API keys, rate limits and credits
How access to pdfrender works. Without a key you get 10 free renders a day per IP address. A key adds monthly credits and a higher limit.
Last updated
Without a key, pdfrender renders 10 documents a day per IP address and charges nothing. With an API key, the per-minute limit depends on your plan. Each render first uses the day's 10 free renders, then costs 1 credit.
| Access | Calls per minute | Free renders a day | Monthly credits |
|---|---|---|---|
| No key | 10 per IP address (IPv6: per /64) | 10 per IP address | None |
| Free plan | 30 | 10 | 100 per calendar month |
| Essential | 120 | 10 | See pricing |
| Scale | 600 | 10 | See pricing |
Without a key, the API and the free tool share the 10 free renders a day, and the MCP server shares the per-minute limit. Signed in, the free tool uses your account's free renders and credits.
Get and send a key
Sign in with a link sent by email and create a key in the dashboard.
Send it in the X-API-Key header. A missing or invalid key does not fail
the call; it runs without a key.
Credits
A render costs 1 credit, whatever its page count. Rejected and failed calls cost nothing, and calls without a key are never charged. Plans and prices are on the pricing page.
Check your budget
Successful responses carry X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining
and X-RateLimit-Reset. GET /v1/me returns your live limit and credit
balance and costs nothing:
curl -H "X-API-Key: $PDFRENDER_KEY" https://api.pdfrender.dev/v1/me
FAQ
- Is there a free HTML to PDF API?
- Yes. Without a key, pdfrender renders 10 documents a day per IP address at no charge. The free plan adds an API key with 100 credits a month and needs no card.
- What is the difference between a 429 and a 402 response?
- 429 means a limit is used up: rate_limited is the per-minute limit, daily_limit the 10 free renders a day without a key. Wait for the Retry-After seconds. 402 (credits_exhausted) means the month's credits and the day's free renders are spent.