Comparison

PDF Max vs ReadFlow

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

PDF Max

This app allows you to read, annotate, and sign PDF documents on your mobile device. You can mark up text, add handwritten notes, insert stamps, fill out forms, and manage PDF pages. It also offers robust file management and cloud integration for seamless access to your documents.

Highlights
  • Read and annotate PDFs
  • Fill and sign PDF forms
  • Handwriting and text markup
  • Manage PDF pages
  • Cloud storage integration
  • Voice annotations
Features
Read full description

PDF Max is a complete PDF editor for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, trusted by millions of people since 2012. From signing a form to building research you can verify, PDF Max helps you edit, annotate, organize, understand, study, protect, and deliver PDFs—all in one app. YOUR PDF. NOW A WORKSPACE. Collect important passages, highlights, images, tables, formulas, and notes as Cards beside your PDFs. Every Card remembers where it came from, so you can return to the original page whenever you need the full context. • Search, tag, connect, and arrange your Cards • Gather related Cards into named groups called Frames • Organize evidence from several PDFs without merging them • Compare passages side by side or view your evidence as an Outline or table • Present Frames or export your work to Markdown, PDF, or Word STUDY WHAT MATTERS Turn trusted Cards into Questions, practice a focused topic, or use scheduled Study for long-term review. Track your Progress, study text and visual material, and return to the supporting PDF whenever an answer needs more context. On supported devices, Apple Intelligence can draft Questions for you to review before saving. EDIT, ANNOTATE, FILL, AND SIGN • Edit existing text, typography, images, links, shapes, and tables • Add, replace, crop, align, rotate, and arrange content • Remove image backgrounds and automatically crop subjects • Highlight, underline, strike through, draw, stamp, and comment • Add text boxes, callouts, notes, shapes, and threaded comments • Complete forms, find missing required fields, and add reusable signatures • Create and edit text, checkbox, radio, dropdown, signature, date, and image fields • Permanently redact text, areas, pages, or search results SCAN, READ, AND UNDERSTAND • Scan paper with automatic capture, edge detection, cleanup, crop, filters, and page reordering • Make scans searchable with optional OCR • Turn selected images into polished PDFs • Reflow fixed or scanned pages into a comfortable reading column • Keep figures beside the text they explain • Customize reading theme, typography, spacing, margins, and alignment • Translate supported languages and listen with on-device Read Aloud • Keep selected passages and useful context with Focus View VOICE NOTES THAT STAY ON THE PAGE • Place and play audio notes anywhere in a PDF • Create searchable on-device transcripts when the required speech model is available MAKE FLAT FORMS FILLABLE • Detect likely text, checkbox, and signature fields in flat or printed forms • Review every detected field before applying it • Use Form Assist to review suggested answers from your encrypted profile EVERY PDF TOOL IN ONE PLACE • Reorder, rotate, insert, duplicate, replace, extract, merge, split, or delete pages • Compress PDFs while preserving selectable text and vector graphics • Resize mixed pages to standard paper sizes • Add page numbers, N of M, Roman numerals, letters, or Bates numbering • Add or remove an open password • Create and edit PDF outlines and bookmarks • Recognize text with OCR and convert Word documents to PDF • Create PDFs from paper, journal, planner, graph, and project templates • Present PDF pages or Workspace Frames full screen • Save, print, flatten, share, or export the finished result Join more than 25 million downloads worldwide and move from document to outcome with PDF Max. Some advanced features require PDF Max PREMIUM. PDF MAX PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION Payment will be charged to your Apple Account when the purchase is confirmed. Subscriptions renew automatically unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current subscription period. You can manage or cancel your subscription in your Apple Account settings. Any unused portion of a free trial will be forfeited when a subscription is purchased, where applicable. Privacy Policy: https://mobeera.ai/privacy Terms: https://mobeera.ai/terms

About

ReadFlow

This app transforms PDF documents into a comfortable reading experience on small screens. It offers text reflow, customization options for fonts and themes, and iCloud sync for seamless access across devices. Enjoy reading PDFs as easily as other ebook formats.

