A CamScanner alternative without ads or weekly plans

Why people look for a CamScanner alternative

CamScanner does a lot: scanning, cleanup, conversions, cloud storage. But when we read hundreds of recent low-star App Store reviews across the scanner category, CamScanner came up most often for one thing: ads. Reviewers describe video ads around scanning and free features that shrink over time, such as limits on sending PDFs.

The other common thread is pricing. At the time of writing, CamScanner on the US App Store lists yearly premium plans of about $49.99 to $59.99 and a weekly plan around $9.99 a week. A weekly plan is easy to start and easy to forget, and $9.99 a week adds up to far more than any yearly plan if it keeps renewing.

None of that makes CamScanner a bad app for everyone. It makes it a poor fit if you just want to scan a lease, a school form or a receipt and get the PDF out without being sold to.

Scanfone vs CamScanner at a glance

Here is the factual comparison on the things people actually ask about. CamScanner figures are from its US App Store listing and recent reviews at the time of writing; prices and plans can change, so check the listing before you buy anything.

What Scanfone does for free

Scanfone is a document scanner for iPhone built around one rule: saving is free. You scan with Apple's document camera, which finds the edges and fixes the perspective, then save, share, print or send the PDF to Files. No daily limit, no ads, no account.

• Unlimited multi-page PDFs from the camera, photos or imported PDFs
• Filters: Original, Color, Gray and Black & white; rotate, reorder and delete pages
• Text recognition (OCR) on the phone, so PDFs are searchable and text can be copied
• Search across all your documents, including the text inside them, plus folders
• Scan modes for documents, ID cards (front and back on one page), passports and QR codes
• Free edit tools: sign a PDF, add text, watermark, page numbers, redact, merge, split and compress
• Free conversions: PDF to JPG, PDF to text and photos to PDF
• A Safe folder locked with a PIN and Face ID

The honest catch

Free PDFs get one small line under each page: "Scanned free with Scanfone". It sits below the content, not across it, so your document stays readable and nobody's signature is covered by a logo.

If you want that line gone, or you want sync between your phones, a 1 TB cloud backup on EU servers and Word or PowerPoint export, there is Scanfone Pro: $2.99 for the first year, then $19.99 a year. One yearly price, no weekly option, cancel in one tap. That is the whole business model. See pricing.

Privacy: what happens to your scans

Scanning and text recognition happen on your iPhone. Nothing is uploaded unless you switch on Pro sync. Scanfone shows no ads and uses no tracking or analytics, which also means there is no ad network that needs to know what you scanned. Read the details on our privacy page.

Switching from CamScanner to Scanfone

You do not need to migrate anything clever. Export the documents you want to keep from CamScanner as PDFs, then import them into Scanfone from Files. Scanfone runs text recognition on them so they become searchable alongside your new scans.

1. Export the documents you want to keep from CamScanner as PDF files and save them to Files.
2. Install Scanfone from the App Store and open it. There is no sign-up.
3. Import the PDFs from Files and sort them into folders.
4. If you subscribed to CamScanner and no longer need it, cancel in your iPhone Settings under your name, then Subscriptions.

Who should stay with CamScanner

If you rely on features Scanfone does not offer, or you already pay for CamScanner and you are happy, there is no reason to switch for the sake of it. Scanfone is for people who want a clean, quick scanner that does the everyday jobs for free and never ambushes them at the save button. If you are still comparing, our best free scanner app roundup covers more options.