The differences that matter
Taken from DocRaptor's published plans and documentation.
The per-document price
DocRaptor's Basic plan is $15 a month for 125 documents, twelve cents each. KimiDoc's Starter is $9 for 1,000, under a cent each, and the gap persists up the ladder.
Different engines, different CSS
Prince is a print-first engine with its own CSS profile and extensions. KimiDoc is Chromium-class: the CSS your web team already writes, flexbox and grid included, renders as it does in the browser.
Where it can run
DocRaptor is cloud-only. KimiDoc offers the same engine as a hosted API or self-hosted under a per-server licence, where documents never leave your network.
Side by side
| KimiDoc | docraptor | |
|---|---|---|
| Rendering engine | Chromium-class: your web CSS as-is | Prince: print-first, its own CSS profile |
| Entry paid tier | $9 for 1,000 documents | $15 for 125 documents |
| Free tier | 100 documents a month | 5 documents, plus unlimited watermarked tests |
| Batch jobs | Up to 40,000 documents per job, ZIP + manifest | One request per document |
| Self-hosted | Yes, licensed per server | Not offered |
What the same volume costs
| Documents / month | KimiDoc | DocRaptor |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | $9 · Starter | $75 · Premium (1,250) |
| 5,000 | $29 · Growth | $149 · Max |
| 20,000 | $69 · Business | $1,000 · Silver (40,000) |
| 50,000 | $149 · Scale | Above Silver: contact sales |
DocRaptor prices as published at https://docraptor.com/signup on 6 August 2026. Method: the smallest monthly plan whose included documents cover the volume; overage combinations can price differently. Spot an outdated number? Tell us and we will correct it.
When DocRaptor earns its price
Prince is superb at advanced paged media: footnotes, complex float rules, typography that came from the print world. If your documents lean on Prince-specific capabilities and your volume is modest, DocRaptor is the right specialist. If your documents are the web kind (invoices, statements, reports written in ordinary HTML and CSS) you are paying a specialist premium for work a web engine does natively.
Migrating from DocRaptor
- Render an existing document first. Standard HTML and CSS carries over as-is; the editor's live preview shows the result immediately.
- Replace Prince-specific CSS where you used it. Running headers and page numbers become @page margin boxes with counter(page), which KimiDoc supports natively.
- Collapse loops into batch jobs. One job of up to 40,000 documents returns a ZIP with a manifest and per-document retry.
Questions engineers ask
Is Prince not better for print?
For specialised print typography, Prince has real strengths and this page says so plainly. For the documents most teams generate (invoices, payslips, statements, certificates written in web CSS) a Chromium-class engine renders them faithfully at a fraction of the price.
Will my DocRaptor templates work?
Standard HTML and CSS will. Prince-specific extensions need replacing with their web equivalents; running headers and page numbers map to @page margin boxes, documented in the template guide.
What happens if these prices change?
The table shows the date it was checked against their published plans. If it has drifted, email hello@kimidoc.com and it will be corrected.
Related comparisons
wkhtmltopdf alternative
Archived in 2023 with a critical unpatched SSRF; KimiDoc is a maintained engine you can still run on your own servers.
PDFShift alternative
Documents instead of size-counted credits, self-hosting, and a lower price at every tier until the two meet at 50,000.
PDFBolt alternative
The same generous free tier; at paid volume KimiDoc costs less, bills annually, and can run on your servers.
Puppeteer alternative for PDF
The same Chromium-class output without operating the browser fleet, the queues or the crash recovery.
All comparisons
The full list, kept factual and current.
Try it against a real document
The editor previews are free and unmetered; the free tier renders 100 documents a month through the API.