pdfFiller review: An overpriced, half-baked PDF editor for macOS

In an increasingly digital world, the need for PDF editors continues to grow. One of the Mac apps you may come across when hunting for a PDF editor is pdfFiller. The software offers a decent set of document manipulation tools, but is it actually any good for everyday use? The short answer is no.

pdfFiller offers apps on macOS, iOS, iPadOS, Windows, Android, and the web. So, no matter what device you’re working on, you likely will be able to access your documents just fine. Notably, a single subscription works across all platforms.

The company offers a 30-day free trial if you’re signing up from the web or a 7-day one if you opt for Apple’s App Store billing. Beyond the longer trial and having to set up a payment method, pdfFiller’s web billing is similar to that of Apple—including the pricing.

Find out how pdfFiller compares to other PDF editors in our round up of the Best PDF editors for Mac and the Best free PDF editors for Mac.

Plans and features

pdfFiller’s Basic plan costs $8 a month ($96 a year) if you agree to an annual plan. Alternatively, it’s $20 a month if you opt out of the annual commitment. Only U.S. pricing is available. It offers basic PDF editing features, such as text manipulation, annotation, electronic signatures, and more.

Meanwhile, the Plus plan goes for $12 a month on the annual commitment ($144 a year) or $30 when choosing to opt out of the contract. Apart from the Basic plan’s features, Plus adds support for page reorganization, template creation, publishing fillable forms online, etc.

Lastly, the Premium plan raises the annual and monthly fees to $15 a month ($180 a year) and $40 if you want to be able to cancel. Beyond the previous plans’ perks, it integrates a library of over 85,000 US legal forms, supports data collection and exports, offers faster customer support, and allows users to password-protect their documents.

The (subpar) experience using pdfFiller

Starting with its user interface, the pdfFiller app on macOS doesn’t follow the operating system’s design language or support dark mode. Cosmetics aside, the app also didn’t function reliably on my MacBook Air M2.

For example, when I tried to save a PDF to my device, a processing popup appeared for a couple of seconds, and then it kicked me out of the document without actually saving it to the local storage.

Similarly, when editing text, the cursor took a few seconds to acknowledge the characters I was trying to tweak, and it replaced unsupported fonts with empty squares—which isn’t great. These annoyances significantly lengthen workflows that revolve around text editing, which is a core PDF editor functionality.

Another downside to using pdfFiller on macOS is the limited feature set. While its App Store listing explicitly states that the software supports image exports, password protection, and blank document creation, the application seemingly can’t do any of that. While I was able to spot these features on the web app, those opting for the native Mac application will be misled by its inaccurate App Store description.

Should you buy pdfFiller?

pdfFiller can get some basic tasks done, such as manipulating PDF text and images, inserting signatures and shapes, annotating, rearranging pages, and filling forms. However, the Mac app misses out on some of the promised features and it doesn’t always perform reliably.

More importantly, though, you can find better optimized PDF editors with more advanced functionalities that cost significantly less. Paying $40/month to unlock password protection only to realize it’s not offered by the native Mac app is absurd. And, frankly, beyond the integrated document library that some users may appreciate, I can’t find a single reason why anyone would pick pdfFiller over alternative solutions.

I’d only recommend this macOS PDF editor if the company reconsiders its unjustified price tags. Alternatively, it could overhaul the app to boost its performance and implement worthy features that put it on par with similarly-priced, premium editors. Until then, look elsewhere.