Convertio's pricing is genuinely hard to compare against anything, and not because it is hidden. It is because Convertio meters processing time on its API and credits on its web plans, while most competitors quote a price per conversion. Those units are not interchangeable, so the usual side-by-side table is meaningless unless you know how long your own files take to convert.
This guide lays out Convertio's published rate card as of 26 July 2026, converts it into a break-even you can actually apply to your workload, and says plainly where ChangeThisFile is the more expensive choice - which, for most conversion workloads, it is.
TL;DR - who wins, and on what
Convertio is cheaper per conversion than ChangeThisFile at every published tier, provided your conversions are quick. ChangeThisFile becomes cheaper only when files take a long time to process, because it charges one unit per conversion no matter how long that conversion runs.
| If your workload is... | Cheaper choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Images and documents that convert in seconds | Convertio | You are billed for a few seconds of processing, not a whole unit |
| Long video, very large PDFs, anything over ~90-110 seconds | ChangeThisFile | One flat unit regardless of duration |
| Spiky or one-off - a batch now, nothing next month | Convertio | API minutes are prepaid and never expire; ChangeThisFile is a monthly subscription that resets |
| Steady volume where you want one predictable invoice | ChangeThisFile | Fixed monthly price, no metering to model |
| You need OCR | Convertio | ChangeThisFile does not sell OCR |
| You want to test an API without paying | ChangeThisFile | 25 free API conversions a month, no card; Convertio publishes no free API allowance |
Convertio's published rate card (July 2026)
Convertio sells the web tool and the API as two separate products, on two separate meters. This is the single most important thing to understand before comparing it to anything.
Web plans - billed in monthly credits
Convertio's own FAQ: "Conversion credits indicate the amount of server time required to process your file. Most photo and document conversions use a single credit. Larger files or more complex codecs require additional credits." Credits reset monthly and do not roll over.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual (per month) | Credits/month | Max file size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lite | $11.99 | $6.99 | 1,000 | 1 GB |
| Basic | $22.99 | $13.99 | 3,000 | 3 GB |
| Pro | $44.99 | $25.99 | 10,000 | 10 GB |
| Custom | from $54 | from $32.42 | up to 1,000,000 | 20 GB |
API - prepaid conversion minutes, sold separately
The API is not included in the web plans. It is sold as one-time packages of conversion minutes with no automatic renewal, and the minutes do not expire. Published prices:
| Package | Price | Per minute |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 minutes | $13 | $0.0130 |
| 5,000 minutes | $49 | $0.0098 |
| 10,000 minutes | $86 | $0.0086 |
| 25,000 minutes | $185 | $0.0074 |
| 50,000 minutes | $321 | $0.0064 |
| 100,000 minutes | $549 | $0.0055 |
| 1,000,000 minutes | $2,359 | $0.0024 |
OCR is a third product again, sold as prepaid page packs (50 pages for $4.99 up to 50,000 for $399.99).
One thing Convertio does not publish: how a partial minute is billed. If a 6-second conversion consumes 6 seconds you will get far more out of a package than the tables below assume; if it rounds up to a full minute, the per-conversion cost equals the per-minute rate. We could not find this documented anywhere, and it changes the arithmetic by an order of magnitude - ask their support before you size a package.
And one we could not verify: Convertio's free-tier limits are not stated on their pricing page, and the support articles that describe them sit behind a bot challenge. Widely repeated figures are 100 MB per file, 2 concurrent conversions, and 10 conversion minutes per 24 hours - treat that as unconfirmed.
Where Convertio's model bites
Cost per file is unbounded. This is the real structural risk. A conversion that takes eight minutes costs eight times one that takes one minute. Large video, long audio, and heavy PDFs are exactly the files whose durations you cannot predict from request count alone, so a workload that shifts toward bigger files gets more expensive without any change in traffic.
Web credits do not roll over. A quiet month is money spent. The advertised cost per conversion is only achievable at full monthly utilisation; at half utilisation you are paying double.
The API is a separate purchase. Paying for Pro does not give you API access - those are different products with different meters. Budget for both if you need both.
OCR is a third line item. Document pipelines that assume OCR is included will find it is not.
VAT and currency. Convertio is a European service; EU customers are charged VAT on top of the displayed price.
The break-even: when does a flat per-conversion price win?
ChangeThisFile charges one unit per conversion regardless of how long it takes. Convertio's API charges for processing time. So there is a single number that decides it: how many seconds your average conversion runs.
