PDF Expert
PDF Expert develops native Apple platform PDF editing applications for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, providing AI-powered PDF Copilot, OCR, annotation, signing, and conversion tools for individual consumers, students and educators, small businesses, and enterprise teams worldwide.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2007
- HeadquartersDublin, Ireland
- Headcount101–250
- GTM typeB2B and B2C
- OfferingSoftware
What PDF Expert does
PDF Expert is a native Apple platform PDF editing, viewing, and management application developed and owned by Readdle, a privately held company founded in 2007. The product portfolio centers on PDF Expert for Mac and PDF Expert for iPhone/iPad, built natively on iOS and macOS with deep integration of Apple technologies including iCloud, Apple Pencil, and platform MDM. Feature surface includes advanced PDF editing (text, images, links, signatures), electronic signing, form filling, page organization, conversion to Word/Excel/PPT/JPG, OCR with an AI-powered 'Enhance' feature, and an annotation toolkit. The 2024 addition of PDF Copilot brought AI-driven summarization, question answering, translation, and explanation, available both inside the apps and via a browser-based web tool (copilot.pdfexpert.com) that extends AI functionality to Windows users. All document processing is performed locally on the user's device or in connected cloud storage (iCloud, Dropbox), preserving privacy.
The company operates a freemium, product-led growth model. Premium unlock tiers include a $4.99/week subscription, a $79.99/year annual plan (effective $1.53/week), and a $139.99 one-time lifetime license for Mac, with a 50% educational discount for verified students and educators. A 7-day free trial drives top-of-funnel conversion. Distribution combines the App Store and Mac App Store for self-serve consumer acquisition, direct website sales, an Impact-powered affiliate program offering up to 40% commission, and StackCommerce-led promotional channels. Enterprise motion is supported through PDF Expert Business with MDM integration, centralized billing, dedicated sales, and vertical landing pages for construction, legal, automotive, energy, and wholesale. Named customers include Pala Aerospace (enterprise) and SMB case studies High-Cotton Custom Homes (construction) and Firstyle (retail).
Scale signals include 30M worldwide users, 4.7-star average across 211K App Store ratings, availability in 100+ countries and 11 languages, and headcount of 101–250 employees under parent Readdle. Cumulative Readdle-wide app downloads total 194M, supporting Spark email, Scanner Pro, Documents, Calendars, and PDF Expert. The company has earned Apple's 'App of the Year Runner-up' and 'Editors' Choice' recognition and sustained press coverage from iMore, Cult of Mac, Macworld, ZDNet, TechRadar, MacStories, and AppleInsider.
PDF Expert firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- PDF Expert
- Legal name
- Readdle Limited
- Website
- https://pdfexpert.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2007
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 101–250 employees
- Short description
- PDF Expert develops native Apple platform PDF editing applications for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, providing AI-powered PDF Copilot, OCR, annotation, signing, and conversion tools for individual consumers, students and educators, small businesses, and enterprise teams worldwide.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
PDF Expert industry classification
Industry- Product category
- PDF and Document Management Software
- NAICS
- Software Publishers (5132), Software Publishers (513210)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Accessible Content & Document Remediation Tools (EPUB/PDF/Video Accessibility, Alt-Text, WCAG Workflows) (EDAFAKAE)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Content Asset Libraries & Template Marketplaces (stock, characters, themes) (EDAFAHAI), Accessibility & Inclusive Design Tooling for Authoring (WCAG/508) (EDAFAHAL)
Keywords
Where PDF Expert is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Dublin
- HQ country
- Ireland
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices1 record
Markets served
PDF Expert business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B and B2C
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Operations
Revenue model
- Subscription (Annual): Annual subscription at $79.99 per year ($1.53/week), providing access to all premium features including updates, all platform versions, PDF Copilot AI, OCR, and priority support. Includes 30-day money-back guarantee.
- Subscription (Weekly): Weekly subscription at $4.99/week with no commitment, cancelable anytime. Includes all premium features and updates.
- One-Time Purchase (Lifetime): One-time purchase at $139.99 for lifetime access with unlimited usage on personal macOS devices. Includes permanent support and bug fixes. Additional new features may require extra fees.
