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Developer API

Alternative to PDF.co

PDF.co is a solid API — 40+ PDF endpoints, reliable infrastructure, genuine developer focus. The pricing is the problem for small teams. Entry: $9.99/month for ~1000 credits. Credits get spent fast: compression is 3-5 credits, OCR is 30+ credits per page, Word conversion 10+ credits. A real workload hits the overage quickly, and overage costs $0.005-$0.012 per credit.

For teams doing 100+ documents a month, PDF.co is fine — you'll burn the $9.99 plan and pay overages that total comparable to PennyPDF's Pro pack. For teams doing 10-50 documents a month, the $9.99 floor is structurally wasteful. PennyPDF sells the same operations for one-time coin packs starting at $0.99 (10 coins = 10 compressions or 5 PDF-to-Word conversions).

Operation-to-operation parity is close: PDF.co has PDF-to-JSON endpoints we don't have yet (pre-structured extraction); PennyPDF has e-sign with audit trail that PDF.co charges separately for. Both use the same open-source engines under the hood for OCR (Tesseract), compression (Ghostscript), and conversion (LibreOffice).

Get an API keySee coin pricing

Copy, paste, ship

Same bearer-token auth across every endpoint. Set PENNYPDF_API_KEY in your environment first.

curlPennyPDF /v1/compress (1 coin)
curl -X POST https://api.pennypdf.com/v1/compress \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $PENNYPDF_API_KEY" \
  -F "file=@input.pdf" \
  -F "preset=medium" \
  -o output.pdf
curlEquivalent PDF.co /v1/pdf/optimize (3-5 credits)
# For comparison only — PDF.co uses URL-based inputs + JSON responses
curl -X POST https://api.pdf.co/v1/pdf/optimize \
  -H "x-api-key: $PDFCO_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url": "https://storage/input.pdf"}'
# Response JSON contains an output URL. Download the result separately.

PennyPDF vs PDF.co

 PennyPDFPDF.co
Entry minimum$0.99 one-time$9.99/month
Per-op cost (compress)1 coin (~$0.04)3-5 credits (~$0.015-$0.05)
Per-op cost (PDF-to-Word)2 coins (~$0.08)10+ credits (~$0.05+)
Pay-as-you-goYes, alwaysOnly after subscription
Credit / coin expiryNeverCredits don't roll over month-to-month
Same billing for web UIYesN/A (no consumer product)

How it works

  1. 1Sign in with Google/Microsoft — 10 free welcome coins, no credit card.
  2. 2Issue an API key at /dashboard/api. Replace PDF.co bearer token calls with PennyPDF's.
  3. 3Buy a coin pack when welcome coins run out. Pro pack at $14.99 covers most small-team needs for a year.

Frequently asked

Is PDF.co's feature set strictly larger?+

Yes, by a few endpoints. PDF.co has specialized things like PDF-to-JSON, barcode detection, and document classification that PennyPDF doesn't yet. For the core 80% — merge, split, compress, convert, OCR, sign — feature parity is very close.

Migration effort?+

Moderate. PDF.co's pattern is: upload to their storage → reference by URL in the operation → download result URL. PennyPDF accepts multipart uploads directly → returns result body or job_id. For most pipelines, the migration is 1-2 hours of code changes plus testing.

What about latency?+

Similar p50/p90 across comparable operations. PDF.co has a worldwide edge network; PennyPDF currently runs one region (US-East) with Cloudflare in front. For latency-sensitive European or APAC workloads, PDF.co has a marginal edge; for cost-sensitive anywhere, PennyPDF wins.

SLA?+

Both target 99.9%. PDF.co has a longer track record. PennyPDF's uptime is public at status.pennypdf.com and matches the target at current launch.

What about team / org management?+

PDF.co has team accounts with shared credit pools on enterprise tiers. PennyPDF's team tier with shared coin pool is on the roadmap (ship target: next quarter). For now, a single API key + in-house rate-limiting is the pattern.

Which endpoints are genuinely missing in PennyPDF vs PDF.co?+

PDF-to-JSON structured extraction (partial equivalent in /v1/extract), barcode read/write, document classification, and image-form recognition. If any of those are critical to your workflow, stay with PDF.co. Everything else has parity.

Related

Developer API

PDF merge API

Developer API

PDF compression API

Developer API

Alternative to DocRaptor

Why PennyPDF

  • No subscription. Ever.
  • Coins never expire — use them in 5 years.
  • Client-side processing for 14 of 22 tools.
  • No watermarks at any tier.
  • Per-operation pricing, shown before you click.
  • Same coins for web + public API.