What is document intelligence versus plain OCR?

Plain OCR returns raw text from an image. Document intelligence (also called IDP) goes further — it extracts structured fields, key-value pairs, tables, and document layout, often with prebuilt models for invoices, receipts, IDs, and forms.

Which service is best for invoices and receipts?

AWS Textract, Azure Document Intelligence, and Google Document AI all ship prebuilt invoice and receipt models with strong accuracy. Azure and Google also let you train custom extraction models for proprietary form layouts.

How is price per page calculated?

Document AI is billed per page processed, and prebuilt or custom models cost more than raw OCR. Prices are list-price estimates and clearly labelled; tiered volume discounts and per-feature surcharges vary, so confirm in each provider's pricing page.

Can I extract data from handwritten documents?

Yes, to varying degrees. Azure Document Intelligence and Google Document AI handle handwriting reasonably well on Latin scripts, while AWS Textract supports handwriting in English. Accuracy drops on poor scans, so always test on your real documents.

AI Document Intelligence Comparison

Compare document intelligence APIs at a glance

Choosing a document AI service means balancing extraction accuracy, the formats and languages it supports, how many prebuilt models ship out of the box, and price per page. This table puts the major intelligent document processing APIs side by side — AWS Textract, Azure Document Intelligence, Google Document AI, and more — so you can pick the right engine for invoices, receipts, IDs, contracts, or general OCR.

How to read the table

Accuracy is a 1–5 rating of structured extraction quality on clean documents.
Formats is which file types are supported — PDF, images, Office, and more.
Languages is the approximate count of supported languages for OCR.
Prebuilt models flags ready-made extractors for invoices, receipts, IDs, and forms versus general OCR only.
$/page is a list-price estimate; prebuilt and custom models cost more than raw text extraction.

Filter by provider and budget, search by service name, and click a column header to sort.

Tips for picking a service

For invoices, receipts, and IDs, prioritise services with mature prebuilt models — Azure, Google, and AWS all qualify.
For proprietary form layouts, choose a service that supports training custom extraction models from a handful of labelled samples.
For high volume, model your monthly page count against per-page tiers; raw OCR is far cheaper than full structured extraction.
For on-prem or regulated data, check whether the service offers a container or private-endpoint deployment so documents never leave your network.