Comparison
VisionParse vs Adobe PDF Services API
Adobe’s PDF API, with a generous free tier and an unusually cheap OCR unit — one transaction covers 50 pages. No dollar price is published, and the OCR language list is narrow.
Adobe · every figure below comes from their own documentation, linked and dated · last checked 2026-08-08
Where Adobe PDF Services API is the better choice
- 500 document transactions a month, free and recurring, and OCR counts one transaction per 50 pages.
- Adobe invented the PDF format; their handling of awkward and generated PDFs reflects that.
- The same API also manipulates PDFs — combine, split, compress, protect — which we do not attempt.
Where we are
- 161 recognition languages against 37 locales. Adobe’s OCR list has no Arabic, Hindi or Thai.
- Our price is on the pricing page. Adobe publishes no dollar figure for PDF Services at all.
- One data-handling policy that applies to everyone. Adobe’s answer depends on which agreement governs your account.
- Free tools in a browser with no account and no transaction quota.
Side by side
| VisionParse | Adobe PDF Services API | |
|---|---|---|
| Text extraction price | $19/month for 2,000 pages — $9.50 per 1,000 | No dollar price published anywhere on Adobe's own site. Billing unit is the "Document Transaction": the OCR operation counts 1 Document Transaction for up to 50 pages. Paid access is contact-sales only and requires entering into a separate written agreement (ETLA or VIP).Paid credentials enable a greater processing quota and require entering into a separate written agreement. To learn more, please see the pricing page for purchase options. Document Transactions for the Operations below resulting in a Document will be counted with the following page limits: Extract and PDF To Markdown Operations — 1 Document Transaction for up to 5 pages; Accessibility Auto-Tag Operation — 10 Document Transactions per page; Electronic Seal Operation — 10 Document Transactions per PDF; All other Operations — 1 Document Transaction for up to 50 pages.source, checked 2026-08-08 |
| Structured field extraction | 1 AI credit a document; 250 included on the $19 plan | No dollar price published. PDF Extract and PDF To Markdown count 1 Document Transaction per 5 pages — ten times the per-page rate of the OCR operation (50 pages per transaction). An 8-page document costs 2 transactions.Extract PDF and PDF To Markdown | Extracting PDF Elements from an 8-page PDF Document consumes two Document Transactions. | 1 (Operation: Extract PDF) x 2 (5-page document) = 2 Document Transactionssource, checked 2026-08-08 |
| Free tier | 100 pages a month with an account; 5 conversions a day with none | 500 Document Transactions per month, recurring (not a time-limited trial) — the quota resets on the 1st of each calendar month and unused transactions do not roll over. Free tier is throttled to 25 requests per minute vs 100 RPM on enterprise. Adobe's pricing page separately states no credit card or commitment is required.Free Tier users get free credentials that enable the processing of 500 Document Transactions per month. A Document Transaction is based on the initial endpoint request (i.e., API call) and the digital output. [...] On March 20, you convert a ten-page Word document into PDF. This consumes 1 Document Transaction of the Free Tier quota, leaving you with 499 Document Transactions available for consumption through March 31. 1 (Operation: convert) x 1 (document) = 1 Document Transaction On April 1, your Free Tier quota resets to 500 Document Transactions. [...] Maximum Requests Per Minute | 100 RPM** (Enterprise), 25 RPM (Free Tier)source, checked 2026-08-08 |
| Languages | 161 recognition languages, counted on the production host | 38 OCR locale constants covering 37 distinct locales (NB_NO and NO_NO both map to "Norwegian (Norway)"). Includes English US/UK, German DE/CH, French, Chinese CN/HK, Japanese, Korean, Hebrew, Russian, Ukrainian, Greek. No Arabic, Hindi, Thai or Vietnamese. Adobe publishes no handwriting claim for the API.Supported locales for OCRJob Enum Constant Summary Enum Constants Enum Constant Description BG_BG Represents "Bulgarian (Bulgaria)" locale CA_CA Represents "Catalan (Canada)" locale CS_CZ Represents "Czech (Czech Republic)" locale DA_DK Represents "Danish (Denmark)" locale DE_CH Represents "German (Switzerland)" locale DE_DE Represents "German (Germany)" locale EL_GR Represents "Greek (Greece)" locale EN_GB Represents "English (United Kingdom)" locale EN_US Represents "English (United States)" locale.source, checked 2026-08-08 |
| Where it runs | Hosted API, documents processed in Frankfurt, Germany | Cloud only (Adobe Document Cloud on AWS). The security documentation says US-East and EMEA regions with customer-selectable processing region; Adobe's own Sales FAQ contradicts this and says data centres are US-only with EU "on our roadmap". No APAC region documented anywhere and no on-premise option.All Server-side components of PDF Services API and PDF Embed API are processed in Adobe Document Cloud, which is hosted on the data centers of AWS cloud infrastructure in the US-East and EMEA regions. Customers can choose the region where their documents will be processed.source, checked 2026-08-08 |
| What happens to your documents | Uploads deleted within the hour on every plan; never used to train models | Depends on which contract governs, and the answer differs. Free-tier / VIP users fall under Adobe's consumer General Terms of Use, which do carry an explicit "we will not train generative AI models on your content" pledge — but the same terms permit opt-out (not opt-in) "Content Analytics" on Cloud Content, including reproducing and creating derivative works, to improve Adobe's Services and Software. Paid ETLA enterprise customers are instead governed by Adobe's Enterprise General Terms, which contain NO Adobe-side no-training commitment and expressly permit Adobe to "model" Customer Data "for product improvement and development". Retention (per the security page): documents are stored in Adobe Document Cloud for 24 hours by default, deletable immediately via the Assets DELETE endpoint, or avoided entirely via bring-your-own-storage signed URLs.6.2 Permitted Use. Customer agrees that Adobe and its Affiliates may use, copy, transmit, sub-license, aggregate, model, index, store, and display Customer Data for one or more of the following: (1) to perform its obligations under this Agreement; (2) for product improvement and development; (3) to publish and distribute any anonymized information (i.e. information where neither Customer nor its site visitors are capable of being identified, which may be aggregated with other customers' anonymous information); or (4) to enforce its rights under this Agreement.source, checked 2026-08-08 |
What this page does not claim
We have never run a document through Adobe PDF Services API, so there is no accuracy comparison here and no chart showing us winning. Our own figures are measured and reproducible — the method is on the benchmark, including the cases where our default engine gets things wrong. Adobe PDF Services API's figures are theirs, quoted from their documentation with the date we read it.
Most comparison pages of this kind include an accuracy table. Ours cannot, honestly, so it does not.
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