Skip to content
effecthub

ChatPDF vs DocXter

Two fact sheets from our own research, side by side — pricing, platforms, API access and status re-checked by us rather than quoted from the vendors. DocXter publishes a starting price ($7.99); ChatPDF does not. Both have a free tier. Only ChatPDF ships a public API.

ChatPDFAsk questions about PDFs, documents and videosDocXterAsk questions across a set of documents at once, including scanned ones, and keep them in a reusable knowledge base.

Side by side

FactChatPDFDocXter
CategoryPDF ToolsChat with Documents & PDF
Pricing modelFreemiumFreemium
Starts at—$7.99 month
Public APIYesNo
PlatformsWeb, macOS, APIWeb
CompanyChatPDF GmbHCloudRedux
Launched2023—
Last verifiedSep 6, 2026Sep 6, 2026

What our research says

ChatPDF

The quickest way to interrogate one long PDF without building retrieval yourself, and the page-level citations are what keep it honest. But ChatGPT and Claude now read PDFs natively, so ChatPDF only earns its subscription if you need those citations, the multi-file view, or the API.

Pros

  • answers cite specific pages, so you can check them instead of trusting them
  • handles Word, PowerPoint, Markdown and text files, not only PDF
  • REST API supports streaming and multi-turn conversations
  • free tier works with no account and no card

Cons

  • two documents a day on free runs out fast during real research
  • Plus pricing is not published anywhere on the site
  • no team plan, SSO or shared document library
  • hard per-file limit of 2,000 pages or 32 MB

DocXter

A document chat tool with two things most rivals skip: several documents in one conversation, and OCR so scans are not dead weight. The persistent knowledge base means you stop re-uploading the same files. Credits and per-plan user counts are the real constraint, and the free tier's three-day history makes it evaluation-only.

Pros

  • Queries several documents in a single conversation rather than one file at a time
  • OCR brings scanned and photographed documents into scope
  • A persistent knowledge base and unlimited history on paid tiers
  • Answers in fifteen or more languages, including Hindi and mixed Hindi-English

Cons

  • File support stops at DOCX, PDF, TXT and PPTX; spreadsheets and images are not covered
  • The free tier keeps document history for only three days
  • Advertised monthly prices are annual-billing rates, so monthly billing costs more
  • No API, and seat counts are capped per tier

Which one fits

Choose ChatPDF if you need

  • students and researchers pulling verifiable quotes out of long papers
  • checking claims inside a contract or report you did not write
  • developers wanting a hosted PDF-Q&A endpoint instead of rolling their own RAG stack

Choose DocXter if you need

  • students and researchers working across a stack of papers at once
  • professionals querying scanned contracts or agreements
  • small teams that want a shared document knowledge base

More comparisons

All DocXter alternatives →Browse all PDF Tools →