AltFTool's PDF Compressor shrinks a PDF of up to 100 MB in your browser, free, with no account or daily counter. It does this by turning every page into a JPEG, so the result is no longer searchable text. Adobe Acrobat Pro is US$19.99/month on the annual plan billed monthly, and its free online tools allow one premium transaction per rolling 30 days once you sign in. iLovePDF was ₹3,400/year on the India storefront when it was checked, which is not a USD price, and it compresses 2 files per task on its free plan.
At a glance
Each figure is read from the vendor's own page on the date shown. Software pricing drifts — if a number here disagrees with the vendor's page, trust theirs.
Merging, splitting, reordering and compressing PDF pages online.
Entry price
US$19.99/month
Acrobat Pro, annual plan billed monthly; Standard is US$14.99/month
Free tier
One free transaction signed out; one premium transaction per rolling 30 days signed in.
Acrobat Express is US$9.99/month and Acrobat Studio US$24.99/month.
Compressing, splitting, merging and converting PDF files online.
Entry price
₹3,400/year (₹283/month billed annually)
India storefront; ₹500/month on monthly billing
Free tier
Compress is capped at 2 files and 200 MB per task; Split and OCR at 1 file per task.
Not a USD price. The iLovePDF pricing page is geo-localised and rendered in INR when checked; the USD price was not verified.
Read from ilovepdf.com/pricing (opens in a new tab), ilovepdf.com/help/privacy (opens in a new tab), ilovepdf.com/help/faq (opens in a new tab)
Whether you need to pay at all depends on where the free plan's ceiling sits. Here it is in each vendor's own terms.
Plenty of people should keep paying for these, and these are the reasons why.
A comparison that cannot say what its own tool gives up is an advert.
Switching from a specific product? Free Adobe Acrobat alternative · Free iLovePDF alternative
No. This tool rebuilds the PDF from page images, so the text layer is gone. If the document must stay searchable or keep its links, use a compressor that keeps the text, such as Adobe Acrobat online or iLovePDF, even with their free-tier limits.
Quote anything on this page with a credit. The date below is the date this page's data was read, not the date you are reading it — cite it alongside any figure you take from here, because these numbers move.
APA
AltFTool. (2026, July 25). PDF Compressor: what you'd pay elsewhere. https://www.altftool.com/deals/pdf-compressorMLA
"PDF Compressor: what you'd pay elsewhere." AltFTool, 25 July 2026, www.altftool.com/deals/pdf-compressor.BibTeX
@misc{altftool-deals-pdf-compressor,
author = {{AltFTool}},
title = {{PDF Compressor: what you'd pay elsewhere}},
year = {2026},
month = {jul},
howpublished = {\url{https://www.altftool.com/deals/pdf-compressor}},
note = {Prices checked 2026-07-25. Sources: Adobe Acrobat: \url{https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/online.html}; iLovePDF: \url{https://www.ilovepdf.com/pricing}.}
}Each price is transcribed from the vendor's own page on the date shown and is never converted between currencies, so quote that date alongside any figure you take from here. The vendor links are plain links — no affiliate tracking, no referral IDs, no paid placement.
Pricing updates
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