PDFQuick
Free PDF tools that run entirely in your browser
For 3 weeks my PDF tool's landing page was just text + a "Get Started" button.
Paid traffic was bouncing in 2 seconds. Literally — GA average engagement time
on paid clicks was 2.0s. The funnel was: hero copy → CTA button → page navigation
→ THEN the tool. Every click lost ~30% of visitors. By the time anyone reached
the actual merge tool, 80% had already left.
Today I shipped one change: the merge tool now lives directly on the homepage.
Drop your PDFs in the hero section, click Merge, download. No page navigation.
No signup wall. The widget uses pdf-lib and runs entirely in the browser — open
DevTools → Network tab → zero file uploads happen.
This either fixes the bounce rate or it doesn't. I'll know in 48 hours.
Stack:
- Vanilla HTML/CSS/JS (no framework)
- pdf-lib for the actual PDF merging
- Supabase for optional auth
- Vercel for hosting
- Namecheap for the domain
Total cost so far: ₹600 (just the .com)
Total users: 594 in 14 days
Total revenue: ₹0 (AdSense still in review)
Posting this here partly to commit to checking the numbers in 48h and reporting
back. If you've ever had a "people land and immediately leave" problem, curious
what you tried — and what actually worked.
Site: https://www.usepdfquick.com
The merge widget is the first thing you see. Try it with any 2 PDFs from your
desktop. Feedback welcome, especially if something feels off.
Hi IH 👋
Just shipped PDFQuick (https://usepdfquick.com) — a free suite of 8 PDF tools where files never leave your browser.
The problem I kept hitting:
Every time I needed to merge two PDFs or compress one for an email, my options were:
- iLovePDF / Smallpdf — uploads files to their server, daily limits, and signup walls for the actually useful features
- Adobe Acrobat — costs more than I want to pay for occasional PDF tasks
- Desktop apps — fine, but I'm not installing software for a 2-minute job
So I built PDFQuick around a single constraint: the file must never leave the browser.
What's there:
Merge, Split, Compress, Protect (password), PDF↔Image, Watermark, Rotate. Eight tools, all client-side.
How it works (and why I'm posting on IH):
- 100% vanilla JS + PDF-lib, served as a static site
- No backend = nowhere to upload files = privacy is structural, not promised
- You can verify in DevTools → Network tab. Zero file upload requests during processing.
- No signup, no daily caps, no watermarks
- Funded by AdSense — free forever, no premium tier
Where I'm at:
Solo founder, side project, just shipped. Now in the boring-but-critical phase: getting the first 100 real users. Listed on SaaSHub today, posting here, and working through other directories this week.
What I'd love feedback on:
1. Is the privacy angle ("files never upload") actually a buying reason, or does nobody care?
2. The 8 tools cover ~80% of what people want — should I add anything before pushing for traffic? (OCR and PDF→Word are the obvious gaps; both would require a backend, breaking the constraint.)
3. Anyone here built static-site SaaS with AdSense as the only revenue model? Curious what the realistic ceiling is.
Try it: https://usepdfquick.com
Happy to answer any technical questions about the PDF-lib setup or the no-backend architecture.
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