Highlights
  • PDF text reflow for mobile
  • Customizable fonts and themes
  • Import custom font files
  • iCloud sync
  • PDF file cropping
  • Metadata editing
  • Generate and share reflowed text
Features
Read full description

Designed for mobile reading! Readflow is a reading app specially designed for small screens. The text reflow feature is elaborately designed to solve the problem that PDF documents are difficult to read on mobile devices, such as text that is too small and the scan is not clear, and obtain a reading experience consistent with EPub, txt and other formats. Key features include: - PDF text reflow, supporting multiple languages¹ - Custom font family, font size, line height, etc - Importing font files² - Reading themes, switching automatically - iCloud sync, supporting on-demand download to save storage space and cellular data - PDF file cropping - PDF file metadata editing and saving - Reflow text generating and sharing for a whole PDF file³ - More detailed features: favorites, searching, etc. - Purchase once, use everywhere⁴ --- ¹ Currently supported: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Ukrainian ² Supported file formats: otf, ttf ³ txt format ⁴ iOS / iPadOS universal app Term of use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula Privacy policy: https://is.gd/TgnFzI

Screenshots

PDF Max4 screens
ReadFlow4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: ReadFlow at 100% against PDF Max's 35%. ReadFlow also leads on update cadence (every 4 days vs monthly) and rating (4.8 vs 4.5). PDF Max's advantage is ratings volume (1.2K vs 5). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. PDF Max sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per 7 days and ReadFlow sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

ReadFlow holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: PDF Max has 1.2K ratings behind it against 5, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 35% of PDF Max's written reviews are positive against 100% of ReadFlow's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

PDF Max ships an update monthly, ReadFlow every 4 days. Both last shipped on October 17, 2026.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
PDF Max versus ReadFlow: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPDF MaxReadFlow
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.5 (1.2K ratings)4.8 (5 ratings) — better
Positive reviews35.4% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings1.2K — better5
Update frequencyMonthlyEvery 4 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS18.016.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size266 MB3 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMobeera实 许

Customer experience

PDF Max

All ratings1,176 ratings
Positive87.8%
Neutral2.6%
Negative9.5%
Written reviews189 reviews
Positive35.4%
Neutral7.4%
Negative57.1%

ReadFlow

All ratings5 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews4 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

PDF Max

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Disappearing documents and annotations
  • Incompatibility with newer devices
  • Crashes on launch
  • Unreliable file saving

Requested features

5 requests
  • Dark mode option
  • Ability to edit/delete annotations
  • Better integration with cloud storage
  • Split-screen viewing for PDFs
  • Improved handwriting recognition

ReadFlow

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

10 purchases

PDF Max

Subscriptions3
  • Premium Subscription (1 week)$1.997 Days
  • One year premium$34.991 Year
  • Yearly Onboarding Offer7 Days trial$34.991 Year
One-time7
  • Standard Annotating Package$0.99
  • Cloud Access Package$1.99
  • Advanced Annotating Package$3.99
Show 4 more
  • Form Filling Package$3.99
  • Pro Package$4.99
  • Premium Package (Update)$4.99
  • Premium Package (New User)$9.99
3 purchases

ReadFlow

Subscriptions2
  • ReadFlow Pro 1x$0.991 Month
  • ReadFlow Pro 12x$9.991 Year
One-time1
  • ReadFlow Pro ∞$19.99

Questions

Is PDF Max free?
PDF Max is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is ReadFlow free?
ReadFlow is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, PDF Max or ReadFlow?
ReadFlow is rated higher. PDF Max averages 4.5 out of 5 from 1.2K ratings, while ReadFlow averages 4.8 from 5 ratings.
Do PDF Max or ReadFlow have ads?
Neither PDF Max nor ReadFlow shows ads.
Which is updated more often, PDF Max or ReadFlow?
PDF Max ships an update monthly, and ReadFlow every 4 days. Most recently, PDF Max was updated on October 17, 2026 and ReadFlow on October 17, 2026.

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