"Free" means very different things across HTML-to-PDF APIs: a monthly allowance, a one-time pack, a watermark on every page, a 1 MB size cap, no external CSS, or no commercial use. Here are 19 APIs and libraries, from their public pricing pages (checked 17 to 24 October 2026). We run one of them (Shotmint: 25 renders a month with no account); Doppio's 400 a month is bigger, and the list says so.
POST /v1/keys/free returns a key with 25 renders, no watermark, refilled to 25 on the 1st of every month.| API and free tier | After that |
|---|---|
| Doppio 400 documents a month, sync renders, 1 template (checked 21 October) | Premium $16/mo for 4,000 |
| Browserless 1,000 units a month, 2 concurrent browsers (you drive the browser yourself) (checked 21 October) | Prototyping $35/mo for 20,000 units |
| html2pdf.app 100 credits a month, PDFs up to 1 MB (checked 20 October) | Startup $9/mo for 1,000 |
| pdfEndpoint 100 conversions a month with an account, no card (checked 24 October) | $9/mo for 500 |
| Microlink 100 requests a month, no card (checked 18 October) | Pro €39/mo for 46,000 |
| PDFShift 50 credits a month (checked 17 October) | Starter $9/mo for 500 |
| APITemplate.io 50 PDFs or images a month, 3 templates (checked 22 October) | Basic $19/mo for 3,000 |
| CraftMyPDF 50 PDFs or images a month, 3 templates, no card (checked 22 October) | Lite $29/mo for 1,200 |
| PDFMonkey 20 documents a month, no external images, fonts, CSS or JS (checked 21 October) | Starter €5/mo for 300 |
| DocRaptor 5 documents a month, plus unlimited watermarked test documents (checked 20 October) | Basic $15/mo for 125 |
| Shotmint 25 renders a month (PDFs or screenshots), no signup, no card, no watermark | €5 once for 2,000 (credits never expire) |
| API and free tier | After that |
|---|---|
| SelectPdf Free API key with 200 conversions, no card (checked 22 October) | Entry $19/mo for 2,000 |
| API and free tier | After that |
|---|---|
| pdflayer 100 requests a month, non-commercial use only (checked 20 October) | Basic $9.99/mo for 1,000 |
| Pdfcrowd Trial: 100 test credits for one month (checked 21 October) | Micro $11/mo for 200 |
| Prince Non-commercial license, Prince logo on page 1 of every PDF (checked 22 October) | Commercial license (see comparison) |
| EvoPdf Evaluation with a demo stamp on every page (library) (checked 22 October) | Deployment license $450 |
| IronPDF 30-day trial key (library) (checked 22 October) | Lite $999 perpetual |
| Aspose.HTML Evaluation: watermark on every page, 4 pages per document (library) (checked 22 October) | Developer Small Business $999 |
| PDF.co 30-day trial with 10,000 credits (about 1,100 one-page PDFs at 9 credits a page) (checked 24 October) | Basic $9.99/mo for 16,500 credits |
| CloudConvert 10 conversions a day with an account, for personal use, testing and hobby projects (checked 24 October) | $17 once for 1,000, or $9/mo |
Competitor prices are in USD except Microlink and PDFMonkey (EUR); Shotmint is in EUR. Free tiers change, so follow each link to the full comparison and its source pricing page. "After that" is the cheapest paid plan, billed monthly unless noted.
No signup form, no email, no card. One POST returns a key with 25 credits as JSON (one free key per IP address per day), so a script, an AI agent or a Make or Zapier step can get one by itself:
curl -X POST https://shotmint.creasework.com/v1/keys/freeThen use it:
curl -X POST https://shotmint.creasework.com/v1/pdf \
-H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"html":"<h1>Invoice #42</h1>","format":"A4"}' -o invoice.pdfOr a live page: {"url":"https://example.com"}. Every free render is a normal render: no watermark, no page limit, headers, footers and page numbers included. A failed render doesn't use a credit, and GET /v1/account shows the balance.
Or click Generate free key on the pricing page. Reference: API docs, openapi.json.
For a single file, the HTML to PDF and URL to PDF tools run in the browser, 5 a day with no key. Yearly costs at 200, 1,000 and 10,000 PDFs a month: HTML to PDF API pricing compared. Screenshots instead: free screenshot API list.
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).