Before a document can go into a RAG pipeline it has to be parsed — OCR, layout, tables and key-values. The providers below offer document AI on a free tier, several with thousands of free pages a month that renew.
Pair one of these with a free embeddings API and a free chat model to build a full document-QA stack at zero cost for prototypes.
Top pick — Unstructured
Turning messy documents into LLM-ready structured data, free every month Details →
8 verified providers
| Provider | Free tier | Rate limits | Gotchas |
|---|---|---|---|
| OCR.space | 25,000 conversions/month (Engine 1 & 2) plus 2,500 Engine 3 conversions/month; max 1 MB file, PDFs up to 3 pages | 500 requests per day per IP address | no cardno phonecommercial OK |
| LlamaParse (LlamaCloud) | Free plan: 10,000 credits/month (~10,000 pages in balanced parse mode at 1 credit/page) | 5 concurrent jobs; 1 project; 5 indexes on the free plan | no cardno phonecommercial OK |
| Nanonets | $50 in free credits on signup (one-time) across data-extraction / OCR workflows | Up to 3 users on the free credit | no cardno phonecommercial OK |
| Unstructured | 15,000 pages/month, resets monthly — document parsing/OCR across 50+ file types (layout, tables, generative OCR enrichment) | 15,000 pages/month | no card |
| Nutrient (Data Extraction API) | 5,000 credits/month (renews; no rollover) — ~5,000 text-parse pages, fewer for OCR-heavy 'Understand'/'Agentic' parsing (9-18 credits/page) | 5,000 credits/month; per-page cost varies by parse mode (1-18 credits) | no card |
| Upstage | $10 in free credit on signup (no card) — Solar LLM (chat + embeddings) plus Document Parse / OCR / information extraction | Document Parse billed $0.01/page (+$0.03 for extract), drawn from the $10 credit | no cardcommercial OKOpenAI-compatible |
| Veryfi | Free Forever plan: up to 100 documents/month — OCR plus structured data extraction (receipts, invoices, and 100+ document types) | 100 documents/month on the free plan | no cardcommercial OK |
| Datalab (Marker / Surya) | $5 in free credits for new accounts — OCR in 90+ languages, PDF-to-markdown, tables, forms and structured extraction | Per-page pricing and rate limits not published |
FAQ
Is there a free OCR API?
Yes — OCR.space, Unstructured, Nutrient and LlamaParse all offer free OCR / document parsing, several with thousands of pages a month.
What’s the best free API to parse PDFs for RAG?
Unstructured and LlamaParse are built specifically to turn documents into clean, chunked text for RAG, both on a renewing monthly free tier.
Can free OCR handle tables and handwriting?
Some do — providers such as Nutrient extract tables, key-values and handwriting. Check each provider page for the exact free-tier capabilities.