AskYourPDF vs PDF.ai (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 12, 2026, AskYourPDF and PDF.ai share a 2.4 GPA, both have a free plan, and PDF.ai starts cheaper, at $10 a month against $11.99 a month.
Checked Oct 5, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 · graded Oct 10, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA
They get the same grade on all five counts.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
AskYourPDF
Chat with PDFs and other documents and get cited answers
Which one is for you
Pick AskYourPDF if
- Fits if you have one long paper or book and want answers with the page cited
- Works for Zotero users who want summaries and chat inside their library
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you need something to find the papers, as this only reads what you give it
- Tight if you're staying free, at 1 document a day of up to 100 pages and 15 MB, on GPT-5 Mini only
- Not for you if you like a way out, since the terms say all sales are final with no refunds
- Watch out: Claude and Gemini 2.5 Pro spend credits on every paid plan, and Premium includes only 10
- Watch out: the 3-day trial is called free on one page and $1 on another, and the API is billed apart at $49.99 a month
Pick PDF.ai if
- Fits if you ask questions of one PDF at a time
- Works for developers who want a PDF parsing API
Look elsewhere if
- Tight if you stay free: 1 PDF and OCR on 2 pages per file
- Watch out: the Ultimate plan's API is non-commercial only, and commercial use needs the credit add-on
- Watch out: the chatbot widget is a separate paid plan
- Watch out: monthly-billing prices weren't readable, and the pricing page would not load for us
How we grade them
| 2.4GPAAskYourPDFFair | 2.4GPAPDF.aiFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | CPremium is $11.99 a month billed yearly, $14.99 monthly, which is this category's middle. You get 50 documents and 1,200 questions a day with Knowledge Bases and OCR, but the Claude models and Gemini 2.5 Pro run on credits and Premium hands you 10. | CPro is $10 a month billed yearly, the research middle. Ultimate is $20 per user, which is where the dearest tenth begins. |
| Free plan and trial | CFree for good, with 50 questions a day. The document cap is the limit: 1 a day, up to 100 pages and 15 MB, on GPT-5 Mini only. Caps you'll hit on your first real afternoon. The paid trial runs 3 days, and one page calls it free while another calls it a $1 trial. | CThe Hobby plan is $0 for 1 PDF and 100 questions a month. That's one document at a time, so a normal reader outgrows it quickly. |
| Features | CIt does chat-with-your-document completely — PDF, DOCX, EPUB, text or a URL, answers citing the page, Knowledge Bases on paid plans for asking across many files at once. But that's the smaller half of research: it reads what you hand it and won't go and find the papers. | CChat with a PDF, OCR, chat with all PDFs, capture and ask, an API and a chatbot widget. The listing shows only 1 PDF on Hobby and OCR capped at 2 pages per file, but the core chat job is covered. |
| Ease of use | BNo store rating on record, so the B comes from what the listing shows, and it shows about the simplest thing in this category: upload a file, ask a question. What takes working out is the models, since some come with your plan and others spend credits. | BNo store rating on record. Upload a PDF and ask: nothing to set up. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb, iPhone, Android, a Chrome extension, a Zotero hook-up and a developer API. No Mac or Windows app, though, and that's what an A wants. The API is billed apart from the chat plans: free for 100 messages, then $49.99 a month. | BWeb and a browser extension, with an API. |
| Best for | asking questions of long documents | asking questions of PDFs |
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: AskYourPDF and PDF.ai. How we grade
Price against what you get
AskYourPDF starts at $11.99 a month and scores 2.7 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. PDF.ai starts at $10 a month and scores 2.7.
They score the same, and PDF.ai starts $1.99 a month lower. Of the other AI research tools on the chart, 3 score higher than AskYourPDF for less, and 3 score higher than PDF.ai 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
- AskYourPDF also covers citations.
- PDF.ai also covers documents.
At a glance
| AskYourPDF | PDF.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $11.99 per month, billed yearly ($14.99 billed monthly) | $10 per month, billed yearly |
| Free plan | 1 document a day of up to 100 pages and 15 MB, with 50 questions and 3 conversations a day on the GPT-5 Mini model. | Hobby: 1 PDF, 100 questions a month, 10 MB files and OCR on 2 pages per file. |
| Free trial | 3-day trial of Premium or Pro; the pricing page calls it a free trial, the chat-with-PDF page a $1 trial. | None listed |
| Web | ||
| iOS | ||
| Android | ||
| Browser extension | ||
| Made by | Proton Labs | PDF.ai |
| Price read from | askyourpdf.com | pdf.ai |
| Checked | Oct 5, 2026 | Nov 12, 2026 |
Worth knowing
AskYourPDF
- The free plan covers 1 document a day, capped at 100 pages and 15 MB, and uses GPT-5 Mini only.
