PDF.chat vs PDFpal
PDF.chat
pdf.chatPDFpal
github.comSide by side
| Figure | PDF.chat | PDFpal |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $4/mo | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 10 | 0 |
| Spec score · AI PDF Assistants | 8.6 (#5) | 6.9 (#26) |
Plans
PDF.chat
- FreeFree
- Small pack$5, paid once
- Starter$5 a month
- Medium pack$15, paid once
- Pro$19 a month
- Large pack$40, paid once
- Starter$48 a year
- Business$49 a month
- Pro$182 a year
- Business$470 a year
In their own words
PDF.chat
PDF.chat lets users upload documents, ask questions, and receive answers cited to exact pages in over 100 languages. It accepts PDFs, Word and PowerPoint files, text files, and images, including scanned or photographed documents that its OCR models read on its own infrastructure. Long documents are indexed so questions can retrieve relevant pages from reports, textbooks, and dockets. Users can compare Claude, GPT, Gemini, Llama, and DeepSeek answers side by side in one chat, then export results as plain text, Markdown, DOCX, searchable PDF, CSV, or JSON. The service runs in a browser without a download or installation. Its REST API ingests documents, returns per-page text and metadata, and supports chat with page citations; API use is metered per page. The Free plan costs nothing, with pages resetting at midnight UTC and no credit card required. Starter costs $5 a month and includes 750 pages per month. PDF.chat says files are automatically deleted shortly after processing and are not sold, shared, or used for training; on paid tiers, relevant passages may be sent to third-party AI providers.