PDF Expert Review, Pricing & Features

What is PDF Expert?

PDF Expert is an intuitive and mid-level PDF editor with millions of users. It offers effective tools for PDF creation and conversion, content editing, and review and annotation. We recommend PDF Expert to those who need an intermediate solution and have a smaller budget.

Table of Contents

PDF Expert Review Summary

PDF Expert was founded in 2010 and is a platform under Readdle Inc., a software company. Igor Zhadanov is a co-founder and the CEO of Readdle Inc. PDF Expert’s mission is to create the best PDF experience for everyone. Today, PDF Expert’s parent company, Readdle Inc, has over 80,000 employees and is based in Folsom, California.

PDF Expert is a PDF editor that lets you read, annotate and edit PDFs. It offers features for creating and converting PDFs, editing a PDF’s content, and reviewing and annotating PDFs. Overall, the quality of PDF Expert’s features make it an intermediate solution.

In terms of pricing, PDF Expert is a reasonably priced solution. PDF Expert only offers one subscription based plan, which costs $12.49 per month. PDF Expert also offers a lifetime plan that costs $99.99.

Overall, PDF Expert is an intermediate PDF editor platform that is intuitive to use.

  • If you prefer an advanced, all-in-one PDF editor and also use other Adobe products like Adobe Sign and Adobe Scan, then we recommend Adobe Acrobat
  • If you need a solution with a wide range of review and annotation tools, currently use signNow, and have a larger budget, then we recommend pdfFiller
  • If you need a semi-robust platform that is priced reasonably for those who want to long-term invest, then we recommend PDFelement
  • If you need a beginner platform and have a smaller budget, then we recommend Smallpdf

PDF Expert Pricing & Cost

PDF Expert’s pricing ranges from $12.49 per month to $99.99, which is a one-time payment. You can also save up to ~67% if you purchase the annual plan. PDF Expert also offers a 7-day free trial.

PlanPricing
Monthly$12.49 per month
Lifetime$99.99 one-time payment
PDF Expert Pricing

PDF Expert Features

In our review, we will walk through the features offered by PDF Expert. We’ll discuss PDF Expert’s usability, customer support, and describe the major benefits and drawbacks of the software. We’ll also show real images of the software to give you an idea of what it’s like to use the tool.

Creating & Converting PDFs

It’s important that your PDF editor lets you create, and convert your PDFs all in one platform. This is especially true if you are handling a large number of PDFs at once. Overall, while PDF Expert is easy to use, it is very limited when it comes to creating and converting PDFs.

pdfexpert-create-convert

PDF Expert lets you create PDFs from scratch and from a variety of file types – including Word documents, JPEGs, and PNGs. PDF Expert also lets you merge multiple PDFs into one.

However, you cannot scan documents into PDFs or convert your PDFs into another file type like Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, images files, or PowerPoints.

Content Editing

The next step after creating your PDF is to edit its content. Overall, PDF Expert’s content editing features are basic, but effective.

Text Editing

Text is oftentimes the backbone of your PDF, and therefore your PDF editing should offer high quality text editing capabilities. Overall, PDF Expert’s text editing features are basic, but effective.

PDF Expert text

PDF Expert lets you change the font, color, size and typographical emphasis on your text. However, you cannot include bulleted or numbered lists or adjust the spacing within your text box. Therefore, we recommend using PDF Expert if you need to insert simple sentences or make small edits.

PDF Expert also only lets you resize your text box from the left or right side. This means the appearance of your text box relies more on the size of your text and how you input it.

Images

Using images improves the readability of your PDF by assisting your text content and providing visual breaks. Overall, PDF Expert’s image editing features are semi-robust when compared to other solutions.

PDF Expert image

As shown above, PDF Expert also lets you rotate, crop, and replace images in your PDF. Being able to replace your images is helpful if you want to insert a more relevant image, and do not want to deal with resizing it to match the proportions of the previous image.

Electronic Signatures

Many PDF editors let you insert your electronic signatures into your PDFs. However, if you need high-quality electronic signature related features in your PDF editor, we recommend another platform like Adobe Acrobat or pdfFiller.

PDF Expert electronic signature

PDF Expert only lets you insert an electronic signature. However, a major disadvantage is that you cannot insert fields or request signatures from another party.

Page Organization

Page organization can affect how others interpret your PDF – it’s important that your PDF editor can accommodate your page organization needs. Overall, PDF Expert’s page organization features are effective, but best for PDFs with less than 20 pages.

