The short answer: HTML-to-PDF APIs cost $9–15 a month at entry, document extraction platforms cost $99–499 a month, and most teams that both generate and read documents end up paying for two products. A combined platform closes that gap — ASHDOCS Growth at $49/month covers 10,000 credits of generation plus unlimited structured extraction, which is less than Parseur's extraction-only entry plan.
Prices below are from public pricing pages, June 2026.
The market at a glance
| Product | Category | Entry price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| PDFShift | HTML-to-PDF | $9/mo | ~500 credits; 50 free/month |
| DocRaptor | HTML-to-PDF (PrinceXML) | $15/mo | 125 documents; 5 free/month |
| API2PDF | Conversion wrapper | ~$1 + usage | Per-engine, per-MB metering |
| PDF.co | Multi-tool | ~$10/mo | Large credit bundle; credits scale with pages and file size |
| CloudConvert | Generic converter | ~€10/mo | Conversion minutes, 200+ formats |
| Parseur | Extraction | $99/mo | 1,000 parsed pages |
| Mindee | Extraction | €44/mo | 500 pages |
| Sensible | Extraction | $499/mo | 750 documents |
| ASHDOCS | Generation + extraction + flows | $15/mo | 1,500 credits; 100 free/month forever |
Why the two categories price so differently
Generation is a solved, compute-bound problem — headless Chromium renders a page for fractions of a cent, so generation APIs compete down toward $0.01 per document. Extraction platforms price on the value of the data: a parsed bank statement saves 15 minutes of bookkeeping, so vendors charge $0.04–0.65 per page and buyers still save money.
The pricing trap is that real document workflows need both halves. A typical accounts-payable automation reads an incoming invoice (extraction) and produces a remittance PDF (generation). Two vendors means two subscriptions, two SDKs, and two failure modes.
Cost math at 1,000 documents a month
Assume a mixed workload: 700 HTML-to-PDF renders, 200 table extractions, 100 bank statements (multi-page).
- Two-vendor stack: PDFShift $9 (renders) + Parseur $99 (≈1,400 pages of extraction) ≈ $108/month, and statements over the page budget bill extra.
- ASHDOCS Growth: 700×1 + 200×2 + 100×3 = 1,400 credits of a 10,000-credit allowance — $49/month, extraction unlimited, failed jobs never charged.
At 10,000 documents the spread widens: page-metered extraction platforms scale with page count, while flat per-tool credits scale with document count.
Pricing traps to check before you sign
- Page multipliers. Some platforms multiply credits by page count and file size. A 40-page statement can cost 40× what the pricing page implies.
- Failure billing. Ask whether a failed render or parse consumes quota. (On ASHDOCS it never does — failures are refunded automatically.)
- Sandbox billing. Test traffic should be free; several APIs only offer a one-time trial credit.
- Overage cliffs. Prefer published overage rates over hard stops or forced upgrades.
Where ASHDOCS lands
- Free: 100 credits/month, all 51 tools, forever.
- Starter $15: 1,500 credits — roughly 12× DocRaptor's volume at the same price.
- Growth $49: 10,000 credits + unlimited extraction — half of Parseur's extraction-only entry price.
- Pro $99 / Scale $249: 30k and 100k credits.
Full detail on the pricing page, and feature-by-feature breakdowns in the comparison hub.
FAQ
What is the cheapest PDF generation API in 2026? PDFShift at $9/month is the cheapest branded entry plan; ASHDOCS's free tier (100 credits/month, no card) is the cheapest way to run low volume indefinitely.
What does bank statement extraction cost per page? Extraction platforms run $0.04–0.10 per page (Parseur, Mindee) up to $0.65+ per document (Sensible). ASHDOCS charges 3 flat credits per statement regardless of length — about $0.015 at Growth-tier rates.
Do I need separate products for generating and extracting PDFs? Historically yes — that's the two-vendor stack most teams run. Combined platforms like ASHDOCS cover both under one credit model, which is usually cheaper than either specialist alone at equal volume.