Adobe Acrobat vs PDF Expert
We give Adobe Acrobat a 2.6 GPA and PDF Expert a 2.2, out of 4.0. Adobe Acrobat grades higher on features and platforms. PDF Expert grades higher on value for money. They get the same grade on the free plan and ease of use.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Adobe Acrobat
Adobe's PDF editor for desktop, web and mobile, with an AI tier
PDF Expert
PDF reader and editor for Mac, iPhone and iPad from Readdle
How we grade them
| 2.6GPAAdobe AcrobatGood | 2.2GPAPDF ExpertFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | DStandard, the cheapest plan that edits, is $14.99 a month on a yearly plan, and OCR, redaction and compare need Pro at $19.99. That's the top of what PDF editors charge. Acrobat Pro 2024 is sold once for three years of desktop use, but no price for it is on record. | CPremium is $79.99 a year and covers your Mac, iPhone and iPad in one go. That's right in the middle of what PDF editors charge: fair, nothing special. Business is $80 a seat a year. |
| Free plan and trial | CAcrobat Reader is free for good and views, comments on and signs PDFs. Nice. But it won't edit or convert, which is the job here. The 7-day trial covers Pro or Studio, and Standard has no trial at all. | CThe free app is genuinely useful: read, highlight, add notes, fill and sign forms. But editing text, converting, merging and the AI all need Premium. The 1-week trial runs through the App Store. |
| Features | BEdits text with reflowing layout, converts Office files, OCRs scans, compares versions, redacts, runs batch actions and sends documents to sign in bulk. It covers the whole job, though a lot of that sits on Pro rather than Standard. | CEdits text like a word processor, converts to Office, merges, compresses, redacts and measures drawings, with an AI assistant. The gaps: OCR is listed for the Mac only, and there's no form builder or sending for signature on record. |
| Ease of use | B4.64 from 661,119 App Store ratings for the Acrobat Reader app, just shy of the top grade. Most people have opened a PDF in it already, so there's not much to learn. | B4.67 from 216,183 App Store ratings, a whisker off the top grade. It's an app you open and use, and it's made for marking up with an Apple Pencil on an iPad. |
| Platforms and integrations | AWindows, Mac, web, iPhone, Android and a browser extension, plus Microsoft 365, Teams, Outlook, OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox and Box. It's everywhere. | CMac, iPhone and iPad only. No Windows, no Android, no browser version, and no integrations on record. Lovely if you're all-in on Apple, no use if you're not. |
| Best for | the complete PDF toolkit, if the price is fine | PDF editing across a Mac, iPad and iPhone |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Adobe Acrobat and PDF Expert. How we grade
Price against what you get
Adobe Acrobat starts at $14.99 a month and scores 3.3 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. PDF Expert starts at $6.67 a month when paid by the year and scores 2.3.
Adobe Acrobat scores higher, and starts $8.32 a month higher: the question is whether the extra is worth that to you. Of the other PDF editors on the chart, none scores higher than Adobe Acrobat for less, and 5 score higher than PDF Expert for less.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Where they differ
- Adobe Acrobat starts at $14.99 per month on an annual plan, billed monthly. PDF Expert starts at $79.99 per year.
- Only Adobe Acrobat lists a web app.
- Only Adobe Acrobat lists Windows and Android apps.
- Only Adobe Acrobat lists a browser extension.
- Adobe Acrobat also covers documents.
At a glance
| Adobe Acrobat | PDF Expert | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $14.99 per month on an annual plan, billed monthly | $79.99 per year |
| Free plan | Acrobat Reader is free: view, print, share and comment on PDFs and sign them, without editing, converting or the paid tools. | The free app reads PDFs, highlights and marks them up, adds notes and stamps, and fills and signs forms; editing, converting and AI need Premium. |
| Free trial | 7-day free trial of Acrobat Pro or Studio; 14 days on the team plans | 1-week free trial of Premium through the App Store |
| Web | ||
| macOS | ||
| Windows | ||
| iOS | ||
| Android | ||
| Browser extension | ||
| Made by | Adobe | Readdle |
| Price read from | adobe.com | pdfexpert.com |
| Checked | Oct 18, 2026 | Oct 18, 2026 |
Who each one suits
Adobe Acrobat
- Offices that exchange PDFs with clients who also use Acrobat
- People who need OCR, redaction and e-signatures in one desktop app
- Users who read and sign PDFs for free with Acrobat Reader
PDF Expert
- Mac, iPad and iPhone users who want one subscription across all three
- iPad users who annotate PDFs with Apple Pencil
- Students and readers who mostly read, mark up and sign PDFs for free
Worth knowing
Adobe Acrobat
- OCR, redaction, comparing PDFs and bulk e-signatures need Pro; Standard has no free trial.
