PDF.co vs pdfFiller: Pricing, Plans & Features Compared

Choosing between PDF.co and pdfFiller usually comes down to one question: do you need a no-code PDF editor and eSignature tool for end users, or a developer-friendly API for automating PDF workflows at scale? Both platforms handle documents — but they're built for very different jobs, and their pricing reflects that.

This guide breaks down pdfFiller's plans and PDF.co's plans side-by-side, then walks through the features, integrations, and decision criteria so you can pick the right fit.

TL;DR — Which one should you pick?

  • Choose pdfFiller if you need a per-seat web app for filling out, signing, and emailing PDFs — especially US legal/tax forms — without writing any code.
  • Choose PDF.co if you need an API or low-code platform to automate PDF tasks (generate, parse, OCR, extract, fill, sign) inside Zapier, Make, n8n, Salesforce, Power Automate, or your own backend.

Teams often run both: pdfFiller for human-driven signing, PDF.co for everything that should happen without a human in the loop.

Pricing at a glance

The pricing model is the biggest difference. pdfFiller charges per user/month. PDF.co charges per credit — one account can serve an entire automated workflow with no seat limits.

pdfFiller pricing (per user/month, billed annually)

  • Free option: 30-day trial only — no permanent free tier
  • Basic — $20/user/month — form filling, eSign, mobile apps
  • Plus — $30/user/month — templates, hosted fillable forms, advanced workflows
  • Premium — $40/user/month — SignNow, branding, role-based workflows, USLegal library
  • Basic for Enterprise — $8/user/month, annual commitment — 20+ seat minimum, Advanced Audit Trail, HIPAA compliance
  • Premium for Enterprise — $15/user/month, annual commitment — 10+ seat minimum, SSO, admin controls
  • Higher volumes available via airSlate enterprise

PDF.co pricing (per month, includes credits)

  • Free trial — 30-day trial with 10,000 credits
  • Basic — $9.99/month — 16,500 credits / ~8,250 pages, full API access
  • Personal — $24.99/month — 37,000 credits / ~18,500 pages
  • Business 1 — $49.99/month — 80,500 credits / ~40,250 pages, SSO, IP allow-list
  • Business 2 — $99.99/month — 159,850 credits / ~79,925 pages
  • Business 3 — $299.99/month — 483,000 credits / ~241,500 pages
  • Custom plans for 1M+ credits/month

Pricing verified May 2026 from pdf.co/subscriptions and pdffiller.com. Annual billing on pdfFiller advertises up to 70% off list; PDF.co also discounts annual subscriptions.

What is pdfFiller?

pdfFiller (now part of airSlate) is a cloud-based PDF editor and eSignature platform aimed at end users. You open a document in the browser, fill it out, sign it, and email or fax it back — no install, no code. Its standout asset is the USLegal Forms library of 25M+ fillable templates, which is why it's popular with HR, tax, real estate, and legal teams in the US.

Core pdfFiller features

  • PDF form filling and editing in-browser
  • eSignatures (via SignNow integration)
  • Fillable form creation and hosted forms
  • PDF conversion (to/from Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
  • Document collaboration and shared folders
  • Mobile apps (iOS, Android)
  • Workflow automation for signing flows
  • Cloud storage and audit trails
  • Fax send/receive (add-on pricing per plan)

What is PDF.co?

PDF.co is an API and low-code automation platform for PDF, barcode, data extraction, and document transformation. Instead of a UI you log into, PDF.co exposes 100+ endpoints you call from Zapier, Make, n8n, Salesforce, Power Automate, UiPath, or your own code. It's built for teams that want PDFs to flow through pipelines automatically — invoice parsing, contract generation, batch OCR, scheduled reports, AI document workflows — without anyone clicking around.

