HTML to Image renders PDFs and PNGs from one API key, with named templates, an MCP server and output hosted on a CDN. PDFShift answers with deeper PDF page control.
Disclosure: we built HTML to Image. We've kept this comparison honest because the alternative is search results full of low-effort listicles. Competitor pricing and features were checked on PDFShift's public site in July 2026.
| Feature | PDFShift | HTML to Image |
|---|---|---|
| Headline plan | $24 / 2,500 credits (Boost) | $9 / 1,000 or $25 / 3,000 credits |
| Free tier | 50 credits per month, no card | 25 renders per month, no card |
| Credit model | 1 credit per 5MB of output | 1 credit per render, any size |
| PDF output | Yes (sizes, headers, footers, encryption) | Yes (format: "pdf", A4 portrait) |
| Image output | Screenshots in PNG, JPEG and WebP | PNG from HTML, URLs and templates |
| Page size control | A4, Letter, custom, landscape | A4 portrait only |
| Named templates | No | 25 |
| MCP server | Not surfaced | Yes, on every paid plan |
| Output hosting | Temporary URL or your S3 bucket | CDN URL that stays live |
| Webhook delivery | Yes | Yes |
| Best for | PDF documents that need page-level control | PDFs and PNGs from one key, with templates |
Start with the part that is not a difference: both products render in Chromium, so the same HTML produces near-identical output either side. The decision comes down to pricing, templates and workflow, not rendering quality.
Stay with PDFShift when the PDF itself is the product and it needs page-level control. Page sizes including Letter and custom dimensions, landscape orientation, headers and footers with page numbers, password protection, watermarks and page-range export are all live features there. HTML to Image PDFs are A4 portrait with automatic pagination and none of those knobs, a design choice we state plainly rather than bury.
Switch to HTML to Image when PDFs sit alongside image work. A specific scenario: your app renders OG images for every page, social cards from named templates and invoices that go out as both a PNG in the email body and a PDF attachment. Here that is one key, one credit pool and one format parameter; the MCP server also lets an AI assistant produce either output from a tool call. If you are also weighing usage-priced services, the Api2Pdf comparison covers that model.
Templates and the MCP server. Twenty-five named templates turn JSON into invoices, certificates and social cards without writing markup, and AI assistants can drive the whole API through MCP. PDFShift is a conversion API: you bring every document's HTML yourself.
Output that stays put. Every render returns a URL on our CDN that remains live for the life of a paid account. PDFShift returns the file, a temporary URL or an upload to your own S3 bucket, which means you own the storage step.
Flat credits and a lower paid floor. One render is one credit whatever the file size, and paid plans start at $9 for 1,000 renders. PDFShift sizes credits by output (one per 5MB) and its published Boost plan is $24 for 2,500 credits.
PDF page control. Sizes, orientation, margins via headers and footers with page numbers, dates and dynamic content, password protection and encryption, text or image watermarks, and export of specific page ranges. None of that exists here yet, and if your documents need it, PDFShift is the safer pick.
A bigger free tier. 50 credits a month against our 25, no card either side. Their free plan carries a 15MB file cap and a 30 second timeout, but for small projects it is the more generous starting point.
S3 delivery. If your compliance setup requires output to land directly in your own bucket, PDFShift ships that today. Here you would download from the CDN URL and store it yourself.
# PDFShift (URL or HTML to PDF)
curl -X POST https://api.pdfshift.io/v3/convert/pdf \
-H 'X-API-Key: your-pdfshift-key' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{"source": "https://example.com"}'# HTML to Image (URL to PDF)
curl -X POST https://app.html2img.com/api/screenshot \
-H 'X-API-Key: your-key-here' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{"url": "https://example.com", "format": "pdf"}'
The auth header is the same name, X-API-Key, which makes this one of the gentler migrations. Two shapes change. PDFShift's single source field accepts either a URL or raw HTML; here those are two endpoints, /api/screenshot for URLs and /api/html for markup, each taking format: "pdf". And where PDFShift returns the PDF binary by default, the response here is a JSON envelope whose url points at the file on the CDN. The format parameter reference covers the details.
At 1,000 renders a month HTML to Image is $9; PDFShift's published Boost plan is $24 for 2,500 credits, with overage at $0.03 per conversion and annual billing that waives two months. At 2,500 renders the two sit close together ($25 for 3,000 here). PDFShift does not publish its full plan ladder on the site, so at higher volumes get a quote from them and compare against our published tiers at your real numbers. Remember the credit models differ: large documents consume multiple PDFShift credits but always one credit here.
No. PDFShift offers page sizes (A4, Letter and custom), landscape orientation, custom headers and footers with page numbers, password protection, watermarks and page-range export. HTML to Image PDFs are A4 portrait with automatic pagination and none of those controls. If your documents need page-level control, PDFShift covers ground we do not.
Named templates and an MCP server. Twenty-five pre-built templates render invoices, social cards and certificates from a JSON payload, and every paid plan includes an MCP server so AI assistants can render directly. Output lands on a CDN URL that stays live for the life of a paid account, where PDFShift returns the binary, a temporary URL or an upload to your own S3 bucket.
PDFShift sizes credits by output: one credit covers a conversion up to 5MB, so a 14MB document costs three credits. HTML to Image charges one credit per render regardless of size. For typical invoices and receipts under 5MB the two models behave the same; the difference shows up on large, image-heavy documents.
PDFShift is more generous here: 50 credits a month against our 25, both permanent and neither needing a card. Their free plan caps files at 15MB with a 30 second timeout. If a bigger free allowance decides it for you, that is a fair reason to pick PDFShift.
The free tier covers 25 renders a month with no credit card. Try the API against your real data before deciding.
Twenty-five pre-built designs you can call with JSON, as a PNG or a PDF. A layer PDFShift does not offer.