What is Baidu Unlimited OCR?
Earlier this year, Baidu open-sourced Unlimited OCR under the MIT license — a model that can read dozens of pages of text in a single pass. It handles everything from printed Chinese invoices to handwritten English forms, all without splitting each page individually.
Sounds amazing, right? There's just one problem.
The Catch: You Need a Chinese Phone Number
To use Baidu's cloud APIs directly, you need:
- A Chinese mainland phone number (实名认证 / real-name verification)
- A Chinese ID or passport scan in some cases
- A WeChat or Alipay account with a Chinese bank card to add funds
Just search "Baidu OCR API without Chinese phone" on any developer forum and you'll find dozens of threads. Developers from the US, Europe, and Southeast Asia all share the same frustration: the technology is world-class, but the onboarding is region-locked.
The Solution: One Curl Command, No Registration
GoldBean API bridges this gap. It gives you instant access to Baidu's full AI suite — no Chinese phone number, no real-name verification, no credit card minimums.
curl -X POST "https://goldbean-api.xyz/paid/baidu-ocr-accurate" \
-F "image=@document.jpg"
That's it. One command, and you get back structured text from your image.
Code Example: Processing a Chinese Invoice with Fetch
const formData = new FormData();
formData.append('image', imageFile);
const response = await fetch('https://goldbean-api.xyz/paid/baidu-ocr-accurate', {
method: 'POST',
body: formData
});
const result = await response.json();
console.log(result.words_result);
The same pattern works for:
- 身份证识别 (ID card OCR)
- 发票识别 (invoice OCR)
- 通用文字识别 (general text OCR)
- 表格识别 (table OCR)
Beyond OCR: The Full Baidu AI Suite
GoldBean exposes Baidu's entire AI catalog without any registration friction:
| Service | Endpoint | Use Case |
|---|---|---|
| OCR Accurate | /paid/baidu-ocr-accurate | High-accuracy text extraction |
| Translation | /paid/baidu-translate | 200+ language pairs |
| TTS | /paid/baidu-tts | Text-to-speech (Chinese + English) |
| ASR | /paid/baidu-asr | Speech-to-text recognition |
| ERNIE Bot | /paid/baidu-llm-chat | Baidu's flagship LLM |
| Image Recognition | /paid/baidu-image-recognition | Object/scene detection |
| Face Detection | /paid/baidu-face-detect | Face analysis & detection |
| NLP | /paid/baidu-nlp | Sentiment, grammar, entity extraction |
Three Payment Methods: Pick What Works for You
1. x402 (USDC micro-payments) — Each API call costs $0.01-0.08, deducted in real-time. No subscription, no minimum balance. Perfect for experimenters and small projects.
2. PayPal — Standard pay-as-you-go. Top up with your PayPal account.
3. Alipay — For users who prefer Alipay.
GoldBean is one of the few API marketplaces that supports all three payment rails simultaneously.
What You Can Build
- A cross-border invoicing app that extracts Chinese invoice data automatically
- A travel assistant that translates menus and signs via OCR + translation
- A compliance tool that reads Chinese ID cards and passports
- An accessibility tool that converts Chinese text to speech
Try It Now
# OCR a document
curl -X POST "https://goldbean-api.xyz/paid/baidu-ocr-accurate" -F "image=@test.jpg"
# Translate a phrase
curl -X POST "https://goldbean-api.xyz/paid/baidu-translate" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"text": "\u4f60\u597d\u4e16\u754c", "from": "zh", "to": "en"}'
No signup. No Chinese phone number. Just your API key and a payment method.
GoldBean API is a pay-per-use AI API marketplace. Prices range from $0.01 to $0.08 per call depending on the service. Visit goldbean-api.xyz for the full catalog.
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