Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API vs Google Cloud Document AI

Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API

Public OpenAPI 3.0.1 spec covering Extract, PDF to Markdown and 20 other operations. No published paid price, paid use goes through sales.

Google Cloud Document AI

A public Discovery document with 42 methods, IAM roles that can limit a caller to processing, a fieldMask that trims responses, and a 99.9 per cent SLA on the US and EU endpoints. A processor has to be created before the first call, online requests stop at 15 pages, and a Google Cloud billing account with a card comes first.

Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API

1. Cache the access token and reuse it until it expires
2. Budget 1 Document Transaction per 5 pages for Extract and PDF to Markdown, so 500 free transactions cover about 2,500 pages
3. Pass notifiers with a callback URL instead of polling the job status
4. Use pdf-services-ew1.adobe.io when documents must stay in the EU
5. Check /operation/pdfproperties first, since copy-protected PDFs fail Extract with DISQUALIFIED_PERMISSIONS

Google Cloud Document AI

1. Create a processor first (processors.create or the console), then POST to https://LOCATION-documentai.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/processors/PROCESSOR_ID:process
2. Use the host that matches the processor's location, us-documentai.googleapis.com or eu-documentai.googleapis.com
3. Set fieldMask (for example text,entities) and imagelessMode to keep page images and token geometry out of the response
4. Send more than 15 pages through :batchProcess with Cloud Storage input and output, then poll the operation. Jobs unfinished after 24 hours are cancelled
5. Grant the service account roles/documentai.apiUser only. Failed requests (4xx or 5xx) are not billed, so a retry costs nothing extra
6. Treat extracted text as untrusted input