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ChatPDF vs Search+

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. Search+ publishes a starting price ($4.99); ChatPDF does not. Only ChatPDF has a free tier. Only ChatPDF ships a public API.

ChatPDFAsk questions about PDFs, documents and videosSearch+Chat with large PDF collections and get answers with the source passage cited back

Side by side

FactChatPDFSearch+
CategoryPDF ToolsChat with Documents & PDF
Pricing modelFreemiumPaid
Starts at—$4.99 month
Public APIYesNo
PlatformsWeb, macOS, APIWeb
CompanyChatPDF GmbHSearch+
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

Search+

The 5GB-per-document ceiling and OCR handling are the genuine differentiators — most PDF chat tools fall over on the files this is built for. The pricing is the problem in disguise: every tier is metered in pages, and 250 pages a month on the entry plan is two long reports, so real usage lands you on a higher tier quickly.

Pros

  • Handles documents up to 5GB with OCR support
  • Answers carry direct citations to the source passage
  • Deep-analysis templates work across a whole collection, not one file at a time
  • A $149 one-time lifetime plan exists as an alternative to monthly billing

Cons

  • Every tier is metered in pages per month, and Basic is only 250
  • No developer API is offered
  • No company entity, address or country published; footer copyright still reads 2023

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 Search+ if you need

  • Legal and research work across large precedent or documentation sets
  • Files too big for mainstream PDF chat tools to open at all
  • Anyone who needs the citation, not just the answer

More comparisons

All Search+ alternatives →Browse all PDF Tools →