Comparison
Doc2api vs PDFMonkey
Cheaper than us below a few thousand documents a month. The real difference is how you build the document: they hand you HTML, we hand you a visual designer — with an HTML block for when you want one anyway.
Where PDFMonkey is the better choice
Genuinely — if any of these is your requirement, stop reading and use them.
- Cheaper than us at low and mid volume, and it is not close: €15/month buys 3,000 documents where our $20 Starter buys 1,000. If your volume sits in the low thousands and you are happy designing templates, they will cost you less.
- The whole browser stack for layout — HTML, CSS, JavaScript, web fonts. Doc2api has a custom HTML block, but it is parsed against an allow-list and scripts are stripped, so a design that depends on JavaScript or an exotic CSS feature is genuinely easier there.
- Liquid templating, which is a mature, well-documented language plenty of people already know.
- Unlimited document retention on Pro+ and Premium. Ours tops out at 90 days on Business, so if you need generated documents kept indefinitely without moving them yourself, they do that and we do not.
- A permanent free tier at 20 documents a month, plus a 30-day trial of 300 — though the free tier will not load external images, fonts, CSS or JavaScript, so it is more limited than the document count suggests.
What Doc2api does
Three jobs, one endpoint — worth knowing before the comparison below.
1
Fill a PDF you were given
Upload a fillable PDF and its fields come back as a typed JSON schema. Flat or scanned, you draw named boxes on the page instead. The output is that exact document.
2
Design one from nothing
A drag-and-drop designer: tables with repeating rows, bar/line/pie charts, barcodes and QR codes, signature blocks, running headers and footers, watermarks, page numbers, a brand colour and type scale, elements that appear only when an expression is true, and six page sizes from A5 to Tabloid. No markup required.
3
Or hand us your own HTML
An HTML block takes your markup — headings, tables, lists, images, links and inline styles — and renders it into the document, script-free and parsed against an allow-list. Paste what you already generate instead of rebuilding it.
Where Doc2api differs
You do not have to write HTML
Doc2api has a drag-and-drop designer: headings, tables with repeating rows, bar/line/pie charts, barcodes and QR codes, signature blocks, page headers and footers, watermarks, a brand colour and type scale, conditional elements that only appear when an expression is true, and six page sizes. When you do want raw markup there is an HTML block. So a colleague who does not write code can change the document.
It also fills PDFs you did not design
The other half of Doc2api is the form you were handed and cannot change — a claim form, a tenancy agreement, a government return. Upload it, we read its fields or you draw boxes on the page, and the output is that exact document. Rebuilding one as an HTML template is a much larger job.
Your users can fill it themselves
The embed SDK renders the real PDF in your app with draw-to-sign signature fields and photo capture, then posts the finished document to your webhook. A template-to-PDF renderer expects you to already hold the data.
Your whole team, on every plan
Doc2api puts no limit on team members — invite as many people as you like on Free, on Starter, on anything. PDFMonkey's Starter includes no extra collaborators and Pro includes one; unlimited collaborators start at Pro+, €60 a month. If two or three people need access, that alone can decide the price you pay them.
The ceiling is higher
Their published top tier is 60,000 documents a month. Ours is 100,000 on Business, and up to 2.1 million with volume packs, self-serve, without a conversation.
Published pricing
PDFMonkey's figures read from their pricing page on 7 August 2026. They may have changed since — check before deciding, and email support@doc2api.co if anything here is out of date.
PDFMonkey
| Plan | Price | Included |
|---|---|---|
| Free | €0 | 20 documents/month · 1-day retention · no external images, fonts, CSS or JS |
| Starter | €5/mo | 300 documents/month · 1-day retention · no extra collaborators |
| Pro | €15/mo | 3,000 documents/month · 7-day retention · 1 extra collaborator |
| Pro+ | €60/mo | 5,000 documents/month · unlimited retention · unlimited collaboratorsthen €0.006 per document |
| Premium | €300/mo | 60,000 documents/month · unlimited retention · unlimited collaboratorsthen €0.005 per document |
Doc2api
| Plan | Price | Per 1,000 docs |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 50/mo, no expiry |
| Starter | $20/mo1,000 documents/month | $20.00 |
| Pro | $50/mo10,000 documents/month | $5.00 |
| Business | $200/mo100,000 documents/month | $2.00 |
| Business + 500,000 documents pack | $1,000/mo600,000 documents/month | $1.67 |
Reading these tables: PDFMonkey prices in euros, so the columns either side of this are not the same currency and we have not invented an exchange rate. They also offer a 30-day, 300-document trial with no card.
Cost per document is not the whole comparison — and it does not always favour us. Where it does, it still ignores everything in the section above; where it does not, we have said so there. Read both.
Choose PDFMonkey if…
You are fluent in HTML and CSS, your design needs the full browser stack, and your volume sits in the hundreds or low thousands where they are cheaper.
Choose Doc2api if…
You would rather assemble the document visually than write markup, you also need to fill PDFs somebody else designed, you want your own users signing them, or your volume runs to tens of thousands a month.
Decide it in two minutes instead
Upload the actual PDF you need filled and see what comes back. You get a working endpoint and a real API key — no account, nothing to cancel.