PDF Guru Reviews

Summary: Tried it out for a $.99 "one-time" use and found that that enrolled me in a 1 week trial that resulted in getting billed $49.99 for a monthly fee. When I contacted them to get refunded, they said they would offer me a 1 year use of the tool.

Why would they immediately offer a one year subscription on a monthly fee? Scam.

Try at your own peril.

Positive: Could edit a pdf and make the necessary changes required to complete the project that I selected them for.

Negative: Billing shenanigans. Very poor customer service in trying to resolve billing.

Summary: The product did what I wanted it to do however I was very disappointed with the predatory practice of auto subscription.

Positive: The Product itself was effective for my purposes as it did exactly what I wanted it to do and was relatively easy to use.

Negative: PDF Guru have chosen to adopt the predatory marketing practice of automatic subscription for using their services, which I find most unsatisfactory, and not one aimed at benefitting the consumer. Subscribing should never be automatic. I suggest they offer another option such as a higher single-use charge without automatic subscription.

Summary: Please be careful with one-time purchases!

Positive: N/A

Negative: I made one-time payment and only used pdf converter to only convert one file to pdf. I didn’t subscribe and I also didn’t get any subscription letter as well. A week later they took 49,99€ from my account and when I contacted and said it’s a mistake and asked my money back, they said they can’t make refunds.

Please be careful with one-time purchases!

Summary: I’m very disappointed with my experience with PDF Guru.

I signed up because I needed to convert a PDF and believed I was simply paying a small fee of around R15 for the service. About a week later, that R15 payment was refunded and I was instead charged over R800 for a Pro subscription that I did not knowingly intend to sign up for.

I immediately cancelled the subscription and contacted customer support to request a refund. While the support agent was polite and explained that the charge resulted from a 7-day trial automatically becoming a paid subscription, they refused to refund the money because of their non-refundable payment policy.

What makes this particularly frustrating is the amount involved. Over R800 is a significant amount of money for what I believed was a simple PDF conversion. For comparison, Adobe Acrobat Pro — a far more established and comprehensive professional PDF solution — is currently listed at US$19.99 per month on its annual, billed-monthly plan. (⁠Adobe)

The issue isn’t simply that PDF Guru has a subscription model. It’s that a service can appear to cost around R15 for a single task and then result in a charge of more than R800 when the user doesn’t realise they have entered a recurring subscription.

I accept that I may have overlooked the trial terms during sign-up, but I cancelled immediately after discovering the charge and requested a reasonable goodwill refund. Unfortunately, PDF Guru refused.

My advice to anyone considering using PDF Guru: read the trial and subscription terms extremely carefully before entering your payment details. What looks like a small one-off payment can turn into a substantial unexpected subscription charge.

Overall, I’m very dissatisfied with the experience and, more importantly, with the lack of flexibility when I contacted them immediately after discovering the charge.

Positive: Very little to mention here. The PDF conversion itself worked and the website was relatively straightforward to use for the specific task I needed. Customer support was also polite and responded to my emails, which I appreciate. However, beyond that, I didn’t find much that stood out positively about the overall experience. The initial service seemed convenient for a simple PDF conversion, but the unexpected subscription charge and subsequent refusal to provide a refund significantly outweighed any positives. Given the cost involved, I would personally expect a much clearer purchasing process and greater transparency around trial-to-subscription terms.

Negative: The biggest issue is the lack of transparency around the subscription. I believed I was paying around R15 for a simple PDF conversion, only to discover a week later that I had been charged over R800 for a Pro subscription. While I accept that I may have overlooked the trial terms, the jump from a small one-off payment to such a large recurring charge feels disproportionate. The fact that the refund was refused despite me cancelling immediately after discovering the charge was also extremely disappointing. Overall, the pricing structure and trial-to-subscription process left me feeling misled and very dissatisfied with the service.

Summary: Terrible experience. I feel scammed. They get the same complaints all the time and they just keep on doing what they're doing. As for the questions...I have to answer but I tried to open a file one day and it looked like this might help so I paid the 99 cents. I honestly don't remember if it helped, I don't even remember if i used the product or what it's supposed to do. It was a simple file that I know I can already open on my work computer but wanted to open on a different computer that day. I just needed help for one minute on one file. Would have never signed up for a $50 a month program if it was clear that that is what was happening.

Positive: I don't know anything about the product. I was trying to open one file one day and I stumbled across this product that said it would open it for 99 cents. I had no idea that I was signing up for anything and it certainly was not clear that they would charge me $50 a month for something I'm really not even sure if I ever downloaded or used. Unfortunately it took me 3 payments to realize they were taking the money and they are not a decent enough company to do the right thing.

Negative: I was trying to open one file one day and I paid 99 cents looking for something that would help. 3 months later I see that they've charged me $150 in that time. I never would've knowingly signed up for a $50 a month product. I don't really even know what it does. They did promise me a refund but didn't send it then ghosted me. They say that they are perfectly transparent and it's clearly stated that you are signing up for a $50 a month charge but obviously there are many many people who are feeling scammed so it's not clear at all. And they see these complaints but they do not change anything so more and more people are getting charged all the time. Then they just keep the money. Legitimate companies do not do business that way. If you're reading this before you've gotten into bed with these crooks my advice would be to run from this company.