Core PDF.co features

  • 100+ REST API endpoints (PDF edit, convert, generate, split/merge, fill, sign, watermark, redact)
  • Built-in OCR with table and structured-data extraction
  • Document Parser with reusable templates
  • Barcode read/write (1D and 2D)
  • HTML-to-PDF and templated PDF generation
  • Email-to-PDF including attachment extraction
  • Auto-detection and removal of sensitive data (PII redaction)
  • 5,000+ integrations via Zapier, Make, n8n, and others
  • SOC 2 Type II compliance, encrypted transfer/storage, IP allow-listing, SSO on Business

Feature-by-feature comparison

Primary interface. pdfFiller is a browser app for end users. PDF.co is a REST API plus connectors for low-code platforms.

eSignature. pdfFiller has built-in eSignature via SignNow. PDF.co offers signing endpoints in the API and integrates with SignNow for full signing workflows.

Form filling. pdfFiller is manual, in-browser. PDF.co is programmatic — fill thousands of PDFs from a database, spreadsheet, or webhook payload.

OCR and data extraction. pdfFiller is limited here. PDF.co provides structured OCR, table extraction, and a Document Parser with reusable templates for invoices, receipts, and forms.

Bulk and batch processing. pdfFiller relies on manual operation or simple workflows. PDF.co was built for it — async processing and webhooks are native.

HTML to PDF. pdfFiller offers basic conversion. PDF.co includes a full templating engine for generating styled PDFs from HTML.

Barcodes. pdfFiller doesn't generate or read barcodes. PDF.co reads and writes 1D and 2D barcodes.

iPaaS integrations (Zapier, Make, n8n). Both connect to Zapier; PDF.co also has deep native support in Make, n8n, Bubble, and 300+ other integrations.

CRM (Salesforce, Dynamics, Zoho). Both integrate. PDF.co adds deeper API hooks for custom logic.

RPA (UiPath, Blue Prism, Automation Anywhere). pdfFiller does not offer RPA connectors. PDF.co does.

Pricing model. pdfFiller is per user/month. PDF.co is per credit, with no seat limits.

Free tier. pdfFiller offers a 30-day trial. PDF.co gives 10,000 free credits with no time limit.

Best for. pdfFiller suits individuals, signing teams, and US-forms-heavy workflows. PDF.co suits developers, ops teams, and anyone building automations.

pdfFiller plans, explained

Basic — $20/user/month (billed monthly)

For individuals who mainly need to fill, edit, and sign PDFs.

  • Edit, fill, draw, print, save, fax
  • Convert PDFs to editable Word
  • Erase, highlight, re-write
  • Create and apply eSignatures
  • iOS & Android apps
  • Bank-level data security
  • Optional fax receive at $19.99/month

Plus — $30/user/month (billed monthly)

For small teams handling higher document volume.

  • Everything in Basic, plus:
  • Fillable forms hosted on your site or app
  • Restore previous versions
  • Advanced signing workflows
  • Live chat support
  • Password-protect sensitive documents
  • Authenticate recipient signatures
  • Fax receive at $14.99/month

Premium — $40/user/month (billed monthly)

For teams with complex eSignature needs.

  • Everything in Plus, plus:
  • Send documents to sign via SignNow
  • Access to USLegal Forms library
  • Custom branding and advanced fields
  • Collect payments inside forms
  • Attachments
  • Role-based workflows and advanced recipient authentication
  • Fax receive at $9.99/month

Premium for Enterprise ($15/user/month) extends Premium with a 10+ seat minimum, SSO, and admin controls.

PDF.co plans, explained

Free trial / Pay-as-you-go

Start with 10,000 free credits for 30 days.

  • All API endpoints
  • 5,000+ integrations
  • Unlimited output files
  • Encrypted transfer and storage

Basic — $9.99/month

For developers and small businesses with steady API usage.

  • 16,500 credits / ~8,250 pages
  • All API endpoints, all integrations
  • API logs (12,500 records)

Personal — $24.99/month

Higher volumes for individual builders or solo consultants.

