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ChatPDF vs SlideNotes

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. SlideNotes publishes a starting price ($4.99); ChatPDF does not. Both have a free tier. Only ChatPDF ships a public API.

ChatPDFAsk questions about PDFs, documents and videosSlideNotesUpload a .pptx or .pdf deck and get bulleted notes summarising each slide.

Side by side

FactChatPDFSlideNotes
CategoryPDF ToolsSummarization
Pricing modelFreemiumFreemium
Starts at—$4.99 month
Public APIYesNo
PlatformsWeb, macOS, APIWeb
CompanyChatPDF GmbH—
Launched20232024
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

SlideNotes

A narrow tool that does one conversion — deck to bullet notes — and prices it low enough to be an impulse purchase, including a $49.99 lifetime option that beats ten months of subscription. That narrowness is also the limit: two file formats, no integrations, and a small solo operation behind it with no company details published.

Pros

  • Accepts both .pptx and .pdf and returns structured bulleted notes
  • $4.99/month, $29.99/year or $49.99 once for lifetime access
  • Free tier lets you test on real files before paying
  • Terms and privacy policy published in full, dated from January 2024

Cons

  • Only two supported file formats; no Slides or Keynote import
  • No company entity, address or country named — email is the only contact
  • No API, integrations or bulk processing

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 SlideNotes if you need

  • Students converting lecture decks into revision notes
  • Catching up on a presentation you did not attend
  • Anyone who wants a lifetime licence rather than a subscription

More comparisons

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