Adobe Scan review

Adobe Scan covers the everyday scanning jobs well without asking for money first. Adobe says the free app scans receipts, IDs, notes, business cards and whiteboards to PDF or JPEG, cleans pages with a Magic eraser that removes thumbs, shadows, stains and creases, and runs image-to-text recognition so you can search and copy words from a scan. The Straighten tool fixes curved or tilted pages even when all four corners are not visible, and High-speed scan handles stacks of pages. A useful extra for expenses is the smart library, which finds documents and receipts already in your photo library and converts them to PDFs. The trade-offs: scans are saved to Adobe Document Cloud, and the subscription is how you raise OCR capacity from 5 to 100 pages and combine scans. Adobe Scan Plus is listed at $4.99 a month or $19.99 a year on the US App Store, and subscriptions also work in Acrobat Reader and Acrobat on the web.

Who it is for

most people who want a free scanner with text recognition

Price

Free download; Adobe Scan Plus $4.99 per month or $19.99 per year on the US App Store; Premium plans also listed.

Adobe Scan Plus - Monthly $4.99
Quoted from the vendor pricing page on November 12, 2026.

Key features

• Scans receipts, IDs, notes, recipes, photos, business cards and whiteboards to PDF or JPEG
• Image-to-text OCR makes scans searchable and editable
• Smart library finds documents and receipts in your photo library and turns them into PDFs
• Magic eraser removes thumbs, shadows, stains and creases
• High-speed scan for bulk scanning stacks of pages

Strengths and weaknesses

• Strength: Free version includes OCR on scans
• Strength: Pulls contact details from business cards into your phone contacts
• Strength: Subscriptions also work in Acrobat Reader mobile and Acrobat on the web
• Weakness: Paid tiers raise OCR capacity from 5 to 100 pages, so heavy OCR use needs a subscription
• Weakness: Scans are saved to Adobe Document Cloud rather than kept only on the phone
• Weakness: Ten different Plus and Premium in-app prices on the App Store make plans hard to compare

Key facts

• Free version: Yes
• Cheapest paid plan: Adobe Scan Plus, $4.99 a month or $19.99 a year (US App Store)
• Export formats: PDF, JPEG; Word, Excel and PowerPoint export listed
• Storage: Adobe Document Cloud
• US App Store rating: 4.9 from 1.6M ratings

Where it ranks

Adobe Scan is No. 1 in our Best Scanner Apps verdict.