Do I need an OCR API for receipts if I only need totals?

Not necessarily.

If you only need the total amount from receipts, an OCR API may be more than you need. You have a few options:

When OCR is useful

Use OCR if:

• receipts come in many formats/vendors
• you need to extract multiple fields
• you want to read scanned/photos of receipts reliably
• you need high accuracy across messy images

When you might not need OCR

You may be able to avoid OCR if:

• the receipt is digital/PDF text-based, not just an image
• you only need a few fields like total/date/vendor
• you can use a receipt parsing service instead of raw OCR
• the data source already provides totals in structured form

Alternatives

• Receipt parsing APIs: often detect totals, tax, date, merchant directly without you handling OCR
• Built-in PDF text extraction: if receipts are text PDFs
• Computer vision / LLM extraction: for small volumes, sometimes works well, but may be less deterministic

Recommendation

• For simple, low-volume use cases: try PDF text extraction or a receipt parsing API
• For photos/scans and broad vendor support: use an OCR-based receipt API
• If you only need totals and want low effort: a receipt parser is usually the best fit

If you want, I can suggest the simplest architecture based on whether your receipts are photos, scans, or PDFs.