Yes. PDFShift’s free account includes 50 credits per month, with no charge or credit card required. You can also try its Playground without an account to explore conversion options, but you need an account and API key to test authenticated API requests.
Two ways to try PDFShift
Use the Playground without an account
PDFShift’s Playground lets you explore conversion customization and code samples without first registering. It is useful for trying settings, but it is distinct from sending requests through the API. See PDFShift’s FAQ for its explanation of the Playground and free trials.
Use the API with a free account
To test actual API requests, create a free account, log in, and authenticate the request with your API key. The free allowance is 50 credits per month, according to PDFShift’s pricing page and FAQ. These are vendor-published plan terms and can change.
How the 50-credit allowance works
A credit does not always equal one conversion. PDFShift counts credits according to the generated PDF’s size: one credit covers up to 5 MB, and larger files use additional credits, rounded up. For example, PDFShift says a 23 MB output uses five credits. The rule is described in its credit-counting Help Center article.
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So, to estimate whether a test will fit the monthly allowance, check the generated file size as well as the number of requests. Fifty ordinary small outputs may fit within 50 credits; larger PDFs can use more than one credit each.
Free-plan limits to check before testing
PDFShift’s pricing page lists a 15 MB maximum file size and a 30-second timeout for the free plan. It also lists features such as CSS and JavaScript injection, advanced headers and footers, encryption, and watermark among basic features; some options, including no file-size limit and parallel or asynchronous responses, are not included in the free-plan listing. Check the current plan details if a test depends on a particular feature or limit.
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Avoid watermarks in API tests
For watermark-free free conversions, send an authenticated request with the X-API-Key header. PDFShift’s Help Center says free users can make 50 conversions without a watermark when authenticated; unauthenticated requests may receive a watermark even if the sandbox setting is false. If a test PDF unexpectedly has a watermark, verify that the API-key header is present and correct. See PDFShift’s watermark troubleshooting article, whose API-key header guidance was updated on 2025-05-06.
Keep HTML conversion tests efficient
When you already have the markup, submitting raw HTML as the source value can avoid a separate network request to fetch the HTML page. PDFShift’s Python guide for raw HTML conversion recommends this approach as a way to reduce network requests and conversion time. It does not remove the free plan’s output-size or timeout limits.
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ScreenshotNeo is a separate tool for checking the page visually
If you want to inspect how a web page looks before converting it, ScreenshotNeo is a screenshot API and MCP server, not an HTML-to-PDF conversion service. It can capture a URL as an image or PDF; its clean-shot workflow removes known consent banners, newsletter popups, and chat widgets before capture. Bot checks, blank pages, timeouts, failed loads, and cache hits are not billed. AI agents can use its MCP server tools. Learn more at ScreenshotNeo.
For example, this cURL request captures a URL as a WebP image. See the ScreenshotNeo API documentation for request options.
curl -G "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot" -d access_key=YOUR_API_KEY --data-urlencode url=https://stripe.com -o shot.webpScreenshotNeo includes 1,000 screenshots per month on its free plan with no card required; paid plans start at $5 for 3,000. It is for visual screenshots, not a replacement for PDFShift’s HTML-to-PDF conversion. Sign up for ScreenshotNeo’s free plan.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Can I try PDFShift without creating an account?
Yes. Use the Playground to explore customization; API testing requires a free account and API key.
Does a 50-credit allowance mean 50 PDFs of any size?
No. Credit use depends on generated PDF size, with each 5 MB or fraction thereof counting as one credit.
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