Summary: They just take your money!!!
Why don't you do business in a proper way? Why need to scam people? It's not your money

Positive: Scammers!!!! I will make sure you will pay for what you did. You just wasted my time emailing you with my refund. You never refunded it to me!!!!

Negative: Scammers!!! I will not stop until my money comes back to me you scammers!

Summary: I requested a refund, but they refused and only canceled future charges. The subscription process feels misleading. Please be careful and review the terms carefully before purchasing.

Positive: No pros poor service unclear recurring charge refund denied very disappointing experience not worth it at all forever.

Negative: Very disappointing experience with PDF Guru. I only used the service once, and it did not meet my expectations. I was later charged for a recurring subscription that I do not recall agreeing to, as the automatic renewal was not clearly disclosed during purchase.

Summary: Horrible customer support. They do not follow their own refund policy rules. I don’t recommend them at all. Stay away

Positive: I used it for a one time test and it was ok. I wanted to compress two videos but the final product lost quality.

Negative: This is a horrible platform with horrible support. I tested out a one-time service for which I paid 0.99€, and ended upbwith a surprise subscription for 49€ after 7 days, even though this was not mentioned anywhere.

When I reached out and asked for a refund they wanted to offer 2 years of free supscription, when I declined they said they do not offer refunds and asked me to check their refund policy page. I did, and got back to them based on their own page information which stated that EU users can shut down any subscription with full refund within 14 days. After that they wanted to offer half in refund and another BS plan. I told them i don’t want it because I don’t need their website the stopped replying.

I can’t stress it enough how bad they’re customer support is.

Summary: Stay away from this website and service! This is my worst experience ever!

Positive: There are no pros ! Just stay away from this website as this is subscription trap and obviously this is a SCAM.

Negative: They don’t want to refund charge that they made today (49.99€) because their website didn’t let to cancel subscription back then when I was editing 1 document only!!! They reply to emails but they states that they don’t do refunds. Which is really bad because this is their deceptive subscription trap! Their phone number not functioning!

Summary: I purchased a $0.99 one-time service on 23/06 to download an edited document. I paid using Apple Pay and was never asked to create an account or clearly informed that I was signing up for a subscription.

Then, on 30/06, I was unexpectedly charged $49.99.

Since then, I’ve sent multiple emails to customer

Positive: N/A

Negative: Beware: Unauthorized $49.99 Charge After a $0.99 Purchase

Summary: Bad experience, misleading advert. Fraud company that takes your money without authorization they dont deserve even one star.

Positive: Nothing just for them to steal money and tell you that they can't refund you even though you dont need theire service

Negative: I was misled with hidden monthly charges that I never authorised. I requested my refund They offer 2 years free service. I dont want their service I want my money back.

Summary: AVOID IT AT ALL COST.

Not worth trying it out. Nothing special but when you try to cancel the subscription, hell of a trouble.

Positive: Nothing extraordinary. You can find similar features on other apps which will not scam your money.

This app is more like an enticement and entrapment to make you pay unwillingly.

Negative: It will entice you with very low trial price. Then it will charge to your card USD49.99 per month without your full knowledge. You can't delete your card details from the pdf guru account. You will have to do it from your bank app.

The trial period is a very short 7 days and will start charging to your card the second it crosses 7 days.

This is more like a scam site masquerading as a legitimate site.

DON'T USE IT!

Summary: Charged for a one time document download & then 7 days later charged $49.99 for a months subscription I did not opt for. Immediately contacted PDF Guru & they refused to refund. This was not made clear during download. Finally found the disclaimer at the bottom of the email invoice. Horrible customer service!! Refuse to refund 1 day into this subscription I did not opt for and keep sending me the same canned email response 8 times.

Positive: Professional appearance of document but took a lot of tries to have it downloaded professionally and then I had to print & scan it to be able to email it.

Negative: Hidden charges. Do not make it clear when you buy the single download that you start a subscription in 7 days and won't refund, even the 1st day of being charged.

Summary: I tried to explain my situation but got a generic AI response. As a 73 year old pensioner with limited technology experience I was very disappointed! Do not trust these people!!

Positive: Nothing

Negative: I used PDF Guru to convert a locked PDF file into a Word Document as I needed to copy and paste so I could respond to a numerous points. I thought I was just purchasing a one of transaction, but yesterday I was billed with an annual or monthly charge!

Summary: Refund my money! I did not even use your service that allows you to charge me this much! I converted - couple of pdf file to test! That’s it. It did not work for me so I stopped! Now you don’t even refund me my money!

Positive: N/A

Negative: A scam, exorbitant charge for monthly. It’s auto recharge. Asking for a refund but they offered me a 2 year free use of the service, that’s because they know they charge above and beyond for a month!