Schema-first PDF → JSON was the product. What’s new is how you buy and use it — no monthly plans, prepaid wallet, a real free first success, and an MCP server for agents.
TL;DR
| Feature | What it means |
|---|---|
| Pay as you go | ~$6 / 1,000 text pages, ~$24 / 1,000 OCR pages — no subscription |
| Prepaid wallet | Top up from $5, spend down as you parse |
| Free first parse | Your first successful parse is free (no hold / no debit) |
| $5 welcome credit | After first parse + card on file, once |
| MCP | Same API for Cursor / Claude / agents |
| Try free | Playground — no card required to experiment |
Why this billing model
Most PDF APIs push you into seats or opaque “credits.” We wanted something developers and agents can reason about:
- Parse a real doc in the browser.
- If it fits, add a card and top up.
- Usage debits the wallet by page type (text vs OCR).
No annual commit. No “contact sales” to see a price.
Live estimator + details: 0xpdf.io/pricing
Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) rates
Approximate published rates (USD):
- Text / layout pages: about $0.006 / page → ~$6 per 1,000 pages
- OCR pages (scans / image-heavy): about $0.024 / page → ~$24 per 1,000 pages (4× text)
The API routes born-digital pages through fast text extraction and image-only pages through OCR. You pay for what actually ran.
AI schema generation is also wallet-billed (small per-call amount on the same ledger).
Prepaid wallet + Stripe top-ups
Balance lives in a prepaid wallet on your account:
- Minimum top-up: $5
- Card on file via Stripe (Checkout if you don’t have one yet)
- Parses and schema-gen reserve / finalize against available balance so you don’t get surprise overages mid-request
Top up from the dashboard when you’re ready for production volume.
Free first successful parse
Activation shouldn’t require a credit card dance.
Policy: your first successful parse is free — no wallet hold and no debit for that success.
After that, continuing requires payment method + funds (as shown in the product / pricing UI). That matches how we want people to evaluate quality: real PDF → real JSON → then pay.
$5 welcome credit (once)
When you’ve completed a first parse and added a payment method, we grant a $5 signup / welcome credit once.
Promo line we use in-product:
$5 credit when you add a card after your first parse.
It’s meant to cover early experiments after you’ve proven the schema fit — not a forever free plan.
MCP for AI agents
Same auth + wallet as the HTTP API, exposed as MCP tools:
- Sync parse / streaming-style workflows
- Saved schemas + AI schema generation
- Batch-oriented jobs where supported
Discovery / setup: 0xpdf.io/docs#mcp
Agents shouldn’t need a separate “enterprise MCP SKU.” If the wallet can pay for a curl, it can pay for a tool call.
What didn’t change
Still schema-first:
curl -X POST "https://api.0xpdf.io/api/v1/pdf/parse" \
-H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
-F "file=@invoice.pdf" \
-F "schema_template=invoice"
Python: pip install oxpdf · JS: npm install @0xpdf/client
Suggested path
- Playground — upload 3–5 of your PDFs: https://0xpdf.io/samples?utm_source=devto&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=payg-features
- Confirm the JSON shape.
- Sign up → free first success.
- Add card → welcome credit → top up → ship.
Docs: https://0xpdf.io/docs?utm_source=devto&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=payg-features
Built by 0xPdf.
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