10 Best PDF Editors of 2026

Foxit sells two subscriptions. PDF Editor costs $129.99 per user per year and covers professional editing, conversion, OCR, forms and document security on Windows, macOS and the web. PDF Editor+ costs $159.99 and adds the iOS and Android apps, Foxit eSign Essentials with 150 envelopes a year and AI-powered Smart Redact for automatic removal of personal data. Monthly billing starts at $10.99, and anyone who dislikes subscriptions can buy Foxit PDF Editor 14 outright for $209.99 per user. Both subscriptions include Foxit DMS with unlimited cloud storage, automatic updates and 300 free AI credits a month; a $49.99 yearly add-on raises that to 2,000 credits for summaries, translation and data extraction. Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial that needs no card. For freelancers the base plan covers most daily tasks, while teams that sign contracts on phones will want Editor+.

PDFelement's individual store lists quarterly, yearly, two-year and perpetual plans, each in a single-platform and cross-platform version. The auto-renewing yearly plan costs US$67.99 for one platform and US$76.99 across platforms, and a quarterly plan starts at US$11.99. A perpetual license for PDFelement 13 starts at US$51.99, though mobile and web access on that license is offered for a limited time only. The prices are shown against higher list prices, so treat them as current offers. Paid plans cover editing, conversion, compression, batch processing, OCR, document compare, fillable forms, data extraction, redaction and certificate signatures, plus 20 GB or 100 GB of PDFelement Cloud storage and a set number of eSign requests and AI uses. The free trial runs 14 days, with watermarks and file limits on many tools. For a freelancer who edits, signs and compresses files every week, it is one of the cheapest complete editors with published US prices.

Adobe sells Acrobat to individuals in three tiers. Acrobat Standard covers the standard PDF toolset, Acrobat Pro adds the full toolset, and Acrobat Studio bundles Pro with AI tools and Adobe Express. Across the tiers Adobe lists more than 70 PDF tools: editing text and images with automatic reflow, exporting to Word, Excel and PowerPoint, combining file types, comparing versions, creating and signing forms, requesting signatures and tracking responses, password protection and redaction. Studio adds the AI Assistant for summaries and answers, PDF Spaces that gather several files into a shared, AI-guided hub, and Express templates for resumes, reports and invoices. Plans can be billed monthly, annual paid monthly or annual prepaid. The pricing page here loads prices by location and did not show US dollars, so our price check is pending. Acrobat remains the format's reference product, but most freelancers can get the core tasks done for less elsewhere.

Power PDF is the editor Tungsten Automation, formerly Kofax, sells for people who would rather not subscribe. Standard for Windows costs $129 once and covers PDF creation, editing and export in an Office-style interface that works with Microsoft Office 2010 to 2019 and 365. Advanced, at $179, adds e-signature, batch processing, Bates numbering and stamping, advanced redaction, password protection and integration with SharePoint and iManage, which explains its following among small law practices. Power PDF for Mac costs $129 and handles editing, annotation, conversion to Word, Excel and images, page organization and form signing. The Business edition is a subscription for 5 or more users with Citrix and Windows Server support, a Cloud Editor and a Microsoft Teams app. Tungsten offers a 30-day money back guarantee on individual Windows licenses and says more than 15 million people use Power PDF. Mobile and web editing are not part of the individual editions.

PDF Expert from Readdle is built for Apple devices. Its Premium plan comes in two forms: a yearly subscription that covers the iPhone, iPad and Mac versions, and a one-time Lifetime license for the Mac version only. Premium includes editing of PDF text, images and links, annotation, conversion to Word, Excel and PowerPoint, OCR text recognition, document signing, PDF translation and PDF Copilot, an AI assistant for working with documents. Readdle offers a 30-day money back guarantee and a 30 percent education discount on the annual plan, and says PDF Expert has 30 million users. The Lifetime license includes continued support and bug fixes, but Readdle notes that new features may cost extra. There is no Windows version, and the Mac app requires macOS Monterey or later. The pricing page showed local currency from our location, so the USD check is pending.

PDFgear offers its editor for free, without an account, on Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android, plus a set of browser tools. The desktop and mobile apps edit text, images and shapes, convert to and from Word, merge, split, compress and sign PDFs, and the Windows version states that educational and business features are free as well. PDFgear also offers AI features for summarizing and working with documents, and a separate e-signing platform, eSignGear, for sending documents and collecting legally binding signatures from clients. The site explains how the company sustains a free product on its own trust page. What you give up compared with paid editors is the depth of professional tools such as Bates numbering, document compare or managed team licenses. For a freelancer who mainly fills, signs, merges and compresses files, PDFgear covers the common jobs at no cost.

PDF-XChange Editor is a long-running Windows editor sold on a perpetual license. Editor costs $62 and Editor Plus $79 for one user, each with a year of maintenance; renewing within 30 days of expiry costs about 25 percent of the original price per year, and the software keeps working if you skip it. A free version can be downloaded with about 70 percent of features unrestricted, which makes it easy to test. Editor Plus adds an enhanced OCR engine, tools to create and edit fillable forms, dynamic JavaScript stamps, a document compare tool, automatic detection of form fields and a placeholder tool for signature and initial locations. The vendor offers user packs from 3 seats up to corporate site licenses and provides portable, MSI and ARM64 installers for IT teams. The interface is dense and there are no Mac or mobile apps, but few editors offer this much for a one-time $62.

FineReader PDF is ABBYY's PDF application, and its focus is OCR. The Windows Standard edition opens, edits and organizes PDFs, lets you rewrite paragraphs and edit tables almost as in a Word file, fills forms, adds Bates numbering and stamps, and protects files with redaction, passwords and digital signatures. Its AI-based OCR turns scans and paper into searchable, editable documents, and it can extract text and tables in one click and convert PDFs to Word. The Corporate edition adds document comparison and Hot Folder, which converts up to 5,000 pages a month automatically. A separate FineReader PDF for Mac focuses on OCR and conversion. ABBYY sells yearly and 3-year subscriptions, plus monthly terms on Windows, with volume licensing for teams. The store showed euro prices from our location, so the USD check is pending. If most of your PDFs start as scans, it is the strongest option here.

Nitro sells three PDF products. Nitro PDF Standard is a per-user subscription, billed annually, with tools to create, convert, combine, edit, annotate and share PDFs, a Nitro Admin portal for managing a team, AI tools, integrations and 24/7/365 support. Nitro PDF Plus is aimed at larger organizations and adds single sign-on, domain control, Azure Information Protection and Nitro Analytics reports on usage and savings. Nitro PDF Classic is a Windows-only license paid once for three years of use, with core editing, combining, splitting and password security in an Office-style interface. E-signing is sold separately as Nitro Sign, and Nitro also offers AI Smart Redact for high-volume redaction. Buyers can purchase up to 20 subscription licenses online; larger orders go through sales. The pricing page loads its figures by location, so our USD check is pending.

Smallpdf runs in the browser and on mobile, with more than 30 tools for compressing, converting, merging, editing and signing PDFs. The free plan gives access to the tools with limited downloads and a Sign.com account limited to 2 documents a month. Pro removes the download limits and adds strong and batch compression, text editing, OCR, unlimited use of the AI-powered tools, full mobile access and a Sign.com Premium subscription for e-signatures. Team covers 2 to 19 seats with discounted pricing, centralized billing and member management, and Business is quoted for 20 or more users. Conversion covers Word, Excel and PowerPoint in both directions. Prices on the page load by location and did not render in US dollars here, so our check is pending. Smallpdf suits people whose PDF work is mainly compressing attachments, converting files and collecting signatures, rather than detailed editing.