PaperGuard vs Scan Cam PDF
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
PaperGuard
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Most scanner apps upload your ID, your lease and your payslips to someone else's server. PaperGuard has no server to upload them to — scanning, OCR and document intelligence all run on your iPhone. Free forever for unlimited scans, with no watermark and no ads. TURN PAPER INTO CLEAN PDFs Point the camera and PaperGuard finds the page edges, straightens the perspective and cleans up the result. Scan a single page, a whole contract, or use Batch Scan to shoot page after page without stopping. Reorder, crop and retake before you save, then export a sharp multi-page PDF. IT READS WHAT IT SCANS On-device text recognition turns every scan into searchable text. PaperGuard also recognizes what kind of document it is looking at — invoice, receipt, contract, ID — and pulls out the amounts and dates that matter. Ask a plain question about a document and get the answer straight from the page. No cloud AI is involved at any point. SIGN WITHOUT PRINTING Draw your signature once, then place it on any document with a tap. Annotate, highlight and fill in what you need, then send a finished PDF. The printer stays in the closet. LOCKED BEHIND FACE ID Turn on the Vault and PaperGuard asks for Face ID before showing anything — after a restart, after switching apps, every time. Content blurs the moment you leave the app. Face ID is handled by iOS itself; if it fails, your device passcode gets you in. FINDS THINGS AGAIN Folders, tags and full-text search across everything you have scanned, right inside the app. Documents show up in iPhone search by their title as well, and you can optionally have their text appear as a preview in the result. Identity cards and passports never leave the title, whatever you choose. PRIVACY THAT IS ARCHITECTURE, NOT A PROMISE There is no account, no login and no server. Your documents, images, recognized text and settings never leave your device, because there is nowhere for them to go. No analytics, no advertising, no tracking SDKs. Put your iPhone in airplane mode and every feature above still works — that is the test we would like you to run. FREE Unlimited scanning, no watermark, no ads. PDF export, one folder, one saved signature, three tags and a preview of recognized text. PAPERGUARD PRO Full recognized text and search inside your scans, Document Intelligence, Quick Answers, unlimited folders, signatures and tags, and batch export. Yearly at USD 14.99 with a 7-day free trial, or monthly at USD 2.99. Prices in your local currency are shown in the app. Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation. A subscription renews automatically unless it is cancelled at least 24 hours before the current period ends; manage or cancel it in iOS Settings, Apple Account, Subscriptions. Any unused part of a free trial is forfeited when a subscription is purchased. Privacy Policy: https://bytechimera.com/apps/paperguard/privacy Support: https://bytechimera.com/apps/paperguard/support
Scan Cam PDF
Transform your phone into a powerful document scanner. Capture, enhance, and organize your papers with edge detection, shadow removal, and multiple page support. Export to PDF or JPEG, and share your scans securely offline.
- Edge detection and straightening
- Shadow removal
- Multi-page document creation
- Folder organization
- Searchable documents
- PDF and JPEG export
- Offline text recognition
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Scan Cam turns your iPhone into a document scanner. You photograph a sheet of paper, the app finds its edges, straightens it and cleans up the text: what you get is a real scan, not a photo of a piece of paper. Your documents stay on your iPhone and in your own iCloud Drive — never on a server of ours. No account to create, no adverts, no analytics. The iCloud copy brings your invoices, your contracts and your identity papers back if you reinstall the app or change iPhones, and you can turn it off in the settings. Apart from that copy, a document leaves your phone only on the day you decide to share it yourself. SCANNING • Edges detected and the page straightened, even shot at an angle • Four looks: original photo, colour, greyscale, black and white • Strength adjustable with your finger, with a preview that follows • Shadows removed in one tap, for pages shot under a lamp or a hand • Several pages in one document, to reorder, rotate or remove • Import a photo or a PDF already on your phone: it becomes a document, just like a scan ORGANIZING • Folders and subfolders, like on a computer • A search that also finds what is filed deep inside a folder, and tells you where • Rename, move, duplicate, delete • A copy in your own iCloud Drive: your documents come back after a reinstall or on a new iPhone FINISHING AND SHARING • Export to PDF or JPEG • Add text on a page • Print straight from the app • Save to the Files app, or send through the iPhone's share sheet SCAN CAM PRO The free version is complete and never expires: scan, organize, filter, annotate, print and export to PDF as much as you like. Free PDFs carry a small "Scanned with Scan Cam" line at the foot of the page. The Pro subscription adds: • PDF with no line at the foot • Text recognition, which reads your pages and hands you the text to copy • Signature, drawn with your finger and placed where you want it • Watermark, across the page • Merging several documents into one • Pulling pages out into a new document • Export to Word (.docx) and Excel (.xlsx) Text recognition runs on the phone, with no internet: it reads the Latin alphabet, Japanese, Chinese and Korean. NINE LANGUAGES The app reads in French, English, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Japanese, Chinese and Korean. SUBSCRIPTION • Scan Cam Pro — one year, after a 7-day free trial • The price is the one shown by the App Store and in the app, in your own currency • Payment is charged to your Apple account when you confirm the purchase • The subscription renews automatically at the end of each year unless it is cancelled at least 24 hours before that date • You can manage and cancel it at any time in your Apple account settings • Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ • Privacy Policy: https://scancam.app/privacy.html
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Scan Cam PDF at weekly against PaperGuard's every 2 months. Scan Cam PDF also leads on iOS requirement (15.5 vs 17.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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
Both are free to download. PaperGuard sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month and Scan Cam PDF sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $22.99 per year. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
PaperGuard ships an update every 2 months, Scan Cam PDF weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 18, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | PaperGuard | Scan Cam PDF |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | — | 5.0 (3 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | — | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | — | 3 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | — | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 15.5 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 5 MB | 86 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Przemyslaw Bocer | Pierre Trochet |
In-app purchases
PaperGuard
- PaperGuard Pro Monthly$2.991 Month
- PaperGuard Pro Yearly7 Days trial$14.991 Year
Scan Cam PDF
- Premium (1 year)7 Days trial$22.991 Year









