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An Acrobat Pro alternative priced for whole teams.
Acrobat Pro is roughly $23.99 per user per month. CompendiumPDF is $25 a month for five users — about $5 each. Below is an honest account of where it matches Acrobat, where it goes further, and where it doesn’t compete yet.
5 users per license · local processing, no upload · Windows and browser
What is CompendiumPDF?
CompendiumPDF is a PDF editor for Windows and the browser that reads, edits, builds, converts, redacts, protects and signs PDF documents on your own computer. OCR, conversion and redaction run locally, so your files aren’t uploaded anywhere. One license costs $25 a month and covers 5 named users.
Side by side
An honest comparison
| Capability | CompendiumPDF | Acrobat Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Price for five users | $25/month total | about $120/month |
| Documents processed locally | Always | Cloud services for several features |
| Redaction destroys the text | Yes, verified in the file bytes | Yes |
| OCR without uploading | Yes | Local OCR available |
| Edit text and images | Text yes, image editing not yet | Yes |
| Forms: create and fill | Yes | Yes |
| Convert to Word and Excel | Yes | Yes |
| Convert to PowerPoint | Not yet | Yes |
| Office files to PDF | Not yet | Yes |
| Accessibility tagging, PDF/UA | Not yet | Yes |
| Prepress, preflight, PDF/X | Not yet | Yes |
| Batch automation | Not yet | Yes |
| Bates numbering | Yes | Yes |
| Court-defensible e-signature | Compendium Sign included | Acrobat Sign, extra cost |
Where it doesn’t compete yet. If your work depends on print production, accessibility remediation or Action Wizard automation, Acrobat Pro is still the right tool. We’d rather tell you that now than sell you a license you return.
What it does
Everything happens on your computer
Edit and build
Change text in place, add text and images, headers, footers, watermarks, backgrounds and Bates numbering. Build PDFs from images or from scratch.
Convert
Export to Word, Excel, plain text and images. Build PDFs from images. Everything runs locally.
Protect
AES encryption with open and permissions passwords, granular permissions, metadata sanitizing, and redaction that genuinely removes content.
Pricing
$25 a month covers 5 users
Prepay a year for 5% off, up to 40% off for five years. The AI assistant is optional at $5 per user per month.
Questions, answered
Is CompendiumPDF a drop-in replacement for Acrobat Pro?
Not for every workflow. It covers about 43% of Acrobat Pro’s published feature list, concentrated in editing, page operations, forms, OCR, redaction, conversion and signature. It doesn’t yet do accessibility tagging, prepress and preflight, batch automation or Office-format import.
How much cheaper is it than Acrobat Pro?
Acrobat Pro is around $23.99 per user per month. CompendiumPDF is $25 per month for five users, so roughly $5 each.
Can I open files made in Acrobat?
Yes. It reads standard PDF, including AcroForm fields, bookmarks and password-protected files.
Does CompendiumPDF upload my documents?
No. Opening, editing, OCR, conversion, compression and redaction all run on your own computer. The only time a document is transmitted is if you explicitly send it for signature through Compendium Sign.
What does it cost?
One license is $25 a month and covers five named users, which works out at about $5 per person. Prepaying a year takes 5% off, and five years takes 40% off. An optional AI assistant is $5 per user per month.
Does it work offline?
Yes. The Windows application is fully offline. It checks its license every 45 days, and if it can’t reach the internet it keeps working normally within that window.
What happens if I stop paying?
The application drops to read-only. You can still open, read, search, annotate and print every document you have. You’re never locked out of your own files.
Can I use it in a browser?
Yes. There’s a browser version that runs the same engine, so the PDF is still processed on your device rather than on a server.
How is redaction different from drawing a black box?
A black box leaves the original text in the file, where it can still be extracted. CompendiumPDF converts the affected pages to images so the underlying text is destroyed rather than hidden.
Which languages does the OCR support?
English, Spanish, French and German.
Get started
Buy a license and set up your account in one pass, then download the installer. One installer covers CompendiumPDF, CompendiumWP and Compendium LECX, and installs without administrator rights.
$25 a month · 5 users per license · read-only, never locked out, if you cancel