PDF Expert vs PDFelement
We give PDF Expert a 2.2 GPA and PDFelement a 2.8, out of 4.0. PDFelement grades higher on value for money, features and platforms. 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.
PDF Expert
PDF reader and editor for Mac, iPhone and iPad from Readdle
PDFelement
Wondershare's PDF editor, by subscription or a one-time license
How we grade them
| 2.2GPAPDF ExpertFair | 2.8GPAPDFelementGood | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | 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. | BThe Yearly Plan is $79.99 for Windows or Mac, $89.99 for both, middle of the pack. But the $129.99 perpetual license, spread over three years, is properly cheap. Just know it covers version 13 only, and phone and web access is for a limited time. |
| Free plan and trial | 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. | CNo free plan. The 14-day trial lets you try most tools, but only a few times each, and anything you save gets a watermark. It's more of a demo than a trial. |
| Features | 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. | BEdits text and images, converts, OCRs and reads tables, builds forms including XFA, redacts, signs with certificates, sends for e-signature and adds Bates numbers. It covers the whole job. Heavier AI use is a separate plan. |
| Ease of use | 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. | B4.62 from 7,575 App Store ratings. It's a desktop editor you install and start using, with nothing to configure first. |
| Platforms and integrations | 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. | BWindows, Mac, iPhone, Android and the web, with 20GB of PDFelement Cloud to sync between them. That's wide, but the only integration on record is its own cloud. |
| Best for | PDF editing across a Mac, iPad and iPhone | a full PDF editor you can buy outright |
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: PDF Expert and PDFelement. How we grade
Price against what you get
PDF Expert starts at $6.67 a month when paid by the year and scores 2.3 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. PDFelement starts at $4 a month and scores 3.0.
PDFelement scores higher and starts $2.67 a month lower. Of the other PDF editors on the chart, 5 score higher than PDF Expert for less, and none scores higher than PDFelement 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
- PDF Expert starts at $79.99 per year. PDFelement starts at $11.99 per quarter for one platform.
- PDF Expert has a free plan. PDFelement does not, though it has a free trial.
- Only PDFelement lists a web app.
- Only PDFelement lists Windows and Android apps.
- PDFelement can be bought with a one-time purchase.
At a glance
| PDF Expert | PDFelement | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free trial |
| Starts at | $79.99 per year | $11.99 per quarter for one platform |
| Free plan | 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. | None |
| Free trial | 1-week free trial of Premium through the App Store | Free trial: most tools for 14 days with a few uses each; saved files carry a watermark |
| Web | ||
| macOS | ||
| Windows | ||
| iOS | ||
| Android | ||
| Made by | Readdle | Wondershare |
| Price read from | pdfexpert.com | pdf.wondershare.com |
| Checked | Oct 18, 2026 | Oct 18, 2026 |
Who each one suits
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
PDFelement
- Windows or Mac users who want to pay once for a PDF editor
- People who need OCR, forms and redaction for less than Acrobat Pro
- Users who also want PDF tools on their phone and in a browser
Worth knowing
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.
PDFelement
- Prices are shown against much higher crossed-out figures with a countdown; the one-platform price covers Windows or Mac, and both cost more.
- The perpetual license covers PDFelement 13 only, and its mobile and web access lasts for a limited time.
- Heavier AI use is a separate AI plan: $3.99 a month for 1,000 uses or $39.99 a year for 12,000.
- The free trial adds a watermark when saving and allows only a few uses of tools such as eSign and AI.
Key features
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.
PDFelement
- Edit, convert and organize
- Edit text and images, convert to and from Office formats, compress, combine, split, crop and reorder pages, and process files in batches.
- OCR and data extraction
- Turns scans into searchable, editable text, recognizes tables and pulls form data and receipt details out of PDFs.
- Forms, signing and redaction
- Create and fill forms, including XFA, sign with digital certificates, request e-signatures, redact and set passwords.
- AI tools
- Chat with a PDF, summarize, translate, rewrite, check grammar and detect AI-written text; paid plans include 50 AI uses.
- PDFelement Cloud
- Paid plans include 20GB of cloud storage for files and signatures, synced across the desktop, mobile and web apps.
- Measuring and Bates numbering
- Measure distance, perimeter and area on drawings, and add Bates numbers, headers, footers and watermarks.
Plans
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.
PDFelement
Quarterly Plan$11.99
per quarter for one platform, renews automatically
Shown against a crossed-out $49; $21.99 a quarter for the cross-platform version. All features, 20GB of PDFelement Cloud and no watermark.
Yearly Plan$79.99
per year for one platform, renews automatically
Shown against a crossed-out $129; $89.99 a year cross-platform. A year of updates and all features on desktop, mobile and web.
2-Year Plan$109.99
for 2 years for one platform, renews manually
Shown against a crossed-out $149; $119.99 cross-platform. Two years of updates and all features.
Perpetual Plan$129.99
one-time purchase for one platform
Perpetual use of PDFelement 13, shown against a crossed-out $159; $139.99 cross-platform. Mobile and web access are included for a limited time only.
Ways to pay less
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.
PDFelement
- Lifetime license
Perpetual license for PDFelement 13
Wondershare sells a one-time license for version 13 at $129.99 for one platform or $139.99 for Windows and Mac together.