ChangeThisFile's enforced ladder is Free 25/month, Hobby $29 for 1,500, Startup $99 for 6,000, Scale $499 for 40,000, and Growth $1,999 for 200,000. Dividing gives its flat cost per conversion, and dividing that by Convertio's per-minute rate gives the crossover:
| ChangeThisFile plan | Cost per conversion | Comparable Convertio package | Break-even processing time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hobby $29 / 1,500 | $0.0193 | 1,000 min @ $0.0130 | ~89 seconds |
| Startup $99 / 6,000 | $0.0165 | 5,000 min @ $0.0098 | ~101 seconds |
| Scale $499 / 40,000 | $0.0125 | 25,000 min @ $0.0074 | ~101 seconds |
| Growth $1,999 / 200,000 | $0.0100 | 100,000 min @ $0.0055 | ~109 seconds |
Read that as: if your average conversion takes less than about a minute and a half, Convertio is cheaper. Most image and document conversions finish in seconds, which puts the majority of workloads firmly on Convertio's side of the line - and if Convertio bills partial minutes rather than rounding up, the gap is far wider still.
Above the crossover the flat unit wins, and it keeps winning without limit: a twelve-minute video transcode is twelve minutes of Convertio billing and still one conversion on ChangeThisFile. Note that a conversion in that range is a long synchronous request - ChangeThisFile allows 180 seconds on /v1/convert, and anything beyond that has to go through the asynchronous /v1/jobs endpoint.
How to work out your own number: take your Convertio invoice, divide minutes consumed by conversions performed, and compare the result against the table. Do not estimate it from file sizes.
When Convertio is simply the better buy
Reasons to stay on Convertio, stated plainly:
- Your conversions are fast. Below the ~90-110 second crossover Convertio costs less, frequently several times less. This covers most image, document, and spreadsheet work.
- Your volume is spiky or one-off. Convertio's API minutes are prepaid and never expire. ChangeThisFile is a monthly subscription that resets each month, so a single large batch means paying for a plan you use once.
- You need OCR. ChangeThisFile does not offer it at all.
- You need a bigger free allowance in the web tool, or file sizes above what a ChangeThisFile plan permits at your price point - Convertio's Lite plan accepts 1 GB files at $11.99, where ChangeThisFile's $29 Hobby caps at 100 MB.
- Format breadth. Convertio's catalog covers formats outside ChangeThisFile's roughly 1,000 conversion routes.
Reasons ChangeThisFile is the better buy:
- Long-running conversions. Above the crossover, flat beats metered, and the gap widens with every extra minute.
- Predictable invoices. One number per month with nothing to model. Metered billing means your costs move when your users' file sizes move.
- A free API tier. 25 conversions a month, no credit card, on the same infrastructure as production. Convertio publishes no free API allowance - the API is prepaid only.
- One synchronous call. POST the file, get the converted bytes back. No task creation, no polling, no download step.
API architecture: Convertio vs ChangeThisFile
Both APIs are well-formed; they are shaped for different jobs.
Convertio is asynchronous: start a conversion, poll for status, then download the result - three or more calls per file. That shape suits long-running jobs and large batches, and it is the right design for work that outlives a single HTTP request.
ChangeThisFile is synchronous: one POST returns the converted bytes in the response body. Fewer moving parts and no polling logic, at the cost of holding a connection open for the duration. For work longer than 180 seconds there is a separate asynchronous /v1/jobs endpoint that behaves much like Convertio's.
# ChangeThisFile: one call, done
curl -X POST https://changethisfile.com/v1/convert \
-H "Authorization: Bearer ctf_sk_your_key" \
-F "file=@input.docx" -F "target=pdf" \
--output result.pdf
Source format is auto-detected from the uploaded filename, so only target is required.
Total cost at each volume
Assuming one conversion consumes one Convertio API minute - the pessimistic reading of their undocumented rounding, and the only one that makes a like-for-like table possible:
| Conversions/month | Convertio API (prepaid, never expires) | ChangeThisFile (monthly subscription) | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | 1,000 min - $13 once | Hobby $29/mo | Convertio |
| 5,000 | 5,000 min - $49 once | Startup $99/mo | Convertio |
| 10,000 | 10,000 min - $86 once | Scale $499/mo | Convertio, by a wide margin |
| 25,000 | 25,000 min - $185 once | Scale $499/mo | Convertio |
| 100,000 | 100,000 min - $549 once | Growth $1,999/mo | Convertio |
Two things to notice. First, ChangeThisFile loses every row here, and the recurring-versus-prepaid difference makes the twelve-month gap larger still. Second, the 10,000 row is the worst case: ChangeThisFile's ladder jumps straight from 6,000 conversions at $99 to 40,000 at $499, so a workload just over 6,000 pays for 40,000. If you sit in that gap, the plan structure is working against you.
This table flips only when conversions run long. At an average of three minutes each, the same 5,000 conversions consume 15,000 Convertio minutes - a $185 package - against $99 on ChangeThisFile Startup.
If you came here because Convertio looked expensive, the honest answer is that on published rates it usually is not - not against ChangeThisFile, at least. For quick image and document conversions Convertio costs less at every tier, and its prepaid minutes suit occasional work better than any subscription does.
The case for switching is narrower and more specific: conversions that run long enough to make metered time expensive, or a preference for one predictable invoice over a meter you have to model. If that is you, take a free API key - 25 conversions a month, no card - and time your own files before moving anything. The break-even table above only works with your real numbers in it.