PDF Expert page organization

PDF Expert lets you drag & drop to reorder your PDF pages. You can also:

  • Insert pages
  • Rotate pages
  • Delete pages
  • Extract pages to save as separate PDF files

Reviewing & Annotating

Reviewing and annotating are the next steps for your PDF after you’ve edited its content. PDF Expert offers a wide range of review and annotation tools – including commenting, highlighting, and freehand drawing. However, some of these tools are inconvenient to use.

Commenting

Commenting is one of the easiest methods to use when it comes to collaborating with those in your organization. Overall, PDF Expert’s commenting features are not useful.

pdfexpert-comment

As shown above, this is because comments in PDF Expert are text boxes that cannot be replied to or even moved after they’ve been typed out. You can choose to use PDF Expert’s sticky note feature as a commenting system, but these also cannot be replied to or @mention members in your organization.

Highlighting

Highlighting helps easily indicate which information in your PDF is more important. Overall, PDF Expert’s highlighting feature is inconvenient to use because it can only be used to highlight text that you’ve embedded using PDF Expert. If you want to highlight text that’s already within your PDF, it should be highlighted before you upload your PDF into PDF Expert.

PDF Expert highlighting

Freehand Drawing Tools

PDF Expert lets you freehand draw over your PDF. This feature is useful if you prefer to write down handwritten notes or markings on your PDF. Overall this feature is effective in PDF Expert.

PDF Expert freehand drawing

You can change the color, size, and opacity of your freehand drawing tool. A disadvantage of this tool is you cannot resize it or move it after you’ve drawn with it.

Mobile PDF Editor

PDF Expert offers a mobile PDF editor only Apple and Android. Depending on the platform, mobile PDF editors let you create, edit, review, and annotate your PDFs from anywhere. Overall, PDF Expert’s mobile PDF editor is best for making simple changes or inserting small notes into your PDF.

PDF Expert mobile

PDF Expert’s PDF editor lets you insert text, post-it notes, stamps, and your electronic signature. You can also freehand draw and search within your document. However, you cannot insert images, redact information, or insert form fields.

Legal & Security

Having proper security and data protection for your PDFs are necessary when it comes to your PDF editor. This is because if you experience a data or compliance breach, it can harshly affect you and your business’s reputation, which can be costly to remedy.

Here are some of the security features and compliances that PDF Expert offers:

FeatureOffered by PDF Expert
StampsYes
WatermarkingNo
Redacting Sensitive InformationYes
Password ProtectionYes
Encryption Through CertificateNo
Secure StorageYes
International CompliancesYes (GDPR)
HIPAA ComplianceNo

Customer Support

Overall, PDF Expert’s customer support is below average because it only offers email as a customer support channel. PDF Expert help articles have average readability. They include bolded terms as well as helpful videos, but their articles are very short.

Customer Support ChannelsEmail
Customer Support Availability24/7
Other Support ResourcesFAQs, Knowledge Base
Platform Update NotificationsNo
Application Status PageNo

PDF Expert vs. Competitors

When compared to its competitors, PDF Expert is the most similar to PDFelement. However, PDF Expert is slightly less robust in terms of features. Overall, PDF Expert would classify as an intermediate solution among its competitors.

The top PDF Expert competitors are:

Is It Right For You?

Overall, PDF Expert is an intermediate PDF editor platform that is intuitive to use and affordable.

  • If you prefer an advanced, all-in-one PDF editor and also use other Adobe products like Adobe Sign and Adobe Scan, then we recommend Adobe Acrobat
  • If you need a solution with a wide range of review and annotation tools, currently use signNow, and have a larger budget, then we recommend pdfFiller
  • If you need a semi-robust platform that is priced reasonably for those who want to long-term invest, then we recommend PDFelement
  • If you need a beginner platform and have a smaller budget, then we recommend Smallpdf
Amy Yang

Amy Yang is a Junior Research Analyst at SoftwarePundit, where she conducts in-depth analyses on software markets and products. Amy has expertise in content production and managing digital and social platforms. She has a Bachelor of Science in Communication & Media, and a Minor in Web Programming and Applications from NYU. You can connect with Amy on LinkedIn.

Amy is an expert in several software categories including:

  • Course creation software
  • Electronic signature software
  • Social media software
  • Website builder software