- AI Assistant comes with Studio, or as an add-on at $4.99 a month on an annual plan for Reader, Standard and Pro users.
- Month-to-month billing costs $10 a month more than the annual plan on each individual tier.
- Adobe no longer sells perpetual licenses; Acrobat Pro 2024 is a one-time purchase for three years of desktop use without online services.
PDF Expert
- Runs on Apple devices only: there is no Windows, Android or browser version.
- Editing, converting, merging, compressing, redaction and PDF Copilot all need Premium; the free app reads, annotates and signs.
- The education discount is stated as 30% off the annual plan in one place on the pricing page and as 50% in another.
- The Mac App Store also sells an in-app purchase named PDF Expert for $139.99 without saying what it covers; pdfexpert.com does not list it.
Key features
Adobe Acrobat
- Editing and conversion
- Edit text and images with reflowing layout, add, delete and reorder pages, combine files and convert to and from Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
- OCR, compare and redaction
- Pro turns scans into searchable, editable PDFs, shows the differences between two versions and permanently removes sensitive content.
- E-signatures built in
- Every paid plan can request signatures and track them; Pro adds branded requests, web forms, reusable templates and bulk sending.
- Batch actions
- Pro's Action Wizard runs saved sequences such as OCR, redaction, watermarking and conversion across many PDFs at once.
- AI Assistant and PDF Spaces
- Studio summarizes and answers questions about documents with citations, and PDF Spaces gathers PDFs, Microsoft 365 files and links into one workspace.
- Shared review
- Share a PDF by link, collect comments from several reviewers in one place and get notified as they respond, including from Teams and Outlook.
PDF Expert
- Text and image editing
- Premium edits text in a PDF much like a word processor, adds, replaces and resizes images, and adds links and outlines.
- Convert, merge and compress
- Creates PDFs from Word files and images, converts PDFs to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, images and text, and merges, splits and shrinks files.
- Annotate, fill and sign
- Highlight, draw, add notes, stamps and audio notes, and fill and sign forms, including AcroForms and static XFA forms, in the free app.
- PDF Copilot
- Premium's AI assistant lists main points, summarizes, answers questions with references and explains words or phrases in a document.
- OCR and scan clean-up
- Recognizes text in scanned documents on Mac, and an AI Enhance feature removes shadows and distortion from scans.
- Measuring and redaction
- Scale and measure drawings with polygon, polyline and redline tools, and permanently black out sensitive text.
Plans
Adobe Acrobat
Acrobat Reader$0
Free app for viewing, printing, commenting on and signing PDFs.
Acrobat Standard$14.99
per month on an annual plan, billed monthly ($24.99 month to month)
Edit and organize PDFs, convert to and from Office files, fill and sign forms, request e-signatures and password-protect files.
Acrobat Standard for teams$16.99
per license / month on an annual plan, billed monthly
Standard for several people, managed from one admin console.
Acrobat Pro$19.99
per month on an annual plan, billed monthly ($29.99 month to month)
Adds OCR for scans, comparing PDFs, redaction, branded e-signature requests, web forms, reusable templates and bulk sending.
Acrobat Pro for teams$23.99
per license / month on an annual plan, billed monthly
Pro for several people with admin console license management; 14-day free trial.
Acrobat Studio$24.99
per month on an annual plan, billed monthly ($34.99 month to month)
Pro plus AI Assistant, PDF Spaces for asking questions across many files, and Adobe Express Premium; $29.99 per license for teams.
PDF Expert
Free$0
Read, annotate, fill and sign PDFs on Mac, iPhone and iPad.
Premium$79.99
per year
Edit text, images and links, convert, OCR, merge and compress, redact, translate and PDF Copilot, on iPhone, iPad and Mac, with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Business$80
per seat / year, before tax
Premium for teams bought online, each seat covering up to 3 devices, with a Business Manager to add, remove and reassign seats.
Ways to pay less
Adobe Acrobat
- Annual discount
Lower price on an annual plan
Adobe's plans page lists Standard at $14.99, Pro at $19.99 and Studio at $24.99 a month on an annual plan, against $24.99, $29.99 and $34.99 month to month.
PDF Expert
- Education
Discount for students and educators
Verifying a school email on the pricing page sends a discount on the annual plan, given there as 30% and also as 50%; the App Store lists an education purchase at $39.99.
