Redaction ToolsPricing units
Why two published redaction prices usually cannot be compared as printed, what each unit actually charges for, and how we keep the difference visible.
"$15 per month" and "$0.05 per page" are not two points on the same scale. Which is cheaper depends entirely on how much work you have, and neither vendor is hiding anything — they have simply chosen different ways to charge.
Most comparison tables solve this by inventing a common unit, usually by dividing a subscription fee by a document volume nobody published. We do not, because that number is fiction and it is the fiction that decides the ranking.
The units in this catalog
| Unit | Charges for | What varies your bill |
|---|---|---|
| per month / per year | A period of access | Nothing. The fee is the fee. |
| per seat per month / per year | A period, per named user | How many people need access |
| per page | Pages processed | Document length and count |
| per document | Documents processed | Count only — length is irrelevant |
| per minute | Minutes of video or audio | Runtime |
| per credit | An abstract unit the vendor defines | Whatever the vendor says a credit buys |
| one-time | A perpetual licence | Nothing, after purchase |
The distinction between per page and per document is the one that catches people out. On a per-document plan, a 200-page deposition costs the same as a one-page form. On a per-page plan it costs two hundred times as much. Two vendors can quote what looks like the same price and mean wildly different things.
Allowances and overage
A metered plan usually has two numbers: a fee that buys an allowance, and a rate that applies to everything past it. A plan advertised at $15 a month with 300 included pages and $0.05 a page thereafter is cheap at 250 pages and not cheap at 3,000.
We store both rows and show both. A plan that quoted only its monthly fee would look like a flat subscription, and a plan that quoted only its overage rate would look like pure metering. Neither is true.
When a vendor publishes no allowance at all, we record no allowance — not zero, and not unlimited.
What we refuse to do
- Divide a subscription by a volume. If a vendor charges for a month, the honest per-document figure is "included", not the fee over an invented denominator.
- Quote an annual-prepay rate as a monthly one. Annual billing is usually cheaper per month; presenting it as the monthly price makes a vendor look cheaper than they are for anyone who pays monthly.
- Flatten per-seat to flat. A $12 per-seat plan is $12 or $240 depending on your team.
- Treat a trial as a free tier. "Free for 14 days" and "free forever" are different products, stored and rendered as different things.
So how do you compare them?
You supply the missing variable: your own volume. That is what the price calculator is for — it works each plan out from the vendor's published rate rather than from an assumed average, and says plainly when a plan cannot be costed for your volume at all.
Reading a listing
What each field on a tool's page means, what it claims, and the places where an absent value is a fact rather than a gap.
The price calculator
How the calculator costs each plan against your own volume, what it does when a plan cannot be costed, and the arithmetic it deliberately refuses to do.