- Knowledge Bases, OCR and Chrome extension access appear only in the benefits of the paid plans.
- Claude 4.5 Sonnet, Claude 4.5 Opus and Gemini 2.5 Pro need credits on every paid plan; Premium includes 10 and Pro 30.
- The terms say all sales are final, with no refunds or pro-rata credits.
PDF.ai
- Monthly-billing prices were not readable; the prices shown are those billed yearly.
- The Ultimate plan's API is for non-commercial use only; commercial use needs the credit add-on.
- The chatbot widget is a separate paid plan.
Key features
AskYourPDF
- Chat with documents
- Upload a PDF, DOCX, EPUB or TXT file, or paste a URL, and ask questions in plain language. Each answer cites the page it came from, and the site says it works in more than 100 languages.
- Knowledge Bases
- Premium and Pro group documents into a Knowledge Base, so that one question draws a single cited answer from every file in it.
- Choice of AI models
- The free plan runs on GPT-5 Mini. Paid plans add GPT-5, GPT-5.2 and Gemini 2.5 Flash, while Claude 4.5 Sonnet, Claude 4.5 Opus and Gemini 2.5 Pro draw on credits.
- AI Agent for websites
- Trains a chatbot on your website and uploaded files and embeds it with one line of code. Visitors can open a support ticket when the agent cannot answer.
- AI form filler
- Fills fillable and non-fillable PDF forms using data taken from another PDF, a text file or pasted content.
- Developer API
- Adds documents by upload or URL and answers questions about them. API plans are separate: free with 100 messages, or $49.99 a month for 6,000 messages and 60,000 pages.
PDF.ai
- Chat with PDFs
- Ask questions about an uploaded PDF; limits on uploads and questions depend on the plan.
- OCR
- AI-powered OCR for scanned files, from 2 pages per file on Hobby up to 100 on Enterprise.
- Chat with all PDFs
- Ultimate and above can question the whole library at once.
- Capture and ask
- Ultimate and above can capture a screenshot and ask about it.
- API
- Parsing, extraction and splitting API; commercial use is an add-on from $50 a month for 1,000 credits.
- Chatbot widget
- Ultimate users can add a paid widget so visitors chat with PDFs hosted on a site.
Plans
AskYourPDF
Free$0
1 document a day of up to 100 pages and 15 MB, with 50 questions and 3 conversations a day on GPT-5 Mini.
Premium$11.99
per month, billed yearly; $14.99 billed monthly
50 documents a day of up to 2,500 pages and 31 MB, 1,200 questions a day, Knowledge Bases, OCR, the Chrome extension and 10 credits.
Pro$14.99
per month, billed yearly; $19.99 billed monthly
150 documents a day of up to 6,000 pages and 877 MB, longer replies, priority support and 30 credits.
EnterpriseCustom
Unlimited pages per document and unlimited questions, up to 1,000 documents a day and custom credits. Sold through sales.
PDF.ai
Hobby$0
1 PDF, 100 questions a month, 10 MB max file, OCR on 2 pages per file.
Pro$10
per month, billed yearly
100 PDFs, 1,000 questions a month, 50 MB files, OCR on 10 pages per file.
Ultimate$20
per user / month, billed yearly
Unlimited PDFs and questions, advanced AI model, chat with all PDFs, team members.
Enterprise$30
per user / month, billed yearly
Unlimited use, 100 MB files, OCR on 100 pages per file, white-labeled PDF embed.
Ways to pay less
AskYourPDF
- Annual discount
Up to 25% off with annual billing
The pricing page labels annual billing as 25% off. Premium is $11.99 a month billed yearly against $14.99 billed monthly, and Pro is $14.99 against $19.99.
PDF.ai
- Annual discount
Save 25% with yearly billing
The pricing page shows a Payment frequency toggle with Annually labeled as saving 25%.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, AskYourPDF or PDF.ai?
As of Nov 12, 2026, PDF.ai is cheaper to start with: $10 a month, against $11.99 a month for AskYourPDF. AskYourPDF starts at $11.99 per month, billed yearly ($14.99 billed monthly), and PDF.ai starts at $10 per month, billed yearly.
Which has a free plan, AskYourPDF or PDF.ai?
As of Nov 12, 2026, both AskYourPDF and PDF.ai have a free plan.
Which platforms do AskYourPDF and PDF.ai run on?
As of Nov 12, 2026, only AskYourPDF lists iOS and Android apps. Both list a web app and a browser extension. A platform missing from a listing is one its maker's pages did not mention.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.