PDF.ai review
by PDF.ai · in AI PDF Assistants
Question-capped chat-with-PDF app plus a credit-based document API
Prices verified October 30, 2026 on the vendor's site
Overview
PDF.ai is a web app for chatting with PDF files: you ask questions about a document and get answers and summaries. It also sells a developer API for parsing, extracting from and splitting PDFs. The free Hobby plan allows 100 questions a month on files up to 10MB. Paid plans are priced per user. Pro is $17 a month, or $10 a month billed yearly, for 1,000 questions and 50MB files. Ultimate ($27 monthly, $20 yearly) removes the question cap and adds an advanced AI model, Capture & Ask, and limited non-commercial API access. Enterprise ($37, or $30 yearly) raises the file limit to 100MB. Commercial API use is billed separately on credit tiers starting at $50 a month. The pricing table is hard to compare plan by plan, and we found no desktop or mobile apps.
Who it's for
Individuals who regularly query long PDFs and want a low annual per-seat price, and developers who need a hosted PDF parsing and chat API that charges by credits instead of tokens. Casual users can stay on the free Hobby plan, while heavy readers should compare the annual Ultimate price against the question cap on Pro.
PDF.ai pricing
| Plan | Price | Billing | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hobby | $0 free forever | free | 100 questions per month; 10MB max file size; basic AI model |
| Pro | $17 per user/month, billed monthly | monthly | $10/user/mo when billed yearly; 1,000 questions per month; 50MB max file size; basic AI model |
| Pro (annual) | $10 per user/month, billed yearly | annual | Annual billing option of the Pro plan |
| Ultimate | $27 per user/month, billed monthly | monthly | $20/user/mo when billed yearly; unlimited questions; 50MB max file size; advanced AI model; Capture & Ask; non-commercial API access with usage limits |
| Ultimate (annual) | $20 per user/month, billed yearly | annual | Annual billing option of the Ultimate plan |
| Enterprise | $37 per user/month, billed monthly | monthly | $30/user/mo when billed yearly; unlimited questions; 100MB max file size; advanced AI model |
| Enterprise (annual) | $30 per user/month, billed yearly | annual | Annual billing option of the Enterprise plan |
| Commercial API add-on | $50 per month for 1,000 credits | monthly | Other tiers: $112/mo for 2,500 credits, $200/mo for 5,000, $350/mo for 10,000, custom quote above 10,000 credits |
Source: pdf.ai pricing page, checked October 30, 2026. Prices are in USD, before tax, as shown to US visitors; vendors change them often, so confirm before buying.
Features
- AI assistant: yes
- Chat with PDF: yes
- AI summaries: yes
- API access: yes
- Team admin console: yes
Not confirmed on the vendor's site (so not credited in the score): OCR (scan to text).
Platforms
- Web
Good to know
- Pricing page advertises 'Save 25%' for annual billing; Pro is $17/user/mo monthly or $10/user/mo billed yearly source
- Monthly question limits: 100 (Hobby), 1,000 (Pro), unlimited (Ultimate and Enterprise) source
- Max file size: 10MB (Hobby), 50MB (Pro and Ultimate), 100MB (Enterprise) source
- Ultimate plan API is limited and for non-commercial use; commercial API add-on starts at $50/mo for 1,000 credits source
- API credit costs: upload 2 credits, GPT-3.5 message 1 credit, GPT-4 message 4 credits source
- Capture & Ask (screenshot a region and ask about it) requires Ultimate or above; the chatbot widget is a separate paid add-on for Ultimate and above source
- The pricing table lists a Chrome extension source
Pros and cons
What we like
- Free Hobby plan with 100 questions a month
- Annual billing cuts Pro to $10 per user per month
- Separate commercial API with published credit tiers
- Ultimate and Enterprise remove the monthly question limit
Watch out for
- File size caps of 10MB on Hobby and 50MB on Pro and Ultimate
- Chatbot widget costs extra even on Ultimate
- API on Ultimate is non-commercial only
- Only available as a web app, with a Chrome extension
How we scored PDF.ai
Features: 5 of 6 key ai pdf assistants features confirmed. Overall 3.8/5. Same formula for every product — read the methodology.
PDF.ai alternatives
Browser-first PDF toolkit with AI chat, e-signing and a 7-day Pro trial
Page-metered PDF Q&A with cited answers, priced from $9.99/month for three users
Adobe's PDF suite in Standard, Pro and AI-bundled Studio tiers, sold as subscriptions
The quick way to ask questions of a PDF — free for two documents a day