FAQ

What is hotdoc?

A document-processing API: you send files and text prompts, and get back the recognized text and the model's answers for each file. Unpacking archives, conversion, OCR, and the model call all happen on our side.

How is hotdoc different from plain OCR or a converter?

hotdoc combines unpacking, conversion, OCR, and the language-model call into a single asynchronous job that runs on your provider key. It's not a format converter, and it's not bare OCR.

What is BYOK, and why is it a good deal?

Bring Your Own Key — you connect your own model provider key. You pay the provider directly for tokens and OCR at their rate; hotdoc adds no markup.

What am I paying hotdoc for?

For the tooling: orchestration, reliability (retries, recovery), format and archive support, and ongoing development and support. Tokens and OCR are paid to the provider through your key.

Can I try it for free?

Yes. Sign up, create a key, and send jobs within the free plan — no credit card required.

What happens to my documents and BYOK keys?

All three secrets (neural.apiKey, ocr.providerKey, and webhookSecret) are never stored in plaintext; the encrypted artifacts and your files are deleted along with the job (~7 days) — see “Security and data” for details.

Which formats are supported?

21 formats: PDF, DOC/DOCX, XLS/XLSX, PPT/PPTX, RTF, TXT, ODT, images (JPG, PNG, TIFF, HEIC), and ZIP/7Z/RAR/EML/MSG archives — see “Supported formats.”

Are there limits?

Yes — on job size, converter response size, timeouts, and prompt size. See “Limits.”

Am I guaranteed valid JSON?

Your prompt and the chosen model determine the output structure; there's no server-side schema validation.

Which model should I choose?

It depends on the task and budget. Compare intelligence and per-token price across models in the LLM comparison, then set it in your job config.