StillpageThe best PDF editor for Mac with no subscription
You can avoid a PDF subscription on a Mac. Preview and PDFgear are free. Stillpage is $29 once for signing, forms, OCR and page tools, but it can't edit a PDF's existing text. PDF Expert's Lifetime licence is $139.99 once and does edit text, annotate and convert to Word. Adobe's plans page lists only monthly plans for Acrobat. Prices checked 2 November 2026.
The options at a glance
| Price | Edit existing text | Sign and fill forms | OCR scans | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Preview | Free, built into macOS | No | Yes | No |
| PDFgear | Free | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Stillpage | $29 once, every future version included | No | Yes | Yes, whole folders at once |
| PDF Expert Lifetime | $139.99 once, Mac only | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Which to choose
- You need to change the wording in a PDF: PDF Expert Lifetime, or PDFgear if free matters more than polish. Stillpage and Preview can't do this.
- Your PDFs are paperwork: signing, forms, making scans searchable, merging and compressing. Stillpage does these offline for $29, with nothing uploaded and forms saved so they keep working in other apps.
- You sign something once a month: Preview is free and already on your Mac.
What Stillpage does
- Sign with a saved typed or drawn signature, plus the date and ticks in one click
- Fill in forms, saved so they keep working in other apps
- Make scans searchable with Apple's on-device text recognition, one file or a whole folder
- Merge PDFs, create a PDF from photos and scans, insert pages
- Rotate, delete and reorder pages
- Compress large PDFs for email
What Stillpage doesn't do
- Edit the existing text or images in a PDF
- Convert PDFs to Word, Excel or PowerPoint
- Highlight, comment or annotate
- Redact (permanently black out) text
- Split one PDF into several files
- Fill XFA forms, the kind that only open in Adobe Reader
Why "no subscription" matters for a PDF app
PDF work tends to be occasional: a lease this month, a tax form next spring. Paying monthly for a tool you open a few times a year adds up. Acrobat Pro on an annual plan is US$239.88 a year. A one-time licence keeps working whether you open it weekly or twice a year.
See also the full 2027 comparison, Stillpage vs PDF Expert and Stillpage vs Acrobat.
Prices checked 2 November 2026 on adobe.com, pdfexpert.com and pdfgear.com; in US dollars, before tax. Acrobat is a trademark of Adobe; PDF Expert is a trademark of Readdle; PDFgear is a trademark of its owner. Stillpage is not affiliated with any of them.
Try Stillpage free for 14 days
Every feature, nothing uploaded. Then $29 once if you keep it.
Download free trial on Gumroad Buy for $29 Mac App Store