Compared

DocRaptor alternative for invoices and reports

DocRaptor renders with Prince, and Prince is the better engine for print: books, regulated documents, PDF/A, tagged output. If that is your work, stay. If your documents are invoices, receipts and reports built from HTML you already show in a browser, Chrome renders exactly what you see, and 2,000 of them cost 9 instead of about 20.

Who this page is for

You priced DocRaptor for the volume your app actually produces and found that two thousand invoices a month cost more than the database they come from. Or your layout is fine in every browser and broken in Prince, because Prince is not a browser: flexbox and grid are partial, modern CSS arrives late, and JavaScript runs in a limited engine. Or you want a screenshot of the same page and DocRaptor does not make those.

If you chose DocRaptor for footnotes, running headers, cross-references or an archival profile, you chose well. This page will not talk you out of it.

What each one gives you

DocRaptor is Prince as a service: a typesetting engine with its own CSS extensions, built for documents that are designed for paper first. RenderBadger is Chrome as a service: the same renderer your users already see the page in, with print CSS honoured, page by page.

	DocRaptor	RenderBadger
Engine	Prince	Chrome
Matches the browser	No, Prince has its own CSS support	Yes, same engine as the page
JavaScript before render	Limited engine, optional	Full, always; wait for a selector or a delay
Print features	Footnotes, running headers, cross-references, PDF/A, tagged PDF, Excel	Page breaks, @page sizes and margins, repeated table headers, header and footer templates
Screenshots	No	Yes, same key
Free tier	5 documents a month, unlimited watermarked test documents	100 real renders a month, no watermark
Overage	At the plan's per-document rate, /bin/bash.03 to /bin/bash.12	/bin/bash.01 per render, every plan
Async and webhooks	Yes	Starter and up, signed, with retries
Output	Bytes, or hosted for async	Bytes, or a signed URL with retention by plan
Idempotency	No	Idempotency-Key header
Track record	Since 2010, 1,800 customers, part of Artifex	Since 2026

Pricing at 2,000 and 10,000 renders

DocRaptor charges per document, with plans that include a block and bill the rest at the plan's per-document rate. Every document costs the same whatever its size, which is fair, and the rate is what it is.

Documents a month	DocRaptor	RenderBadger
2,000	Premium, 5 for 1,250, plus 750 overage at /bin/bash.06, about 20; or Max at 49	Starter, 9
10,000	Max, 49 for 5,000, plus 5,000 overage at about /bin/bash.03, about 98; or Bronze at 99	Pro, 9

DocRaptor plans, for reference: Free /bin/bash for 5, Basic 5 for 125, Professional 9 for 325, Premium 5 for 1,250, Max 49 for 5,000, Bronze 99 for 15,000, Silver ,000 for 40,000. The gap is six times at both volumes. That is not a pricing mistake on their side; Prince is licensed software and a large share of what you pay for. It is a question of whether your documents need it.

Prices checked October 26, 2026. Both in US dollars.

Where DocRaptor is the better choice

Anything that is a document first and a web page second. Prince does footnotes, margin notes, running headers from content, cross-references with page numbers, multi-column flow, hyphenation and widows the way a typesetter would. It outputs PDF/A for archives and tagged PDF for accessibility, which Chrome does not. It makes Excel files from HTML tables. And sixteen years of edge cases are baked into it. For a book, a contract that must be archived, a statement with regulatory layout rules, or anything a print designer signs off on, DocRaptor is the right tool and the price is the price.

Switching

The request shape is similar: content or a URL, plus options. Prince-specific CSS does not carry over, so check your stylesheet for prince- properties, flow-into, string-set and target-counter before you move; those have no Chrome equivalent. Standard @page rules, page-break properties and @media print work in both.

DocRaptor

curl -X POST https://api.docraptor.com/docs \
  -u "$DOCRAPTOR_KEY:" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "doc": {
      "test": false,
      "document_type": "pdf",
      "document_content": "<h1>Invoice #42</h1>...",
      "name": "invoice.pdf",
      "javascript": true,
      "prince_options": { "media": "print" }
    }
  }' -o invoice.pdf

RenderBadger

curl -X POST https://renderbadger.sh/v1/pdf \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $RENDERBADGER_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "html": "<h1>Invoice #42</h1>...",
    "format": "A4"
  }' -o invoice.pdf

The renames:

DocRaptor	RenderBadger	Note
document_content	html
document_url	url
test: true	a Free key	Free renders are real and unwatermarked, capped at 100 a month.
javascript: true	nothing	JavaScript always runs. Use waitFor if the page needs time.
prince_options.media	emulateMedia	Print is the default for PDFs.
prince_options.baseurl	baseUrl	Resolves relative assets in html.
async: true, callback_url	async: true, webhookUrl	Starter and up. Poll GET /v1/jobs/:id instead if you prefer.
name	output: "url"	Returns a signed link instead of the bytes.
prince_options.profile (PDF/A)	none	If you need PDF/A or tagged PDF, stay on DocRaptor.

The full option list is in the docs.

Try it on your own invoice

The free plan is 100 renders a month, no card, and the key is live the moment you create it.

Get a free API key