PDF SDK pricing: plans start at $149 a month. The right one depends on what you are building.
Kernstra Web SDK is a JavaScript PDF SDK priced by what you build. An internal tool for your own staff and a public portal for fifty thousand people are not the same product, so we do not price them from the same grid. An internal or back-office app with a limited number of users and a limited development team is $149 a month, with every tool. Anything public-facing or larger is priced by quote: tell us what you are building and you have a package and its price within one business day. Three or more apps get a package price.
- All twenty-six tools and the full SDK API, Edit Text and Add Text included
- Public-facing apps and larger use: by quote, a package priced to your use case
- Three or more apps: one package, at a package price
- Free development keys, on localhost and any HTTPS host
- Monthly, quarterly or yearly billing, two months free on yearly
No call required unless you want one.
Three things set the price. None of them is a page count.
Every tool is included at the $149 entry price. What changes the price is how much you run: how many apps, who uses them, and how many people.
Production apps
A license covers one production app on the domains in its license, with their subdomains when you ask for them. A second product of yours is a second app, and three or more apps share one package at a package price.
Who uses it, and how many
An app for your own staff is priced differently from one the public uses. Users are monthly active users: one browser that loads the SDK with your production key in the billing month, however many documents, pages or sessions.
Development is free
Development keys are free, never counted and work on localhost and any HTTPS host, with a watermark. Build the whole integration, show it to your team, and only pay when you ship a production key.
Every tool is in the entry plan. A larger plan adds scale, not features.
We would rather size it for you than make you guess.
We believe a startup, or a SaaS team with a strong document idea, should never be stopped by the license behind it. Too often that license is a long, rigid enterprise agreement, priced in the tens of thousands a year, and signed before a single line of code has shipped. That model suits large organizations. It fails everyone else.
We also know that a four-column grid gets it wrong for most teams: a regulated internal tool with two hundred users, a consumer app with a hundred thousand, and an OEM partner reselling to their own customers do not fit the same three boxes. So we publish where pricing starts, we publish how it scales, and we give you a real number for your case within one business day. No quarter-long procurement, no surprise at renewal.
Internal tool
- Apps
- 1
- Public users
- none
- Internal users
- your own staff
SaaS with a document feature
- Apps
- 1 to 3
- Public users
- thousands to tens of thousands
- Internal users
- a support team
Multi-brand portal
- Apps
- 3 to 5
- Public users
- tens of thousands
- Internal users
- hundreds
Redistribution or OEM
- Apps
- yours and your customers'
- Users
- very large or unknown
- Terms
- contract
Three numbers, one business day.
Tell us what you are building and roughly who will use it. We reply with the plan that fits and its price, in writing. If you would rather talk it through, say so and an engineer will book twenty minutes.
When the shape is bigger than a plan.
Redistribution to your own customers, very large or unknown user counts, or a procurement process that needs paperwork. These are handled on an annual agreement rather than a subscription, and you talk to the same engineers either way.
- Redistribution and OEM rights
- Custom apps and user allowances
- Custom SLA and support hours
- Countersigned data-processing agreement, security review
- Invoice or purchase order, annual billing
- A named engineer, a shared channel
Take a development key and build first.
Everything on this page works on a development key today, free, with a watermark, on localhost and any HTTPS host. Decide about a plan when there is something to ship.
- 1Create an organization. No card, no call.
- 2Put your development key in an environment variable:
KERNSTRA_LICENSE - 3Install and initialize:
npm install @kernstra/pdf-web-sdk - 4Ship with a production key when you are ready.
PDF SDK pricing questions, before you ask for a quote.
If yours is not here, put it in the form above and we will answer it in the same reply.
Ask in the quote formWhy not just publish all the plans?
Because the grid gets it wrong for most teams. A two-hundred-user internal tool and a fifty-thousand-user portal would land in the same column on a table and pay the same, which is unfair to one of them. We publish the starting price, $149 a month for an internal or back-office app with every tool, and how pricing scales, and size the rest per case. It takes one business day.
What exactly counts as a monthly active user?
One browser that loads the SDK with your production key during the billing month, counted once however many documents, pages, edits or sessions it opens. Development keys are never counted, staging keys are counted apart and never against your allowance, and the console shows each app’s count, updated hourly.
Is there a contract or a minimum term?
Not on monthly billing: pay month to month and stop when you like. Quarterly and yearly billing run for their period and renew automatically, and a year is billed as ten months: two months free. A package for three or more apps, and enterprise agreements, run for a year, because they carry custom terms.
What happens if we go over our allowance?
The SDK keeps working. Your console shows usage against the allowance with a projection for the period and warns you at 85%, and we get in touch to agree a larger plan. A month more than 10% over the allowance is billed at the difference to the list price of the plan that covers it.
Can we change plan later?
Yes, up or down, from the console: tell us the new number of users or what changed, and we reply with a change order within one business day. A higher price applies once the difference to your billing date is paid (on invoice billing, when you sign); a lower one from the next billing date. Your key keeps working throughout.
Does one license cover multiple domains?
Yes. A production app runs on the domains in its license, with their subdomains when you ask for them, and we add more when you need them. A free staging key covers up to five staging hosts. Separate products are separate apps.
Do development keys expire?
No. They are free, never expire, are never counted and watermark their output, for local development, continuous integration and preview deploys.
Is anything gated behind a bigger plan?
No tool is. Every tool, Edit Text and Add Text included, every layout and the full SDK API come with the $149 entry plan, so a bigger plan never unlocks a tool. A larger plan changes the number of apps and users, and enterprise agreements add redistribution rights, custom terms and support commitments.
How does Kernstra compare with Apryse, Nutrient, ComPDF or Syncfusion?
On price, the main difference is that ours is published: $149 a month for an internal app with every tool, where Apryse and Nutrient quote, ComPDF quotes above a published starting figure, and Syncfusion publishes a price per developer. We keep a sourced comparison with each of Apryse WebViewer, Nutrient Web SDK, ComPDF Web SDK and Syncfusion PDF Viewer SDK: a first-year cost from public figures, the buying terms side by side, and a feature table that says where they are ahead.