Adobe Acrobat Reader: what's free, what's paid and a free alternative

Yes. The app is free to download on iPhone and iPad, and reading, searching, highlighting, commenting, filling in forms and signing with Fill & Sign stay free. You need a subscription only for tools that change or convert the file, such as editing text, exporting to Word, combining PDFs or OCR.

Reader itself costs nothing. In the US App Store, Acrobat Premium is listed at $9.99 a week, $12.99 or $14.99 a month, and $48.99 or $69.99 a year, and AI Assistant for Acrobat at $6.99. On adobe.com, Acrobat Standard is $14.99 a month, Acrobat Pro $19.99 and Acrobat Studio $24.99, each on an annual plan billed monthly, and those plans also cover the desktop apps and the web. US prices on October 29, 2026; they may change.

AppHunt has no promo code for Acrobat; its paid plans are sold by Adobe on adobe.com and billed by Apple in the App Store. Adobe's plans page has a separate tab with prices for students and teachers. If you were looking for a code in order to edit PDFs, Folbrio does that at no cost on iPhone, iPad and Mac, and no code is needed.

Adobe's App Store listing offers a 7-day free trial. Its help pages add that mobile trials usually come with annual plans, are not offered in every region, and become a paid subscription unless you cancel before the seven days are over; Adobe emails a reminder before the trial ends. Acrobat Pro bought on adobe.com also starts with a 7-day trial, then costs $19.99 a month on the annual plan billed monthly (US price on October 29, 2026; it may change).

If you subscribed in the app, Apple bills you: on your iPhone or iPad open Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions, choose the Acrobat subscription and cancel it. In the app, the profile icon, then Subscriptions and Manage subscriptions, leads to the same App Store screen, and Apple handles refunds for these purchases. If you bought from Adobe, cancel on the web: open your account at account.adobe.com, pick Manage plan, then Cancel your plan. Adobe refunds most plans in full within 14 days; after that, cancelling an annual plan billed monthly can mean a fee of up to half the remaining commitment.

For reading and signing, Reader's free level already does the job. For editing, which is where Acrobat starts charging, Folbrio, the AppHunt team's PDF editor, is completely free and available for iPhone, iPad and Mac: it edits existing text, adds images and signatures, organizes pages and runs OCR on your device. It doesn't replace Adobe's cloud storage, Office conversion or signature requests.