What Our PDF API Actually Exposes — Credits, Limits and the Browser Boundary
API pages tend to grow faster than APIs. Ours now lists only the routes that finish without a browser: account, Redact and Compare. That is deliberate. An endpoint that cannot complete its workflow is worse than no endpoint at all.
What is live today
- GET /v1/me — account, plan and live credit balance; 1 credit per call.
- POST /v1/redact-pdf — find patterns, text or images, and
return a redacted PDF with
apply=1. Free. - POST /v1/compare-pdf — stats, changed blocks and key differences between two PDFs. Free.
All three take a bearer key from My Account. Results are JSON with a download link that lives for two hours; originals are never modified in place.
What is not in the API
What the API charges today
Only three routes exist: GET /v1/me costs 1 credit, while
POST /v1/redact-pdf and POST /v1/compare-pdf cost 5
credits each. There are no merge or OCR API charges because those tools are not
API endpoints. The live rates are on the Plans & pricing page.
Why E-Signer is not a route
Signing is a browser workflow twice over: the sender places fields on the page, and the recipient opens a link and signs. An HTTP client cannot see the layout or operate that page, so an “e-sign API” would stop before the job is finished. Envelopes live in the E-Signer dashboard; the API does not create or sign them.
Keys and file retention
Treat an API key like a password: one key per application, rotate it if it has been pasted into a public repository, and never put it in browser-side JavaScript. Uploaded files are temporary working copies with an unguessable id; they are not a document store. Keep the originals in your own storage and treat the API response as the derived copy. The Security page lists the controls and the retention window.
What to measure before upgrading
Track three numbers for a month: successful calls, failed calls, and the credit balance at the end. Redact and Compare are paid (5 credits each), so a busy month is visible in the balance; account calls cost 1. If retries or peak-month spikes do consume credits, a larger plan is cheaper than a failed batch. Because unused credits roll over, a quiet month is not wasted.
E-Signer is browser-only. Someone has to place the recipient’s signature fields visually, and the recipient has to open a signing page and sign it. An HTTP client can do neither, so there is no API route to create, sign, list or poll envelopes. The E-Signer dashboard remains the right place for that work.
The same test removes merge, compress, convert and the editor from the API for now: their useful workflow is interactive and file-heavy. They stay free in the browser rather than being advertised as half-working endpoints.
What a credit buys
Credits are the prepaid balance attached to a Commercial account. Today the
only paid API routes are GET /v1/me at 1 credit and Redact and
Compare at 5 credits each. Plans still include a monthly credit allowance, and unused credits
roll over instead of expiring. We list live API rates on the
Plans & pricing page and do not publish per-tool prices
for routes that do not exist.
Keys, limits and safety
API keys are shown once and stored only as a hash. A revoked key stops
working immediately. Per-key and per-IP rate limits answer 429
with Retry-After, uploads are capped by size and page count, and a
banned or unentitled account cannot use a live key. The
API page documents the three routes and their request fields.
Getting started
Create an account, activate a Commercial plan if you need API keys, then
create the key in My Account and call GET /v1/me first. If a
browser tool can do the job, use the browser tool — it stays free.