PDF Candy or PDFGym: which free tier treats you better?

Reading PDF Candy's free tier fine print

PDF Candy's pricing page describes free use as page caps plus hourly caps, with no multi-file runs and a limited file size, next to two genuine pluses: an advert-free page with no sign-up required. Checked 10 September 2026. The restrictions appear as categories, never as figures, so you cannot plan around them. You meet the hourly wall by walking into it.

Eva, a freelance translator, has twelve client PDFs to compress before a midnight deadline. On paper PDF Candy's free tier covers her: compression is there, no account, no adverts. In practice the twelfth file may land past the hourly cap, with no number on the page telling her where the cap sits. That uncertainty is the real price of the tier, and it bites exactly when a deadline makes every file count.

Paying removes the rationing. The paid tiers lift the per-task file size to 500 megabytes, unlock batch processing and drop the hourly caps, with a 30-day refund when errors stay unresolved. On 10 September 2026 the pricing page showed a Desktop and Web annual plan at 4 dollars a month, presented as 75 percent off 18 dollars a month, a browser-only monthly option at 6 dollars, and a one-time lifetime licence at 99 dollars.

Which free tier suits your files

One file at a time with no surprises, or many files with rationing you cannot see. That is the whole decision.

• One routine file, no account, no adverts: either tool finishes the job. PDFGym adds the guarantee that the file never leaves the machine.
• Twelve files before midnight: PDF Candy's paid tiers or desktop app, because batch processing is what you are actually buying. The free tier will ration you.
• Daily PDF work on Windows: the PDF Candy desktop build. It runs on Windows alone, needs no connection and was presented as 35 or more tools, checked 10 September 2026.
• Anything confidential: PDFGym. Payslips, medical letters, unsigned drafts and anything with an identifier in it should never depend on a retention window.

PDF Candy and PDFGym compared

PDF Candy's genuine strengths

Breadth and honesty about retention. PDF Candy covers formatted conversions and formats PDFGym does not touch, and its retention promise is unusually specific: uploaded files and finished output deleted after two hours at most, with no backups and no sharing with third parties. Checked 10 September 2026. Two hours on someone else's disk is still a window you rely on rather than control, but a short stated window beats the vague policies most free tools publish.

The desktop build is the other genuine win. For daily work on Windows it settles the upload issue more convincingly than any browser tier, free or paid, because the files never leave the machine at all. For daily PDF work on one Windows computer, that build plus a lifetime licence is a sensible setup this page recommends without hesitation.

How PDFGym handles the same jobs

PDFGym suits the file you cannot afford to ration or upload. Compression takes an exact kilobyte target with presets at 100 KB, 200 KB, 500 KB, 1 MB and 2 MB, races four local techniques at it, and reads the winner back before download. Organize pages splits, reorders and deletes inside one file without limits, and page export bundles multi-page output into a zip automatically.

Fairness cuts both ways: PDFGym runs one job at a time in the tab, and only merge and image binding take several inputs, each producing a single verified file. What it never does is count your files, throttle your hours or store your documents. How it works draws the boundary, and the privacy page states what usage data may hold: page views and which tool ran, never file data. The converter roundup sorts the wider field by conversion pair instead of by vendor.

How this comparison was checked

The PDF Candy pricing claims, retention promise, desktop description and plan prices above all quote that site's pages as read on 10 September 2026. PDF Candy may have changed any of them since. PDFGym's behaviors quote the tool pages in this site's source. No files were uploaded to either product for this page and no hourly caps were probed.