Why DocFila runs OCR on your phone instead of uploading to a cloud — and the trade-offs to know.
Cloud OCR sends the entire document to a third-party server. On-device OCR never lets the page leave the phone. For medical records, IDs, legal contracts, and anything sensitive — the difference matters.
DocFila's free tier runs OCR entirely on-device using Apple Vision (iOS) and ML Kit (Android). Your contracts and IDs never touch our servers unless you explicitly choose cloud sync.
Cloud OCR APIs charge $1.50 to $10 per 1,000 pages. At any scale, on-device OCR is free — and offers no upper limit on volume.
For typed text in well-lit conditions, on-device OCR matches cloud OCR. For very poor handwriting, very degraded scans, or unusual scripts, cloud OCR (especially LLM-based) still has the edge. DocFila will offer optional cloud OCR for those edge cases in Business — strictly opt-in, with a per-document toggle.