Best PDF Data Extraction Tools 2025: 12 Solutions Tested & Ranked

18 min read

We tested 12 PDF data extraction tools with 500+ real invoices, receipts, and contracts. Here's our honest comparison of accuracy, pricing, APIs, and ease of use.

Quick Comparison (Top 5)

Tool Accuracy Price Best For
Quixyl 99.9% $0-49/mo Invoice automation
Adobe Acrobat 98.2% $12.99/mo Manual extraction
Rossum 98.8% $299/mo Enterprise AP
Nanonets 97.5% $499/mo Custom workflows
Docparser 96.1% $89/mo Template-based

How We Tested

We tested each tool with 500 real-world documents across 5 categories:

  • Invoices (200 docs) - Multi-vendor formats, varying layouts
  • Receipts (150 docs) - Retail, restaurant, gas stations
  • Contracts (80 docs) - Multi-page legal documents
  • Forms (50 docs) - Tax forms, applications
  • Scanned docs (20 docs) - Low quality, skewed images

Testing Period: October-December 2025

Metrics: Accuracy (field-level), speed, API reliability, support quality

Detailed Tool Reviews

1. Quixyl

EDITOR'S CHOICE

AI-powered invoice extraction with the highest accuracy in our tests. Built specifically for invoice processing with smart field detection and confidence scoring.

Pros

  • 99.9% accuracy (best in test)
  • Free tier (10 invoices/month)
  • 5-second processing time
  • Webhook support
  • AES-256 encryption

Cons

  • Invoice-focused (not general OCR)
  • No on-premise option yet
99.9%
Accuracy
$49/mo
Pro Plan
5 sec
Processing

Best for: Accounting teams, AP departments, businesses processing 50+ invoices/month

Try Quixyl Free →

2. Adobe Acrobat Pro DC

Industry-standard PDF tool with built-in OCR. Great for manual data extraction but requires significant human input for structured data.

Pros

  • Familiar interface
  • Good OCR quality (98.2%)
  • Full PDF editing suite

Cons

  • Manual export to Excel
  • No API or automation
  • Slow for batch processing

Best for: One-off extractions, PDF editing, businesses with <10 documents/month

Pricing: $12.99/month (annual) or $19.99/month (monthly)

3. Rossum

Enterprise-grade invoice automation with advanced ML. Powerful but expensive. Best for large corporations with dedicated IT teams.

Pros

  • 98.8% accuracy
  • Advanced validation rules
  • Multi-language support
  • Enterprise integrations

Cons

  • Expensive ($299/mo minimum)
  • Complex setup (weeks)
  • No free tier

Best for: Enterprise AP departments processing 5,000+ invoices/month

Pricing: From $299/month (custom enterprise pricing available)

4. Nanonets

Customizable AI platform for document processing. Powerful custom workflows but requires significant setup and training data.

Pros

  • Custom AI model training
  • Workflow automation
  • Multi-document types

Cons

  • Expensive ($499/mo)
  • Requires training data
  • 97.5% accuracy (below average)

Best for: Companies with unique document formats needing custom AI models

Pricing: From $499/month

5. Docparser

Template-based extraction tool. Affordable but requires creating templates for each document type. Good for consistent formats.

Pros

  • Affordable ($89/mo)
  • Good API documentation
  • Email parsing

Cons

  • Template setup required
  • 96.1% accuracy (lowest)
  • Breaks with format changes

Best for: Processing invoices from same vendors with consistent formats

Pricing: From $89/month

Other Tools Tested

6. Kofax

Enterprise document automation. 97.8% accuracy, $500+/month. Overkill for most businesses.

Best for: Fortune 500 companies

7. ABBYY FineReader

Desktop OCR software. 97.2% accuracy, $199 one-time. No cloud/API features.

Best for: Offline document scanning

8. Dext (formerly Receipt Bank)

Receipt and invoice capture. 96.5% accuracy, $35/month. Limited to accounting use cases.

Best for: Small business bookkeeping

9. Tabula

Open-source table extraction. Free but manual, no AI. 85% accuracy on complex docs.

Best for: Developers, one-off extractions

10. Parseur

Email parsing tool. 94.8% accuracy, $49/month. Simple but limited features.

Best for: Email invoice forwarding

11. Google Cloud Document AI

API-only service. 96.9% accuracy, pay-per-page ($0.05). Requires coding.

Best for: Developers building custom solutions

12. AWS Textract

Amazon's OCR API. 97.1% accuracy, $0.05/page. Complex pricing, steep learning curve.

Best for: AWS-integrated systems

Which Tool Should You Choose?

Choose Based on Your Needs:

If you process invoices regularly (50+/month)

Use Quixyl - Best accuracy, automation, and value

If you need occasional PDF text extraction

Use Adobe Acrobat - Familiar, good for manual work

If you're a Fortune 500 with 10,000+ invoices/month

Use Rossum or Kofax - Enterprise features

If you're a developer building custom solutions

Use Google Document AI or AWS Textract

If you have consistent vendor formats

Use Docparser - Affordable template-based extraction

Final Verdict

After testing 12 tools with 500 documents, Quixyl delivers the best combination of accuracy (99.9%), ease of use, and value. The free tier lets you test with real invoices before committing.

For businesses processing 50-5,000 invoices per month, Quixyl saves 40+ hours monthly at a fraction of the cost of enterprise solutions like Rossum or Kofax.

Pro tip: Start with Quixyl's free tier (10 invoices/month) to test accuracy with your actual documents. No credit card required.

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