Mathpix Convert vs PaddleOCR-VL
PaddleOCR-VL is cheaper per page; PaddleOCR-VL is faster; only Mathpix Convert supports handwriting; only PaddleOCR-VL supports multilingual.
Mathpix Convertmathpix/convert | PaddleOCR-VLpaddle/paddleocr-vl | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | OCR API | Open source |
| Price | 7 credits / page | 2 credits / page |
| Per 1,000 pages | $7.00 | $2.00 |
| Typical speed | 1.5 s / page | 1.3 s / page |
| Best for | Math and scientific papers | CJK documents |
| Inputs | PDF, images | PDF, images |
| Languages | 30+ languages | 109 languages |
| Max pages per request | 500 | 500 |
| Tables | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Handwriting | ✓ Yes | No |
| Math | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Bounding boxes | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Confidence | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Forms | No | No |
| Multilingual | No | ✓ Yes |
| On OCRRouter | Coming soon | Available |
Prices are what you pay on OCRRouter. Speed is the provider's typical figure, not a benchmark we ran.
What each one is
Mathpix Convert
Specialist for math, science papers and handwritten formulas. Outputs LaTeX.
Mathpix Convert detailsPaddleOCR-VL
Open-source document model from Baidu. Excellent on Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
PaddleOCR-VL detailsUse one, fall back to the other
Request body
{
"model": "mathpix/convert",
"fallbacks": ["paddle/paddleocr-vl"],
"file_url": "https://example.com/document.pdf"
}