Question 1

What is PDFPipe?

Accepted Answer

PDFPipe is an HTML-to-PDF API. You send a POST request to https://api.pdfpipe.xyz/v1/pdf with a JSON body containing an HTML string or a URL, and receive an application/pdf file in the response. It handles browser rendering in a managed cloud environment, so you do not need to install or maintain any PDF software on your servers.

Question 2

How do I use the PDFPipe API?

Accepted Answer

1. Sign up at pdfpipe.xyz to get an API key (format: pp_live_…). 2. POST to https://api.pdfpipe.xyz/v1/pdf with Authorization: Bearer pp_live_your_key and Content-Type: application/json. 3. Set the request body to {"html": "

Hello

"} or {"url": "https://example.com"} plus an optional "options" object for format, margins, etc. 4. The response body is the raw PDF file. Full reference at https://pdfpipe.xyz/docs.

Question 3

What programming languages does PDFPipe support?

Accepted Answer

PDFPipe works with any language that can make an HTTP request. Official SDKs are available for Node.js (npm install pdfpipe-node) and Python (pip install pdfpipe-python). The API also works directly in Go, Java, PHP, Ruby, Rust, C#, Kotlin, Elixir, and others via standard HTTP clients. Framework-specific guides are available at https://pdfpipe.xyz/guides.

Question 4

What PDF options are available?

Accepted Answer

Pass an "options" object in the request body. Key options: format (A4, A3, A5, Letter, Legal, Tabloid — default A4), landscape (true/false), margin (CSS length or object with top/bottom/left/right), print_background (true/false), scale (0.1 to 2.0), page_ranges (e.g. "1-3, 5"), header_html, footer_html, inject_css, wait_until (load, domcontentloaded, networkidle0, networkidle2), wait_ms, timeout_ms (1000 to 60000, default 30000), pdf_a (true/false for PDF/A-1b). Full reference at https://pdfpipe.xyz/docs#options.

Question 5

How much does PDFPipe cost?

Accepted Answer

Hobby: free, 500 documents per month, no credit card required. Starter: $19/month, 3,000 documents. Growth: $49/month, 15,000 documents. Scale: $149/month, 50,000 documents. Enterprise: custom volume and SLA. Flat pricing: one document counts as one document with no credit conversion.

Question 6

What is the PDFPipe API endpoint?

Accepted Answer

The main render endpoint is POST https://api.pdfpipe.xyz/v1/pdf. Additional endpoints: POST /v1/pdf/batch (batch rendering up to 100 items), POST /v1/pdf/merge (merge PDFs), GET /v1/me (check key and usage), GET /v1/documents (list stored PDFs), POST /v1/demo (playground, no key required). Full endpoint list at https://pdfpipe.xyz/docs#endpoints.

Question 7

Can I not just run Puppeteer or wkhtmltopdf myself?

Accepted Answer

You can, but running a browser in production means managing memory limits, system font availability, concurrency queues, version pinning, and on-call incidents when it crashes. PDFPipe handles the rendering infrastructure so your team ships product code instead. The API also includes SSRF protection so untrusted HTML cannot reach internal services.

Question 8

Does PDFPipe support AI agents via MCP?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Install pdfpipe-mcp-server (npm install pdfpipe-mcp-server), set PDFPIPE_API_KEY, and point any MCP-compatible agent at it. The pdfpipe_generate_pdf tool becomes available for the agent to generate PDFs in a single tool call. Details at https://pdfpipe.xyz/mcp.

Feature	PDFPipe	PDFShift	DocRaptor	api2pdf	Gotenberg
Free tier	500/mo	50 credits	Test only	None	Free (self-host)
Min paid price	$19/mo	$29/mo	$15/mo	Pay-as-you-go	Infra only
Render engine	Real browser	Chromium	PrinceXML	Chrome or wkhtml	Chrome / LO
Flat pricing	Yes	No (credits)	Yes	No (per-doc)	N/A
Batch endpoint	Yes	No	No	No	Yes (async)
Store PDFs	Yes	No	No	No	No
Self-host	No	No	No	No	Yes

Your situation	Best choice	Why
You're a SaaS team that wants managed infrastructure	PDFPipe or PDFShift	No ops overhead. PDFPipe has 10x more free documents.
You need accessible PDFs (WCAG, PDF/UA)	DocRaptor	PrinceXML is the only render engine that produces WCAG-compliant output natively.
You render fewer than 100 documents a month	api2pdf	Pay-per-use at $0.001/doc is cheapest at very low volume. No monthly minimum.
You have ops bandwidth and want zero marginal cost	Gotenberg	Self-hosted on your own Kubernetes or Docker stack. Free per document.
You need to convert Word or Excel files, not just HTML	Gotenberg or api2pdf	Both include LibreOffice for office-format conversion.
You want the most generous free tier for development	PDFPipe	500 documents a month free, no credit card, no time limit.

Best HTML to PDF API

Quick comparison

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PDFPipe (this site)

PDFShift

DocRaptor

api2pdf

Gotenberg

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