pdfviz vs LightPDF
LightPDF sells monthly, annual and perpetual licences, rations free use to two tasks a day, and spends AI credits on recognition and AI features. pdfviz publishes no limit at all, for the opposite reason: there is no server counting anything. Comparing the two on limits means comparing a task counter and a credit balance with your own device.
What LightPDF charged on 10 September 2026
The page at lightpdf.com/pricing offered a free web only plan beside a premium plan covering five platforms, with a three day free trial. Reviews put the monthly plan at 19.99, the annual plan at 49.99 a year, and a perpetual licence at 109.99 once, including forty thousand AI credits.
The credit mechanics matter more than the headline price. Monthly and yearly plans grant one thousand AI credits a month, and unused credits expire each month. The perpetual plan delivers its forty thousand credits once, valid until used, because credits are what the AI features consume.
The free limits LightPDF publishes
LightPDF's own comparison page restricts free users to two tasks a day and reserves text recognition for premium. Its editor page allows up to five free uses on files under ten megabytes, then asks for premium for unlimited use. An independent review measured the AI chat free tier at one PDF a day up to ten megabytes.
pdfviz has no daily limit and no counter at all, which is easy to state because there is no server to count on. The honest version of that claim is narrower than it sounds: your browser is the limit, and it is a real one on large files.
Credits against a fixed engine
A credit model prices each action, which suits tools with a real per-run cost such as text recognition and AI summarising. It also means the tool you use most is the one that empties the balance, and the balance is the thing you have to think about.
The pdfviz compressor costs nothing per run because it runs on your machine. It races four methods at the size you named, verifies the winner, and you can run it fifty times on fifty drafts without a balance moving.
Feature honesty
LightPDF converts between formats, reads scanned pages and offers AI document features. pdfviz does none of those. Anyone comparing them on feature count is comparing a suite with a utility, and the suite wins that count every time.
The comparison that favours pdfviz is narrower: exact size targets, verified output, no upload, no account needed. Forty-one tools, each of which reads back what it produced and refuses to hand over a file that fails the check.
How to choose
Buy LightPDF if you want text recognition and AI features on a licence rather than a subscription, and price the perpetual option against the annual one over three years. The credits bundled with the perpetual licence are part of that arithmetic.
Use pdfviz for the file jobs in between. The PDF2Go comparison covers the other credit-based free tool, and the converter roundup ranks the field by format pair.
| LightPDF | pdfviz | |
|---|---|---|
| Licensing | LightPDF Annual or perpetual | pdfviz Free No account needed. |
| Unlimited free use | LightPDF No. Credits Free tier: two tasks a day, editor five uses under ten megabytes. | pdfviz Yes. Not metered |
| Runs without uploading your file | LightPDF No. Uploaded first For the web tools. | pdfviz Yes. Never uploaded |
| What sets the ceiling | LightPDF Your credit balance | pdfviz Your device memory |
The short answer
LightPDF rations free use with a task counter and a credit balance; pdfviz counts nothing because there is no server. Pick LightPDF for recognition and AI features, pdfviz for unlimited file jobs in the browser.
Questions people ask
- What is the LightPDF free limit?
- Free use is capped at two tasks a day, five editor uses on files under ten megabytes, and one AI chat PDF a day up to ten megabytes. The numbers sit on the tool and comparison pages rather than the pricing page, which is why they are easy to miss.
- How much does LightPDF cost?
- Reviews put the plans at 19.99 a month, 49.99 a year, and 109.99 once for a perpetual licence with forty thousand credits. Monthly and yearly plans add one thousand credits a month that expire monthly, while perpetual credits stay valid until used.
- Is a perpetual PDF licence better than a subscription?
- It depends on how long you keep it. Compare the perpetual price against three years of the annual one, then check what upgrades are included and whether any bundled credit pot runs out before the licence does.
- Can I compress the same PDF repeatedly for free?
- Yes, in pdfviz. The work runs on your machine, so there is no credit balance and no counter. Run it against several targets to find the smallest size the document still reads well at.
Where to go next
- Every online PDF tool See every PDF tool on the site on one page, grouped by the job. All free, all in your browser, and your file is never uploaded.
- Compress PDF Make a PDF smaller without turning its text into a picture.
- pdfviz vs PDF2Go Decide between PDF2Go and pdfviz.
- Best PDF converter Pick a converter for the format pair you have.