PDF Candy vs iLovePDF: a fair side-by-side comparison

Our verdict

Pick PDF Candy if you need an unusual conversion, such as an ebook or CAD file to PDF, or if you want to change existing text in a PDF from the browser without creating an account. Its Windows desktop app works fully offline and handles batches for most tools. The $99 lifetime licence will suit people who dislike subscriptions, as long as they accept that it covers one version and its minor updates, not future major upgrades.

Pick iLovePDF if you want a well-documented service that follows you across devices: web, Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android. Its free limits are spelled out per tool, its OCR makes scans searchable and selectable instead of exporting a text file, and iLoveSign gives you signature requests and, on Premium, advanced e-signatures. Premium is listed for 1 to 25 users, and larger organisations can contact them about the Business plan, which adds single sign-on.

On a yearly plan both cost about the same, around $4 a month at the time of writing in October 2026, so price alone rarely decides it. The deciding factors are usually the platform you work on and whether you want OCR output as a searchable document or as plain text.

Consider pdfdots as a third option when the document is private and the job is routine. Most of our tools, including merge, compress, sign and OCR, run inside your browser so the file is never uploaded, and we show no ads. The trade-offs are real: you need a free account, the free plan allows 3 tasks a day at up to 10 MB, we have far fewer tools than PDF Candy, and we have no desktop app.

Pricing and free tiers compared

On paper the two services land in a similar place. PDF Candy advertises its Desktop + Web Yearly plan at $4 a month, presented as a discount from a higher struck-through price, and its Web Monthly plan at $6 a month. The yearly plan's listing also includes its sister services Video Candy Web and Image Candy Web. iLovePDF Premium costs US$7 a month on monthly billing or US$48 a year, which works out to US$4 a month. Both quotes are at the time of writing in October 2026. The iLovePDF iOS app lists its own in-app prices, so check the price where you actually buy.

The free tiers differ more in transparency than in generosity. PDF Candy says its free tier has hourly and page limits, no batch processing and a limited file size, but it does not publish the exact numbers. The one firm figure we found is 50 MB for the online editor, with no watermark. iLovePDF publishes a table of per-tool caps: merge up to 25 files at 100 MB and compress up to 200 MB, but only one file of up to 15 MB for Office conversions and OCR. It describes the overall amount of free processing as limited and gives no number. So iLovePDF tells you more about each tool, but neither tells you how many tasks you can run in a day.

Refund terms also differ. PDF Candy offers a 30-day money-back guarantee for recurring errors that support cannot fix, plus refunds for accidental duplicate purchases and mistaken renewals within short windows. Its policy also lists cases where a refund may be declined. iLovePDF payments are generally non-refundable, except for service failures reported within 15 days and the separate 14-day consumer withdrawal right. Read both policies before buying a yearly plan.

Tools, editing and OCR

PDF Candy is the clear winner on sheer number of tools. Its homepage advertises more than 90 tools, roughly 42 of them for converting other formats into PDF, plus three AI tools for summarising, chatting with and translating a PDF. If your job involves an odd file type, there is a good chance PDF Candy has a dedicated converter for it. Its online editor can also change or delete existing text, adjust font size and colour, add images, highlight, draw freehand and cover content with a filled rectangle.

iLovePDF has fewer tools but covers the mainstream jobs well, and its list includes redaction, PDF comparison, PDF/A conversion and a new PDF Forms tool that detects fields and creates fillable PDFs. Its editor adds text, images, shapes and freehand annotations, one file per task on every plan. AI features such as the summariser and translation require Premium, and so does PDF/A.

OCR is where the two behave most differently. PDF Candy's online OCR supports 19 languages, including Turkish, and gives you an editable text file rather than a searchable PDF, which is handy if you only want the words. iLovePDF's OCR turns a scanned PDF into a searchable, selectable document, but the free plan allows one file of up to 15 MB per task, and PDF to Word with OCR requires Premium.

