Sift vs Scanbox
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side ā with what reviewers say about each.
Sift
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Every document scanner reads your page. Then it saves the file as "2024-05-22 00:45:29" and hands you an empty folder. Sift uses what it just read. Scan a receipt and it saves as "Blue Bottle Coffee - Receipt - Mar 2026", already filed under Receipts. You tap Save, not Rename. Then, weeks later, you swipe down on your Home Screen, type "lease", and there it is - because Sift indexes the text inside every scan into iOS Spotlight. All of it happens on your iPhone. Sift has no servers, no account, and makes no network calls. THE LIBRARY THAT FILES ITSELF ⢠Automatic titles - Sift finds the letterhead, the vendor, and the date, and writes the title for you ⢠Automatic filing - receipts, bills, IDs, contracts, medical records, tax documents, notes ⢠Everything editable - it's a suggestion, not a decision. Change anything before you save. FIND ANYTHING, INSTANTLY ⢠Search the text inside your documents, not just their filenames ⢠Find scans from your Home Screen with Spotlight - no need to open Sift first ⢠Every result opens straight to the document SCANS THAT WORK EVERYWHERE ELSE ⢠Real searchable PDFs - Sift writes an invisible text layer into every export, so you can select and search the text in Preview, Acrobat, or Files. Not just a picture of a page. ⢠Clean captures with automatic edge detection and perspective correction ⢠Four filters - Original, Enhanced, Grayscale, Black & White - applied to every page at once, not one at a time ⢠Import what you already have - photos and PDFs from Photos or Files, read and filed the same way ⢠Sign and mark up a page with your finger - save your signature once and stamp it on any document ⢠Reorder, rotate, split, and drop pages; export as PDF, compressed PDF, or JPG ⢠Fine-tune brightness and contrast on top of the four filters ASK YOUR DOCUMENTS (ON SUPPORTED DEVICES) On iPhones with Apple Intelligence, ask Sift about any scan - "what's the total?", "when does this lease end?" - and get answers from that document, generated entirely on your device. If the answer isn't in the document, Sift says so instead of guessing. No cloud AI, ever. SCAN FROM ANYWHERE ⢠"Hey Siri, scan with Sift" ⢠Add scanning to a Shortcut, your Action Button, or Control Center PRIVATE BY CONSTRUCTION, NOT BY PROMISE ⢠No servers. No account. No sign-up. No network calls. ⢠No analytics. No ads. No third-party SDKs of any kind. ⢠No tracking permission prompt - because there is nothing in Sift to track you with. ⢠Your IDs, contracts, and medical records never leave your iPhone. They can't - there's nowhere for them to go. ⢠Want Sift locked? Long-press its icon and choose Require Face ID - iOS locks it system-wide FREE FOREVER - GENUINELY Unlimited scanning. Unlimited pages. Text recognition. Automatic titling. Automatic filing. Search. Spotlight. PDF export. No limits, no watermark, no ads. We can give this away because it all runs on your device and costs us nothing to serve. There is no paywall in onboarding, ever, and nothing above is gated. Sift shows the price twice on its own, after it titles your first scan and after your first export. Both have a full-size Not now and block nothing. SIFT PRO (OPTIONAL) Adds encrypted backup & restore (pack your whole library into one password-protected file you save wherever you like), document expiry reminders, batch tools, text export, watermarked exports, and password-protected PDFs. Every plan and its true cost is shown on one screen, with the price printed on the button. Weekly or Yearly (each with a 7-day free trial you have to actually choose), or a one-time Lifetime purchase in Settings. Subscriptions auto-renew unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the period ends, and are managed in your Apple Account settings. Lifetime is a one-time purchase and never renews. Privacy Policy: https://ajain26.github.io/app-policies/sift/privacy-policy.html Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Scanbox
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Scanbox turns your phone into a fast, private document scanner ā and everything happens on your device. Scan any document with automatic edge detection, run OCR on-device, and export a searchable, watermark-free PDF. Your documents never leave your phone: no cloud uploads, no account. WHY SCANBOX ⢠100% on-device ā capture, OCR and PDF all happen locally. Nothing is uploaded to a server. ⢠No watermark, ever ā free exports are clean and professional. ⢠OCR is free ā extract and search the text inside your scans, no paywall. ⢠One-time purchase ā no subscriptions, ever. FEATURES ⢠Automatic edge detection and perspective correction ⢠Crop, rotate, reorder and enhance pages ⢠On-device OCR in Korean, English, Japanese and Chinese ⢠Full-text search across your library ā even text inside scans ⢠Export a searchable PDF, JPEG or PNG ⢠Share anywhere with the system share sheet ⢠Clean, modern, distraction-free design PRO ā one-time lifetime unlock (no subscription) ⢠Remove ads ⢠Batch-scan pages fast ⢠Organize with folders ⢠Password-lock your PDFs ⢠Advanced export (quality, page size, compression) OCR, searchable PDF and watermark-free exports are FREE forever. Pro just adds more power and convenience with a single purchase. Great for receipts, contracts, IDs, whiteboards, notes, and any document you'd rather not upload to a cloud scanner.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: Sift at none against Scanbox's shown. Scanbox's advantage is update cadence (every 4 days vs every 2 weeks) and iOS requirement (15.5 vs 17.0). On price, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Sift sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $6.99 per 7 days and Scanbox sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Sift ships an update every 2 weeks, Scanbox every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and September 25, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Sift | Scanbox |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Every 4 days ā better |
| Ads | No ā better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod ā better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 15.5 ā better |
| Further details ā not scored | ||
| Size | 2 MB | 138 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Anshul Jain | SEONYONG LEE |
In-app purchases
Sift
- Sift Pro (Weekly)7 Days trial$6.997 Days
- Sift Pro (Yearly)7 Days trial$34.991 Year
- Sift Pro (Lifetime)$79.99
Scanbox
- Scanbox Pro$5.99









