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Free vs Paid on PDFLean: Exactly Which Tools Are Free and Which Use Credits

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Which PDFLean tools are free? Every tool that runs in your browser is free — no upload, no account, no credit. Of PDFLean’s 114+ tools, 99 run entirely in your browser’s private memory, and 15 run on PDFLean’s encrypted cloud servers and use your plan’s quota.

This page is the single authoritative statement of that boundary. The short version: “free” only ever describes browser tools. If a job touches a cloud server, it uses plan quota.

The two rules that decide it

Section titled “The two rules that decide it”
  1. Browser tools (99 in total) run locally — in your browser, with your file never uploaded to any server, and free to use. No account is needed and no credits are consumed.
  2. Cloud tools (15 in total) run on PDFLean’s encrypted cloud servers, so each job uses your plan’s quota. They exist because some jobs — rendering a live webpage to PDF, validating a PDF/A archive, or running an AI model — genuinely need a server. A small trial quota lets you try them; beyond that, see Pricing for what each plan includes.

Every tool page states its mode before you start, in the badge and limits row at the top.

Family by family

Section titled “Family by family”

Convert (into PDF). Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Markdown, images, HTML, and email all become PDFs in your browser — free, with no upload. Four family members need the cloud path because the work cannot be done in a tab: convert Office documents to PDF handles legacy Office formats server-side, save a web page as PDF captures live pages, typeset a PDF with Typst runs the compiler in the cloud, and convert a PDF to structured JSON extracts layout-aware structured data server-side. All four use plan quota.

Convert (out of PDF). PDF to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, HTML, CSV, EPUB, Markdown, and images run in your browser — free, no upload, no account.

Optimize. Compression, grayscale, flattening, metadata removal, repair, and PDF/A conversion are all local and free. The one cloud member is linearize a PDF (Fast Web View): the qpdf linearization pass runs on PDFLean’s encrypted cloud servers and uses quota.

Organize & pages. Merge, split, page organizer, crop, rotate, N-up, booklet, imposition, Bates numbering, watermarks, headers and footers, page numbers — every one of them runs in your browser, free, with nothing uploaded.

Security & sign. Password protection, permissions, unlock, sanitize, redaction, and PII tools are browser-first and free. The family’s server-side members are there because the cryptography or the model needs one: sign a PDF with a digital certificate (PAdES, cloud, uses quota), validate PDF/A compliance (cloud), detect and report PII in a PDF (cloud), check PDF/UA accessibility (cloud), verify a PDF signature (cloud), redact a PDF (cloud: the pikepdf engine removes matched text server-side with a residue-verification report), and detect PII automatically (cloud: server-side NER finds sensitive entities, with per-page attribution in the report).

Smart insights. Most of this family is local and free: page counting, metadata, file-size analysis, annotations, highlights, OCR, scan enhancement, text layers, and speech. The exceptions: extract text from a PDF runs the extraction server-side and uses quota; chat with a long PDF retrieves matching passages in your browser and sends only those passages when you ask for an AI-synthesized answer (requires sign-in and AI credits); and extract key info from a contract sends only the extracted text to the AI model (requires sign-in and AI credits).

Images & barcodes. Image compress, convert, crop, resize, rotate, watermark, batch processing, ID photos, barcode scanning, and QR code generation all run in your browser — free, nothing uploaded.

What a paid plan changes

Section titled “What a paid plan changes”

A subscription buys capacity, not access: larger cloud files, more concurrent cloud jobs, priority queuing, team-shared quota, and AI credits for the AI-powered tools. Browser tools stay free for everyone, paid or not — that is the rule, not a promotion. For current amounts and what each plan includes, see Pricing.

If something goes wrong with a payment

Section titled “If something goes wrong with a payment”
  • A first subscription purchase qualifies for a full self-serve refund within 14 days. Renewal charges are refundable within 72 hours. One-time purchases are refundable within 7 days if unused, and unused prepaid API balance within 30 days of topping up. Each account can use self-serve refunds once per 12-month period.
  • Taxes are calculated at checkout and a compliant invoice is provided; eligible plans support registering a company VAT / Tax ID.
  • These are plain-language summaries. The binding terms live in the refund policy, the cancellation policy, and the billing promise.
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