Looking for a pdfEndpoint alternative? Here's an honest comparison. pdfEndpoint is an HTML and URL to PDF API sold as monthly plans with a conversion limit and overage charges. Shotmint is a Chromium rendering API: a URL or raw HTML in, a PDF or screenshot out, paid with prepaid credits that never expire.
| Model | Price | Free tier | Unused volume | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| pdfEndpoint | Monthly subscription with a conversion limit; usage beyond it is billed on the next invoice | 500 $9/mo · 1,000 $14/mo · 2,500 $19/mo · 5,000 $24/mo · 10,000 $39/mo · 25,000 $64/mo · 50,000 $129/mo · 100,000 $234/mo · 500,000 $899/mo. Extra conversions $0.04 to $0.005 each | 100 conversions a month with an account, no card; sandbox=true test PDFs are free but watermarked | Unused conversions don't roll over |
| Shotmint | Prepaid credits, no subscription | €5 / 2,000 · €19 / 10,000 · €59 / 50,000 (one-time) | 25 free renders a month, no signup | Never expire |
pdfEndpoint prices are in USD and come from their public pricing page on 24 October 2026. Prices change, so check their current pricing. Shotmint prices are in EUR.
pdfEndpoint is a focused, well-documented PDF API with options we don't have: delivery to your own S3 or Google Cloud Storage bucket with a webhook when the PDF is ready, Liquid templates filled from JSON (parse_liquid, liquid_data), password protection and permissions, image compression to shrink large PDFs, a browser geolocation setting, watermarked sandbox renders that don't count against your limit, and endpoints to list and delete the PDFs it stores. Overage billing means a traffic spike never stops your PDFs, it publishes a 99.99% monthly uptime guarantee, and it offers $75 of credit to bootstrapped companies that already charge customers. Its free plan (100 PDFs a month) is bigger than ours (25). If you need S3 delivery or templates, pdfEndpoint is the better fit.
Your PDF volume is low, irregular or seasonal, or you also want screenshots. pdfEndpoint's allowance resets every month and unused conversions don't roll over, so you pay for the plan whether or not you render. At 200 PDFs a month that is the $9 plan, $108 a year, against €10 on Shotmint (two €5 packs cover the 2,100 beyond the 25 free renders each month); 1,000 a month is $168 a year on the $14 plan against €24 (one €19 pack and one €5 pack); 10,000 a month is $468 a year on the $39 plan against about €156. Our credits never expire, so a quiet month costs nothing, and failed renders are free on both. By default pdfEndpoint answers with JSON and a link to the stored PDF that you download next (delivery_mode inline returns the bytes); POST /v1/pdf returns the PDF bytes directly, or a link kept 24 hours with response=url. It takes a URL or raw HTML with page formats, landscape, margins, backgrounds, header and footer templates, page numbers and your own @page CSS, and the same key makes website screenshots and Open Graph images. A free key with 25 renders a month takes one request with no signup, so a script or a Make or Zapier scenario can get its own (see the Make and Zapier HTML to PDF guides). We don't upload to S3 or fill templates (we do encrypt PDFs with a password), so for those pick pdfEndpoint.
GET /v1/screenshot: PNG, JPEG or WebP screenshots of any URL, with full-page capture, custom viewport, retina scale, a single-element selector, dark mode, transparent backgrounds (omit_background), ad and cookie-banner blocking (block_ads), and hide_selectors.POST /v1/pdf: PDFs from a URL or raw HTML, with format, landscape, margins, backgrounds, header and footer templates, and page numbers.GET /v1/content: the main content of any page or PDF link as Markdown, plain text or clean HTML, with title, author and date, for LLMs and RAG.GET /v1/og: 1200×630 Open Graph cards from a title and subtitle, with signed public URLs you can put straight in an og:image tag.X-Credits-Remaining header.Shotmint is a new, small service. It has small Node and Python SDKs and integration guides, but no enterprise plans, SLA or team accounts yet (measured uptime and render times are public on /status). If you need those, pdfEndpoint may suit you better. If you want an API key in 10 seconds and to pay only for what you use, try it.
ScreenshotOne, Urlbox, PDFShift, ApiFlash, PagePixels, ScreenshotAPI.net, HTML/CSS to Image, Microlink, Screenshot Machine, Screenshotlayer, Bannerbear, Placid, Browshot, Restpack, ScrapingBee, DocRaptor, pdflayer, html2pdf.app, Browserless, PDFMonkey, Doppio, CaptureKit, Pdfcrowd, APITemplate.io, url2png, Firecrawl, CraftMyPDF, IronPDF, SelectPdf, Prince, Aspose.HTML, EvoPdf, PDF.co, CloudConvert, Abstract Screenshot API, GrabzIt. Yearly cost at three volumes: screenshot API pricing and HTML to PDF API pricing.
No signup, no card; the free key refills on the 1st of every month. If you need more, buy credits once: €5 for 2,000, €19 for 10,000, €59 for 50,000. They never expire, and they stack on top of the 25 free renders a month, which every key keeps. From a script, an AI agent, Make or Zapier, POST /v1/keys/free (no body) returns a key as JSON (openapi.json, no-code recipes).