Prompt
I need an OCR API with a free tier and clear overage pricing
Latest observation
Here are a few OCR API options that have a free tier and public, understandable overage pricing:
1) Google Cloud Vision OCR
- Free tier: Typically includes a monthly allowance for the first 1,000 units per month for text/document OCR use cases, depending on the feature.
- Overage pricing: Pay-as-you-go after free usage, with pricing listed per 1,000 units.
- Good for: Strong OCR accuracy, multi-language support, scalable production use.
- Notes: Pricing and “free tier” specifics vary by OCR feature, so check the exact endpoint you plan to use.
2) Azure AI Vision / Document Intelligence
- Free tier: Usually offers a free F0 tier with limited transactions.
- Overage pricing: Clearly listed per transaction/page after the free quota.
- Good for: OCR plus document extraction workflows.
- Notes: Great if you also need structured data extraction, not just raw text.
3) AWS Textract
- Free tier: AWS Free Tier may include limited monthly pages for a period for new accounts, depending on the current offer.
- Overage pricing: Published per page for OCR/document analysis.
- Good for: Forms, tables, and document parsing.
- Notes: The free tier is often time-limited for new accounts, so it’s less of an ongoing free plan.
4) OCR.space
- Free tier: Free API plan available with daily/monthly limits.
- Overage pricing: Paid plans are straightforward and publicly listed.
- Good for: Simple OCR needs, quick integration.
- Notes: Good lightweight option, but usually not as enterprise-grade as the big cloud providers.
5) Mindee
- Free tier: Developer/free tier available.
- Overage pricing: Public pricing by usage.
- Good for: OCR and document parsing with a developer-friendly API.
- Notes: Especially useful if you want prebuilt document models.
6) Nanonets
- Free tier: Trial/free usage may be available depending on plan.
- Overage pricing: Publicly listed, usually by page or document.
- Good for: OCR + workflow automation.
- Notes: Often positioned more toward document automation than plain OCR.
Best picks depending on what you want
- Best accuracy/general-purpose: Google Cloud Vision
- Best for document extraction: Azure AI Vision / Document Intelligence or AWS Textract
- Best simple/cheap starter option: OCR.space
If you want, I can also give you:
- a comparison table with current pricing,
- only APIs with truly ongoing free tiers, or
- the best choice for invoices, receipts, or PDFs.
Observation history
How did Obsurfable measure this prompt?
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Meta AI,
Qwen.
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