- Educational Discount: 50% discount on annual plan for verified students and educators with valid .edu email addresses.
- Affiliate Commission: Up to 40% commission per successful sale paid to affiliates through the Impact platform, with unlimited earning potential.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Monthly | Weekly subscription with full premium access |
| Subscription | Annual | Annual subscription with best value pricing |
| One time/ perpetual license | Pay-as-you-go | Lifetime one-time purchase for Mac |
| Subscription | Annual | Educational pricing - 50% student/teacher discount |
Go-to-market motion3 records
Distribution channels5 records
Marketing channels8 records
PDF Expert product offering
Product offeringCore offering
PDF Expert is a native Apple platform application for Mac, iPhone, and iPad that enables users to read, edit, annotate, sign, fill forms, convert, and organize PDF documents. The product suite includes AI-powered PDF Copilot for summarization and translation, OCR for scanned documents, and enterprise-grade features such as MDM integration for business deployment.
Product overview
PDF Expert is a unified product portfolio of PDF editing, reading, and management applications developed by Readdle for Apple devices (Mac, iPhone, iPad). The core offering consists of PDF Expert for Mac and PDF Expert for iPhone/iPad, both built on the same technology platform with feature parity. The product family includes AI-powered PDF Copilot (both integrated within the apps and available as a standalone web tool for Windows users), enterprise-focused PDF Expert Business with MDM integration and compliance features, and a free PDF Templates Library. The portfolio operates on a freemium model with Premium subscriptions (weekly, annual, and lifetime tiers) unlocking advanced editing, OCR, conversion, and AI features. The products work seamlessly across Apple devices via iCloud synchronization, while maintaining local-first document processing for privacy.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- PDF Expert for Mac Feature-rich PDF editor and reader for macOS with advanced editing, annotation, form filling, signing, conversion, and OCR capabilities. Requires macOS Monterey or later.
- PDF Expert for iPhone and iPad PDF editing and reading application for iOS devices with full feature parity including editing, annotation, form filling, signing, and AI-powered PDF Copilot. Available on iPhone and iPad.
- PDF Copilot AI-powered assistant for PDF interaction enabling summarization, question answering, translation, key point extraction, and document explanation. Available as web-based tool and integrated within PDF Expert iOS/Mac apps.
- PDF Expert Business Enterprise-focused version with MDM integration, cloud access control, password protection, compliance features, and centralized billing for teams. Designed for organizations in construction, automotive, energy, legal, and wholesale industries.
- PDF Copilot Web Browser-based AI tool for Windows users to chat with PDFs for summarizing, translating, key point extraction, and more. Accessed via copilot.pdfexpert.com.
Quantifiable outcome
- 30 million users worldwide
- +3 more outcomes
Companies that use PDF Expert
Customer profileNamed customers3 records
Segments9 records
Ideal customer profiles4 records
PDF Expert technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration3 records
AI capability7 records
Feature7 records
PDF Expert partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Five partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.
- Impact (Platform)corePDF Expert uses the Impact platform for its affiliate program, providing advanced tracking solutions and intuitive dashboards for partners to monitor their performance data. The platform enables 40% commission payouts and 30-day cookie tracking for affiliate sales.
- FluixminorFluix is positioned as the business successor for PDF Expert, offering automated document sharing, approval workflows, and team signing capabilities for enterprise teams. Recommended for construction teams needing cloud-based workflow automation beyond PDF editing.
- ReaddlecorePDF Expert is developed and owned by Readdle, a privately held Ukrainian company behind popular productivity apps including Spark email, Scanner Pro, Documents, and Calendars. Readdle has been on the App Store since day one with 194 million total app downloads.
- StackCommerce/StackSocialminorStackCommerce manages promotional deals for PDF Expert, offering limited-time discounts (50% off) through affiliate marketing channels like 9to5Toys and Neowin Deals.
- ApplecorePDF Expert is built natively for Apple devices and has received recognition as 'App of the Year Runner-up' and 'Editors' Choice' from Apple. The app is distributed through the App Store and Mac App Store and integrates deeply with Apple platform technologies including iCloud, Apple Pencil, and macOS features.
