Pricing, and what the AI costs
Pricing, and what the AI costs
UPDF's individual pricing page lists UPDF Pro at $49.99 a year or $79.99 once for a lifetime license. Its AI Assistant is a separate plan: $79 a year on its own, or $69 a year when added to Pro. UPDF's AI FAQ says plainly that AI Assistant is not included in the UPDF Pro plan. One payment covers up to 4 devices at a time, mixing Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and the web.
On the Pro card we checked, the "UPDF AI Assistant 7-day free trial" option was already ticked, with the line "then auto renew at US$69.00/year. Cancel anytime." If you only want Pro, untick it before you pay.
PDFBetter includes AI credits in every plan (20 a month on Free, 500 on Pro) and shows each action's credit cost before it runs. Pro is $15 a month, or $10 a month billed yearly; checkout contains only the plan you chose. There is no lifetime license.
The free plan
The free plan
UPDF's free-vs-paid page says the free version lets you view, annotate and lightly edit, but adds a "Trial Watermark" to the top-left corner of every file you save or export, limits files to 10 MB and 100 pages, and allows 2 conversions a day.
PDFBetter's browser tools (merge, split, rotate, images to PDF and similar) run on your device and download free without an account. Downloading a document you edited in the editor needs a free account; the Free plan includes 3 such downloads a month with no watermark, plus 3 signature requests, 1 live form with 50 responses, 20 OCR pages and 20 AI credits. Pro costs $15 a month, or $10 a month billed yearly, and a $6 Day Pass gives 24 hours of Pro without a subscription.
Browser or apps
Browser or apps
UPDF is built around its desktop and mobile apps, and says all of its PDF tools work offline. On the web it offers UPDF AI Online for summaries, translation and chat, UPDF Sign for signature requests, and online converters to Word, Excel and PowerPoint; we found no full PDF editor in the browser.
PDFBetter is a full editor in any modern browser: edit existing text, fill and build forms, sign and request signatures, convert, OCR and redact. PDFBetter has free desktop apps for Mac and Windows that use the same account and documents as the web; its iPhone and iPad app is coming soon to the App Store, and an Android app is coming soon. If you need to work fully offline or on Android, UPDF is the better fit today.
AI that shows its work
AI that shows its work
UPDF's AI summarizes, translates and chats with PDFs and images. Its FAQ says multi-file chat is only in UPDF AI Online; the Windows, Mac, iOS and Android apps don't support it yet. We found no page citations described on its AI pages.
PDFBetter's answers name the page each statement comes from, and every quote from the text is checked word for word against that page before you see it. Pages that are only images, such as photos and scans without OCR, are cited by page, without a quote. Click a citation and the document jumps to the page. Workspaces answer across several documents on every account plan, and the MCP server lets AI agents use the same tools and allowances.
Mind maps, Bates numbers and other professional tools
Mind maps, Bates numbers and other professional tools
UPDF's apps list a long set of professional tools, and several now have a PDFBetter equivalent: Bates numbering across multiple documents, headers and footers, Sanitize PDF, distance, perimeter and area measurement, exporting the comment list as a PDF, and saving as PDF/A. UPDF's OCR recognizes 38 languages. Its AI Assistant, sold separately from Pro, turns a PDF into a mind map you can view, download, share or insert into the PDF on desktop.
In PDFBetter, Bates numbering, headers and footers and Sanitize PDF run in your browser, free and without uploading, and Bates numbering writes a CSV log of every file's range. Measurements export with their values, and comments export as a summary PDF, CSV or JSON. PDF to PDF/A writes PDF/A-2b or PDF/A-3b, checked by PDFBetter's own tests rather than an independent validator. OCR covers 48 languages.
The clearest difference is the mind map. In PDFBetter, every node below the centre has to quote the page it cites, and that quote is checked word for word against the page's text; nodes that fail are removed and counted, so nothing on the map stands without a source. Click a node to read its quote and preview the page. Maps export as PNG, SVG, a PDF page, Markdown or OPML, or are added to the PDF as a last page.
Signing
Signing
UPDF Sign sends documents for signature with signing order, access codes, templates and a certificate report, and UPDF says it complies with AATL, Adobe's approved trust list program.
In PDFBetter, Free includes 3 signature requests a month and Pro is unlimited. Every signer signs with their own cryptographic key. Every completed PDF is digitally sealed and independently time-stamped, with the evidence built into the file. The seal certificate comes from PDFBetter's own certificate authority, which is not on Adobe's trust list yet, so Acrobat shows the signer identity as not verified; change detection still works. PDFBetter signatures are not qualified electronic signatures (QES), and PDFBetter does not run SMS, phone, knowledge-based or government-ID checks.
Refunds
Refunds
UPDF advertises a 30-day money-back guarantee. Its refund policy gives a full refund within 30 days of the first purchase of Pro or a yearly AI plan, 15 days for a monthly AI plan, and 50% up to half the subscription period, and says all refunds are made at UPDF's sole discretion.
PDFBetter refunds the first payment in full if you ask within 14 days, for payments made on pdfbetter.com; App Store purchases are refunded by Apple. You cancel from the billing page in your account.