Amazon Comprehend vs Amazon Textract
A side-by-side look at pricing plans, free tiers, features, pros and cons, updated for 2026. Amazon Comprehend starts at See pricing page and Amazon Textract starts at See pricing page. Check both pricing pages for current plans.
At a glance
Best for
Category
Pricing model
Starting price
Free plan
Made by
Based in
Rating
Key features
- Entity and key phrase extraction
- Sentiment analysis
- Custom classification
- Custom entity recognition
- Topic modeling
- Text and handwriting OCR
- Form and table extraction
- Queries on documents
- Expense and ID analysis
- Lending document API
| Feature | Amazon Comprehend | Amazon Textract |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | AWS natural language API for entities, sentiment and classification | AWS OCR service that extracts text, forms and tables from documents |
| Category | Data & analytics | Data & analytics |
| Pricing model | Freemium | Freemium |
| Starting price | See pricing page | See pricing page |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Made by | Amazon Web Services | Amazon Web Services |
| Based in | United States | United States |
| Rating | No ratings yet | No ratings yet |
| Key features |
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Pricing compared
Amazon Comprehend starts at See pricing page and Amazon Textract starts at See pricing page. Check both pricing pages for current plans.
Free plan
Cheapest paid plan
Top plan
Free trial
3 plans
Free Tier
Free
- 50K units of text per API monthly
- First 12 months only
Standard APIs
$0.0001 / unit (100 characters)
- Entities, sentiment, key phrases
- Volume discounts at scale
Custom models
$3 / training hour
- Endpoint inference billed per second
- Monthly model storage fee
3 plans
Free Tier
Free
- 1,000 pages of text detection
- 100 pages of forms and tables
Detect Document Text
$0.0015 / page
- Printed and handwritten text
- $0.0006 / page past 1M pages
Analyze Document
From $0.015 / page
- Tables, forms and queries
- Price depends on features used
Prices in USD, checked Nov 5, 2026 or later. Plans change often, so confirm on each tool's site before you buy.
Pros and cons
Amazon Comprehend
- No ML expertise needed for basic APIs
- Custom models on your own labels
- Scales with other AWS services
- Free tier lasts only 12 months
- Custom models have no free tier
- Costs can be hard to estimate
Amazon Textract
- Handles handwriting as well as print
- Returns structured forms and tables
- Purpose-built APIs for common documents
- Form and query features cost far more per page
- Custom Queries have no free tier
- Requires AWS setup to use
Which one should you choose?
Choose Amazon Comprehend if you want:
- No ML expertise needed for basic APIs
- Custom models on your own labels
- Scales with other AWS services
Watch out: free tier lasts only 12 months.
Choose Amazon Textract if you want:
- Handles handwriting as well as print
- Returns structured forms and tables
- Purpose-built APIs for common documents
Watch out: form and query features cost far more per page.
Amazon Comprehend vs Amazon Textract FAQ
What is the difference between Amazon Comprehend and Amazon Textract?
Amazon Comprehend: AWS natural language API for entities, sentiment and classification. Amazon Textract: AWS OCR service that extracts text, forms and tables from documents. Both are data & analytics tools.
Is Amazon Comprehend or Amazon Textract cheaper?
Amazon Comprehend starts at See pricing page and Amazon Textract starts at See pricing page. Check both pricing pages for current plans.
Do Amazon Comprehend and Amazon Textract have free plans?
Amazon Comprehend: Yes. Amazon Textract: Yes.
Who makes Amazon Comprehend?
Amazon Comprehend is made by Amazon Web Services, based in United States.
Who makes Amazon Textract?
Amazon Textract is made by Amazon Web Services, based in United States.
Which should I choose, Amazon Comprehend or Amazon Textract?
Choose Amazon Comprehend if you value no ml expertise needed for basic apis and custom models on your own labels. Choose Amazon Textract if you value handles handwriting as well as print and returns structured forms and tables.