Scale indicators4 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
PDF Expert competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Smallpdf: Smallpdf offers a consumer- and SMB-focused suite of PDF tools including conversion, compression, editing, e-signing, and AI features. It competes directly with PDF Expert on consumer subscriptions and freemium-driven acquisition.
- Able2Extract Professional: Investintech's Able2Extract Professional is a cross-platform PDF editor with strong conversion, OCR, and editing capabilities. It competes directly with PDF Expert, particularly with users who need robust PDF-to-Office conversion workflows.
- iLovePDF: iLovePDF is a popular web-first PDF tool suite covering merge, split, convert, compress, edit, and sign workflows. It competes directly with PDF Expert on consumer PDF manipulation, especially for users not wanting to install desktop software.
- Adobe Acrobat: Adobe Acrobat is the industry-standard PDF editor and reader across consumer and enterprise markets. It directly competes with PDF Expert across editing, annotation, conversion, OCR, and signing, with deeper enterprise integrations and broader cross-platform support.
- Foxit PDF Editor: Foxit PDF Editor is a long-standing PDF editing and management suite offering editing, OCR, form filling, and collaboration. It is directly comparable to PDF Expert in functionality and targets similar consumer and enterprise use cases across platforms.
- Wondershare PDFelement: PDFelement is a PDF editor with feature parity on editing, conversion, OCR, signing, and AI-powered features. It directly competes with PDF Expert in the consumer and SMB segments with cross-platform support.
- Nitro PDF Pro: Nitro Pro (now Nitro PDF Pro) offers PDF editing, conversion, e-signature, and document analytics, primarily targeting enterprise and SMB buyers. It competes directly with PDF Expert Business on team workflows and enterprise-grade document management.
- Kofax Power PDF: Kofax Power PDF (formerly Nuance Power PDF) is an enterprise-focused PDF editor for Windows with advanced editing, OCR, and form capabilities. It competes directly with PDF Expert Business in the enterprise and SMB document-management segment.
Emerging players
- PDFgear: PDFgear is a free-and-freemium PDF editor with editing, conversion, OCR, signing, and AI assistant features. It overlaps meaningfully with PDF Expert's consumer value proposition and pressures pricing on free-tier alternatives.
Broad incumbents
- Apple Preview: Apple Preview is the free, built-in macOS application for viewing, annotating, and lightly editing PDFs. It is the primary free alternative PDF Expert must displace on Mac, offering no-cost baseline functionality that anchors the low end of the macOS PDF market.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
PDF Expert social profiles
Digital presencePDF Expert financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
PDF Expert leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles1 record
PDF Expert funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
PDF Expert M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about PDF Expert
What does PDF Expert do?
PDF Expert is a native Apple platform application for Mac, iPhone, and iPad that enables users to read, edit, annotate, sign, fill forms, convert, and organize PDF documents. The product suite includes AI-powered PDF Copilot for summarization and translation, OCR for scanned documents, and enterprise-grade features such as MDM integration for business deployment.
Is PDF Expert a public or private company?
PDF Expert is a private company. It is classified as corporate owned and is currently operating.
When was PDF Expert founded?
PDF Expert was founded in 2007. It employs 101 to 250 people.
Where is PDF Expert based?
PDF Expert is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, in the Europe region.
How does PDF Expert make money?
Five revenue lines are on record. Subscription (Annual) is the primary driver. The others are subscription (Weekly), one-Time Purchase (Lifetime), educational Discount and affiliate Commission.
Who are PDF Expert's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Smallpdf, Able2Extract Professional, iLovePDF, Adobe Acrobat, Foxit PDF Editor, Wondershare PDFelement, Nitro PDF Pro and Kofax Power PDF. PDFgear is listed as an emerging player. Apple Preview is listed as a broad incumbent.
Does PDF Expert have an API?
No public API is recorded for PDF Expert.
What industry is PDF Expert in?
PDF Expert's product category is PDF and Document Management Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is EDAFAKAE, Accessible Content & Document Remediation Tools (EPUB/PDF/Video Accessibility, Alt-Text, WCAG Workflows), with a secondary code of EDAFAHAI, Content Asset Libraries & Template Marketplaces (stock, characters, themes). Its NAICS code is 5132 and its SIC code is 7372.