze Expense is a specialized invoice and receipt extraction API with standardized fields.

PDF.co offers AI invoice parsing and can combine extraction with email processing, conversion, document splitting, PDF editing, and automation-platform integrations.

Test both on real vendor invoices before deciding.

Which platform is better for forms?

Textract is strong for detecting key-value relationships and answering questions about documents.

PDF.co is useful when the workflow requires template-based extraction, reading PDF form information, filling form fields, or generating a completed document.

Which platform is easier to connect to Zapier, Make, or n8n?

PDF.co provides dedicated integrations and implementation guidance for Zapier, Make, and n8n.

Amazon Textract can be connected to these platforms through AWS services or custom API workflows, but it will generally require more infrastructure configuration.

Does signature detection mean a document was legally signed?

No. Signature detection indicates that a signature-like element or initial was found. It does not validate the signer, prove intent, or create a legal electronic-signature audit trail.

Use a dedicated electronic-signature platform when a signing ceremony and legal records are required.

Can PDF.co and Amazon Textract be used together?

Yes. PDF.co can prepare documents before Textract analysis and modify, convert, or generate documents after Textract returns its results.

This can be a practical option when the workflow needs both specialized AWS extraction and broader PDF automation.

Final Verdict

Amazon Textract and PDF.co overlap in OCR and document extraction, but they solve different overall problems.

Amazon Textract is the stronger fit for AWS-native document intelligence. Its specialized support for forms, tables, queries, expenses, identity documents, signatures, handwriting, and lending packages makes it a good choice for extraction-focused applications built within AWS.

PDF.co is the stronger fit for end-to-end PDF automation. It combines OCR and structured extraction with PDF creation, conversion, editing, form filling, splitting, merging, compression, barcode processing, and integrations with popular automation platforms.

Choose Amazon Textract when document understanding is the core requirement and AWS is the natural home for the workflow.

Choose PDF.co when the workflow must do more than extract data—or when business users and automation teams need to connect PDF processing to other applications without constructing a complete AWS architecture.

When both requirements apply, use PDF.co to prepare and process the files around Amazon Textract’s specialized extraction.

Create a PDF.co account or explore the PDF.co API documentation to test the workflow with your own documents.