Adobe PDF Services / PDF Extract API vs Mindee API

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.

Mindee API

Extracted data kept 12 hours by default (1 to 24 configurable), deletable on fetch, source files never stored. Every call needs a model_id created in the web platform 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

Mindee API

1. Create the model in the Mindee app and store its model_id; the API can't create one for you
2. Enqueue returns 202; poll the job or use a webhook, and keep polling under 1,200 a minute
3. Send Authorization: $MINDEE_API_KEY with no Bearer prefix
4. Turn on confidence scores only when needed, since they cost 1.5 credits a page instead of 1
5. Keep schemas to 25 fields or fewer, the documented recommendation