  • 37,000 credits / ~18,500 pages
  • All API endpoints, all integrations
  • API logs (33,000 records)

Business 1 / 2 / 3 — $49.99 / $99.99 / $299.99/month

For teams and high-volume production workloads.

  • 80,500 / 159,850 / 483,000 credits
  • ~40,250 / 79,925 / 241,500 pages
  • Single Sign-On (SSO)
  • IP address allow-list
  • Private tech support
  • Extended output link retention (1,440 min)
  • API logs up to 416,000 records

Need more than a million credits/month or a private deployment? PDF.co offers custom enterprise plans on request.

Use the PDF.co Credit Calculator to estimate the number of credits you might need.

When to choose which (and when to use both)

Pick pdfFiller when:

  • A human is filling out and signing each document
  • You need the USLegal forms library or US tax/HR templates
  • You want per-user seats and a polished web UI
  • Your team isn't writing code or building automations

Pick PDF.co when:

  • You want to automate PDFs in Zapier, Make, n8n, Power Automate, or code
  • You're doing OCR, invoice parsing, or structured data extraction at volume
  • You need to generate PDFs from HTML or templates
  • You don't want to pay per seat as your usage grows
  • You need SOC 2, SSO, IP allow-listing on a developer platform

Use both when: humans drive the signing experience in pdfFiller, while PDF.co handles upstream/downstream automation — generating the contract from CRM data, OCR'ing returned forms, routing extracted fields back to your system of record.

pdfFiller integrations

  • CRM: Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho
  • Cloud storage: Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive
  • E-commerce: Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento
  • Collaboration: Slack, Microsoft 365, Trello
  • ERP: SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics
  • iPaaS: Zapier

PDF.co integrations

  • iPaaS: Zapier, Make, n8n, Bubble, RapidAPI
  • CRM: Salesforce, Dynamics 365, Zoho, HubSpot
  • Storage: SharePoint, Office 365, Box, Egnyte, Dropbox, Google Drive
  • eSignature: SignNow and others
  • RPA: UiPath, Blue Prism, Automation Anywhere
  • Developer: REST API, SDKs, full programmatic access

FAQs

Is pdfFiller free?

pdfFiller offers a 30-day free trial on all paid plans. There is no permanent free tier — after the trial, a paid plan is required to keep using the product.

Is PDF.co free?

PDF.co offers a 30-day free trial with 10,000 free trial credits to experiment with.

Which is cheaper, PDF.co or pdfFiller?

At the entry tier, PDF.co is cheaper ($20 vs $9.99/month), but the pricing model is what matters. pdfFiller charges per user — costs scale with headcount. PDF.co charges per credit — one account can power an entire automated workflow with no seat fees. For teams of 5+ that mostly automate, PDF.co is usually meaningfully cheaper; for teams of 5+ where everyone signs documents by hand, pdfFiller is usually simpler.

How do I save a document on pdfFiller without paying?

You have the option to sign up for a 30-day free trial of pdfFiller, which grants you access to their document editing tools and allows you to securely save your documents to the cloud. During the trial period, you can explore the platform and evaluate its features and functionality to determine if it meets your needs.

Can PDF.co replace pdfFiller?

For automation, yes — PDF.co covers PDF generation, editing, filling, signing, OCR, and data extraction via API. For end users who want a polished click-and-sign UI with the USLegal forms library, pdfFiller's web app is still the cleaner experience. Many teams run them side-by-side.

Does PDF.co offer eSignatures?

Yes. PDF.co provides PDF signing endpoints and integrates with SignNow for full eSignature workflows. You can also build signing into custom apps via the API.

Does PDF.co have OCR?

Yes — built-in OCR with structured data extraction, table extraction, and reusable Document Parser templates for invoices, receipts, and forms.

What payment options does PDF.co support?

Monthly and annual subscriptions, plus one-time non-expiring Credit Packs. Subscription credits are consumed first, then Credit Pack credits.

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