Privacy, deletion and company location

Both services upload your file to their servers, and both commit to deleting it within two hours. PDF Candy adds that it makes no backups of uploaded or processed files, that you can ask for earlier deletion, and that files are protected with 256-bit AES encryption in transit and at rest on ISO 27001-certified provider infrastructure in the EU and the USA. iLovePDF holds ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification itself, processes personal data in the EEA by default, and lets paying users pick a processing region. One exception to note: iLovePDF keeps documents signed through iLoveSign for up to five years to meet legal requirements.

Both companies are based in the EU, in Cyprus and Spain respectively, and both say they comply with GDPR. Their privacy policies are worth reading. PDF Candy's policy names its third-party processors, such as Google Analytics, Paddle and Brevo, and allows targeted advertising in some contexts, even though its pricing page lists no ads for the free plan. iLovePDF's free plan shows ads, and Premium removes them.

pdfdots takes a different route. Most tools run entirely in your browser tab, so the file is never uploaded. Office conversions, PDF/A, grayscale and HTML to PDF run on our server in Nuremberg, Germany, and the file is deleted right after the result is returned. Files you choose to keep in My files are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM.

Apps and signing

iLovePDF covers far more devices. It has desktop apps for Windows and Mac that can process files offline, and mobile apps for iOS and Android. At the time of writing, the iOS app is rated 4.8 out of 5 from about 52,000 ratings. Its pricing table marks the desktop and mobile apps as not included in the free plan. PDF Candy's desktop app runs only on Windows and works fully offline, with more than 35 tools including OCR and batch processing. PDF Candy's own site does not mention a native mobile app, so Mac and phone users rely on the browser version.

For signing, PDF Candy lets you type, draw or upload a signature, place it several times, and then share or download the result. Its sign page does not describe a way to request signatures from other people. iLovePDF's iLoveSign handles both: unlimited self-signing on every plan, a limited number of signature requests for free, and advanced electronic signatures on Premium. pdfdots sits in between. Sign PDF places your own signature in the browser, and Studio can send a document for signature with ordered signers, reminders, an audit trail and a certificate page. Each signer gets an e-mail invitation with a private link, and reminders go out automatically. It is a simple electronic signature, not a qualified one.

When PDF Candy or iLovePDF is the better choice than pdfdots

We would rather you use the right tool than ours. In some situations, both competitors are clearly better than pdfdots:

• You need a rare format conversion such as ebook, CAD or an unusual image type: PDF Candy's catalogue is far larger than our 37 tools.
• You want to use a tool once without creating any account: both PDF Candy and iLovePDF allow that, and pdfdots does not.
• You work offline on a desktop: PDF Candy has a Windows app and iLovePDF has Windows and Mac apps; we have no desktop app.
• You process very large files: their paid plans go up to 500 MB per task (PDF Candy) or 4 GB for most tools (iLovePDF), more than the 250 MB limit on our top Gold plan.
• Your company needs advanced electronic signatures or single sign-on: iLovePDF offers AES on Premium and SSO on Business.
• You want to merge many files in one go for free: iLovePDF's free merge accepts up to 25 files, while our free plan counts each job against 3 daily tasks.

Where pdfdots fits in

pdfdots is a smaller toolkit for everyday tasks on documents you would rather not upload: merging scans, compressing an attachment, signing a contract, running OCR on a receipt. Because most tools run locally in your browser, the file stays on your device, and there are no ads on any plan. The free plan gives you 3 tasks a day with files up to 10 MB and 100 MB of My files storage. Bronze at $2.99 a month raises that to 20 tasks a day, 25 MB files and 1 GB of storage. Silver ($5.99) and Gold ($11.99) remove the daily task limit and raise file sizes to 100 MB and 250 MB.

The same account works in the PDF Dots mobile app for iPhone and Android, and we offer fillable templates such as an invoice, an NDA and a resume. If that matches your routine, try it for the jobs below. If you need dozens of niche converters or a desktop app, PDF Candy or iLovePDF will serve you better.

Tools to try instead

Frequently asked questions