Verdict
Sixteen years old and still the one people reach for when a PDF is large, awkward or needs marking up rather than just reading.
Best for
Someone working through long documents who wants annotations, folders and a file manager rather than a viewer.
Dealbreaker
You buy it and then it asks again: fourteen of the last two hundred reviews are about a subscription sitting on top of the purchase, mostly to sync files with cloud storage.
The facts.
Pulled from the App Store, not written by hand.
Price
$5.99 once
In-app purchases
Unknown
Ads
Unknown
Platforms
iPhone, iPad
Rating
4.7★ (13,802)
Version
6.0.1230
Last updated
Aug 31, 2026
Released
May 7, 2014
Attributes
Native appOne-time purchaseNo subscription
Category
Productivity, Business
What reviews consistently say.
Themes grouped from 200 App Store reviews. Source feed ›
Praised for
Ease of use and design14 reviews
Sync and multi-device11 reviews
Subscription pricing and paywalls4 reviews
Battery and performance3 reviews
Value for money3 reviews
Import and export3 reviews
Complained about
Subscription pricing and paywalls14 reviews
Import and export7 reviews
Crashes and stability7 reviews
Sync and multi-device5 reviews
Customer support3 reviews
Where this comes from
14 of 200 recent reviews raised: Subscription pricing and paywalls (negative)App Store reviews ›
4 of 200 recent reviews raised: Subscription pricing and paywalls (positive)App Store reviews ›
14 of 200 recent reviews raised: Ease of use and design (positive)App Store reviews ›
11 of 200 recent reviews raised: Sync and multi-device (positive)App Store reviews ›
5 of 200 recent reviews raised: Sync and multi-device (negative)App Store reviews ›
7 of 200 recent reviews raised: Crashes and stability (negative)App Store reviews ›
3 of 200 recent reviews raised: Customer support (negative)App Store reviews ›
Where we recommend it
PDF apps you buy once ›Readers and annotators with no monthly charge.
Alternatives with the same rule.
Every app here is a single purchase. None of them can start charging you monthly for what you already bought. Also with a catch.
$14.99 once · 4.9★ (296,305) · Updated Apr 14, 2026
Verdict. The most-reviewed app on this list by an enormous margin, and almost nobody has a bad word for it. Point, shoot, and you have a straight, readable PDF.
Best for. Anyone who needs paper turned into a clean PDF and sent onward, repeatedly.
Dealbreaker. It scans and nothing else. No annotating, no signing, no fixing a PDF somebody sent you — for that you need one of the readers below as well.
$6.99 once · 4.9★ (30,277) · Updated Dec 18, 2020
Verdict. The cheaper scanner, and for most people indistinguishable from the expensive ones. Crisp output, plenty of places to send it.
Best for. Someone who scans occasionally and does not want to spend much on the privilege.
Dealbreaker. Reviewers describe it crashing, and it is scanning only — there is nothing here for reading or marking up the PDFs once you have them.
$199.99 once · 4.8★ (2,942) · Updated Apr 19, 2026
Verdict. A genuinely good scanner with redaction, OCR and a document editor attached, sold as a lifetime unlock of an app that is otherwise a subscription.
Best for. Someone who already knows they want this one and would rather pay once than keep renewing.
Dealbreaker. It is far and away the most expensive app on this site, and six of the last two hundred reviews call the current version unusable. That is a great deal of money to risk on a scanner.