How I make money

The short version

The plan is to fund the free PDF tools with optional paid features; nothing is for sale yet. You would pay to support development, not to unlock the basics, which stay free. No ads, no trackers, and I never sell your data.

What stays free

Editing, merging, splitting, signing, the page tools (rotate, delete, extract, duplicate, reorder), and the in-browser conversions are free. No account, no watermark, no daily limit. They run entirely on your own machine, so they cost me almost nothing to offer, and there's no reason to put them behind a paywall.

What I'd charge for

The features that cost money to run are the ones that need a server: cloud AI (chat with or summarize a document), high-accuracy OCR for handwriting and noisy scans, and server-rendered Office conversion for the tricky layouts the free in-browser converter can’t fully reproduce. Those use real compute and, for AI, a paid model provider, which is exactly why they're the paid tier. Two more would need a server without reading your file: encrypted share links and template sync, where your browser encrypts everything before it leaves and the key stays with you, so I hold ciphertext I cannot open. Those two cost storage and bandwidth rather than compute, and they are paid for the same reason. All five are opt-in and clearly labeled before anything leaves your device, on a separate address from the free tools. The boundary is spelled out in my privacy pledge.

Why this model

"Free" tools that run on ads make their money from your data and attention. I'd rather make mine from the people who choose to pay for the advanced features. It keeps my incentives aligned with the privacy promise: the business doesn't depend on your files, so I'm never tempted to monetize them. The free tools staying private is what the whole thing is built on. It's a one-person project. More about who's behind it on the about page.

What I don't do

• No ads, anywhere.
• No third-party analytics or trackers on the site.
• No selling or renting of your data, and no sharing beyond the service providers that run the site on my instructions.
• No crippled "free" tier designed to nag you into paying.

Beyond basic server logs and anonymous page counts, the data I hold is: an account record and a session row per sign-in for anyone who signs in, a billing record for anyone who buys a pass (with or without signing in), and any message sent through the contact form, which lives in my inbox. See the privacy page for the specifics.