One HTTP call turns a page into a PDF. PDFShift converts HTML pages and URLs to PDF using Chromium, through one HTTP endpoint. The Free plan gives 50 credits a month with no credit card, a 15 MB file limit and a 30 second timeout. One credit covers a conversion of up to 5 MB, so a 14 MB PDF uses 3. Paid plans listed by Capterra are Startup at $9 a month for 500 credits, Boost at $24 for 2,500 and Growth at $39 for 5,000. The FAQ gives Boost overage as $0.03 per conversion. Capterra shows 4.8 from about 60 reviews and G2 shows 4.6 from about 30. Reviewers praise ease of integration and CSS fidelity. The vendor says it does not store requests or generated documents.
Free tier quotas
Plan
Free, 50 credits a month
Credit card
Not required
Credit rule
One credit per conversion of up to 5 MB
File size limit
15 MB
Timeout
30 seconds
Playground
Try conversions without creating an account
Support
Tickets answered within 2 days
Sandbox
A sandbox parameter exists so test calls do not use credits
Last sniffed Oct 7, 2026. Always confirm on the official pricing page.
👍 Good boy
+The call is one HTTP request that sends HTML or a URL and returns a PDF. A Capterra reviewer said they added it to PHP code in a few minutes after about 8 days of trial and error with other tools.
+Reviewers report good CSS fidelity. A Capterra reviewer said modern CSS and assets carry over, including SVG and downsized images, and that print output with crop marks and bleed is possible.
+Pricing is flat and low: Startup $9, Boost $24 and Growth $39 a month, and an annual plan bills for 10 months.
+The FAQ says requests and generated documents are not stored, and a Data Processing Agreement and Privacy Policy are published for GDPR.
+A playground lets you test conversions without an account, and the Free plan includes 50 conversions with no credit card.
+Paid plans allow up to 50 parallel conversions with webhook callbacks, a 100 second default timeout, and the support response target is 12 hours.
+Review volume is solid for a niche API: Capterra 4.8 from about 60 reviews, G2 4.6 from about 30, and AlternativeTo 4.9 from 39.
👎 Watch out
−The Free plan is 50 credits, a 15 MB limit and a 30 second timeout, with support replies within 2 days. It suits a trial but not a small production workload.
−Large documents use more credits: each 5 MB counts as one credit, so a 14 MB PDF uses 3 and the effective allowance falls for image-heavy output.
−Overage is off by default. When you pass 100% of the quota you are blocked unless you enable overage in your account settings, and it is billed separately at renewal.
−I could not read the full list of paid plans. G2 mentions 9 pricing editions up to $999, but only the three plans on Capterra were visible to me.
−The engine is Chromium, and a conversion that takes too long returns a 408 timeout error. The default wait is 30 seconds on Free and 100 on paid plans, and longer timeouts need a request to support.
−A Reddit r/webdev thread about the pain of HTML to PDF names PDFShift alongside other APIs, and I read only a search excerpt of it.
The catch
The Free plan has 50 credits a month, a 15 MB maximum file size and a 30 second timeout, and you do not need a credit card. One credit covers a conversion of up to 5 MB, so large PDFs use several credits.
Paid prices come from Capterra and the PDFShift FAQ: Startup $9 (500 credits), Boost $24 (2,500 credits, $0.03 per extra conversion per the FAQ) and Growth $39 (5,000 credits). Capterra also lists an average cost per conversion of $0.04, $0.03 and $0.025 for the three plans. G2 mentions nine pricing editions up to $999, so larger plans exist that I did not see. Overage is disabled by default and is billed on a separate invoice at renewal once enabled. An annual plan bills for 10 months.
The pricing page I scraped used a slider for credits, so only the Free plan appeared in the text. The Free plan's commercial use is not stated, so that field is unknown. Review counts vary by page, for example Capterra shows 57 on the vendor page and 64 on its own listing, so the counts are given as about 60 and about 30.
What’s included
✓HTML to PDF
✓URL to PDF
✓Screenshots
✓Open Graph images
✓CSS and JavaScript injection
✓Advanced header and footer
✓Encryption and watermark
✓AWS S3 delivery
✓Parallel and asynchronous conversion with webhooks
✓Sandbox mode for testing
✓Playground without an account
Free tier value
Generosity
B
Estimated value
50 conversions a month; paid from $9 a month
Feature parity
Free has a smaller file limit and timeout. Headers, watermarks and encryption are paid.
Screenshots
HomepagePricing page
Paid plans
Startup, $9 per month
500 credits a month. Capterra lists an average cost of $0.04 per conversion.
Boost, $24 per month
2,500 credits a month, with overage at $0.03 per conversion according to the FAQ.
Growth, $39 per month
5,000 credits a month. Capterra lists an average cost of $0.025 per conversion.
Common questions
Is PDFShift free?
There is a Free plan with 50 credits a month and no credit card. It has a 15 MB file limit and a 30 second timeout.
How do credits work?
One credit is one conversion of up to 5 MB. A 9 MB document uses 2 credits and a 14 MB document uses 3.
Can I test without spending credits?
Yes. A sandbox parameter exists for testing, and the playground works without an account. The FAQ says support may top up credits if you forgot the sandbox flag during your first month.
What happens if I exceed my credits?
You get notifications at 50%, 80% and 100%. Overage is disabled by default and can be enabled in your account settings.
Does PDFShift store my documents?
The FAQ says it does not store requests or generated documents, except when you pass a filename parameter and it stores the result on Amazon S3.
Change history
Checked October 22, 2026
Pricing page shows Free at 50 credits. Capterra lists Startup $9, Boost $24 and Growth $39. Capterra shows 4.8 from about 60 reviews, G2 4.6 from about 30.
