A PDFShift alternative that doesn't need a subscription
Shotlane turns any URL or HTML into a screenshot, PDF or Markdown using real Chrome. You buy credits once and use them whenever you want. There's no monthly bill and no quota that resets. Here is how it compares with PDFShift, including where PDFShift is the better pick.
| PDFShift | Shotlane | |
|---|---|---|
| Billing model | Monthly or annual subscription | One-time credit packs, no subscription |
| ~2,000–2,500 PDFs | $24 / month for 2,500 (Boost) | $9 once for 2,000 |
| ~5,000–10,000 PDFs | $39 / month for 5,000 (Growth) | $29 once for 10,000 |
| ~25,000–40,000 PDFs | $99 / month for 25,000 (Business) | $79 once for 40,000 |
| How a credit is counted | 1 credit per 5 MB of output | 1 credit per document |
| Unused credits | Don't roll over | Never expire |
| Free tier | 50 credits / month | 100 free credits + free HTML-to-PDF tool |
PDFShift pricing taken from their public pricing page in October 2026; prices exclude VAT and may have changed since. PDFShift is a trademark of its owner; we're not affiliated.
When PDFShift is the better choice
PDFShift is built only for PDFs and has features Shotlane doesn't: S3 delivery, asynchronous conversions, encryption and watermarking, and timeouts of up to 15 minutes. At very high steady volume (their 1M plan is $999 a month) it's also cheaper per document.
When Shotlane is the better choice
For a few thousand invoices or reports a month, or volume that comes and goes, prepaid credits cost less and don't vanish at the end of the month. Large PDFs don't cost extra, and the same credits work for screenshots and Markdown.
Switching takes minutes
Shotlane is a plain HTTP API: GET /v1/screenshot?url=…, /v1/pdf or /v1/markdown with your key in a header. Common options (full_page, width, format, selector, dark_mode, delay, block_ads, hide_cookie_banners) work the way you'd expect. See the API reference.
curl "https://shotlane.dev/v1/screenshot?url=example.com&full_page=true&format=webp" \ -H "X-API-Key: $SHOTLANE_KEY" -o example.webp
Try it free
You get 100 free renders and no card is needed. If it works for you, a $9 pack lasts until you use it up.
100 free renders · no credit card · key shown instantly