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ChatPDF vs PaperChat

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. PaperChat publishes a starting price ($3.99); ChatPDF does not. Both have a free tier. Only ChatPDF ships a public API.

ChatPDFAsk questions about PDFs, documents and videosPaperChatUpload documents and query several at once, with answers that point back at the passage they came from.

Side by side

FactChatPDFPaperChat
CategoryPDF ToolsChat with Documents & PDF
Pricing modelFreemiumFreemium
Starts at—$3.99 month
Public APIYesNo
PlatformsWeb, macOS, APIWeb
CompanyChatPDF GmbHPaperChat
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

PaperChat

Querying several documents in one conversation and exporting the thread with sources attached is genuinely more useful than one-file-at-a-time chat, and the price is low. The limits are where it bites: seven documents a month on Premium and a 35-page cap per PDF rule out most research use, and the vendor confirms there is no API and no integrations at all.

Pros

  • Chats across multiple uploaded documents at once
  • Exports the conversation with sourced answers
  • Handles PDF, DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, TXT and MD in 40+ languages
  • Free plan and a $3.99 entry tier keep the barrier low

Cons

  • Premium allows only 7 documents a month and 35 pages per PDF
  • The FAQ confirms no API and no third-party integrations
  • No registered company, only a CEO name and Romanian jurisdiction
  • Advertised file-type support is ahead of what is actually live

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 PaperChat if you need

  • students comparing a handful of papers in one conversation
  • readers who need answers in languages other than English
  • anyone who wants the conversation exported with its sources

More comparisons

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