HotDocs by CARET vs. Wondershare PDFelement

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
HotDocs by CARET
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
HotDocs is a document automation and assembly software product, acquired and now supported by AbacusNext since 2017.
$25
per user/per month
Wondershare PDFelement
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
PDFelement is a document management solution from Wondershare Software headquartered in China.
$79.99
per year per user
Pricing
HotDocs by CARETWondershare PDFelement
Editions & Modules
Basic
$25
per user/per month
Enterprise
Contact sales team
PDFelement
79.99USD
per year per user
PDFelement
129.99USD
one-time fee per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HotDocs by CARETWondershare PDFelement
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsFor Individuals: Yearly Plan: $79.99/user; 2-Year Plan: $109.99/user Perpetual Plan(one-time): $129.99/user For Teams: Yearly plan starts at $109/year for 1 user For Education: Yearly Plan: $47.99/user; Perpetual Plan(one-time): $99.99/user
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
HotDocs by CARETWondershare PDFelement
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
HotDocs by CARETWondershare PDFelement
Small Businesses
Jotform
Jotform
Score 8.7 out of 10
Square 9 Softworks
Square 9 Softworks
Score 9.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Jotform
Jotform
Score 8.7 out of 10
MSB Docs
MSB Docs
Score 9.6 out of 10
Enterprises
Conga Composer
Conga Composer
Score 8.8 out of 10
M‑Files
M‑Files
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
HotDocs by CARETWondershare PDFelement
Likelihood to Recommend
7.4
(9 ratings)
9.4
(55 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
5.0
(1 ratings)
8.6
(5 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
7.5
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(2 ratings)
8.4
(8 ratings)
Implementation Rating
4.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
7.5
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
HotDocs by CARETWondershare PDFelement
Likelihood to Recommend
CARET (Abacus Data Systems, Inc. )
It is well suited in the organisations which deals with lots of paper work like legal, teaching, research, etc as they need similar kind of documents again and again. In a typical office set up it is of great use by human resource, marketing and legal department. Hot docs is not suitable if you have a proprietary or solo business as it do not caters to them.
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Wondershare Technology
It's a wonderful asset to have when you lose your original Word doc, etc. so you can still edit a document (and not have to start from ground zero). That feature alone is why I bought this product and why I will continue to recommend.
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Pros
CARET (Abacus Data Systems, Inc. )
  • Personalized training. We were able to get an expert on a video call who walked us through solutions to each of our unique problems (i.e. all fifty states have different notary blocks, how can we auto-populate it when the state of the deal is selected?).
  • Team access. Multiple people can work with the templates at once, thus allowing the members of our team who deal with financials to work on their documents while others focus on the organizational and legal documents.
  • Once you have successfully drafted your templates, it runs incredibly smooth (barring any minor hiccups that happen with software updates) and efficiently.
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Wondershare Technology
  • PDFelement provides the same powerful features as Adobe Acrobat, but the interface is easy to learn and use. The product is extremely intuitive, which saves our clients from becoming frustrated as they learn the product.
  • PDFelement Pro's ability to create fillable forms with the click of one button is one of our clients favorite features. I was impressed at how accurately PDFelement performed this task and the ease with which these fields can be edited, if needed.
  • Security is more important than ever these days and PDFelement provides the encryption and permissions to protect documents quickly and easily. I especially like the batch encrypt feature, this makes it easy to protect multiple files with the same password.
  • PDFelement makes it easy to extract the data from form fields. This is a huge plus for our clients.
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Cons
CARET (Abacus Data Systems, Inc. )
  • Most HotDocs templates demand high-level code. This includes complicated Word codes
  • Using HotDocs is incredibly user-friendly. Creating and maintaining templates is a programming task
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Wondershare Technology
  • I wish there was a lighter program for just reviewing a document and then to transition seamlessly to an editing mode. It takes a few seconds longer to load than Preview on my Mac, and based on that frustration, I use Preview to view documents.
  • A lower price for upgrades.
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Likelihood to Renew
CARET (Abacus Data Systems, Inc. )
No answers on this topic
Wondershare Technology
Excellent, easy to use product
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Usability
CARET (Abacus Data Systems, Inc. )
Could be more intuitive - could even "suggest" fill-ins with the option to take or not take the suggestion.
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Wondershare Technology
I am a novice and I am using it like a pro because it is so easy to work with
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Reliability and Availability
CARET (Abacus Data Systems, Inc. )
No answers on this topic
Wondershare Technology
No issues. Works perfect
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Performance
CARET (Abacus Data Systems, Inc. )
No answers on this topic
Wondershare Technology
There is a lot of learning. Although some of the functions you can probably pick up relatively quickly, some of them, including compressing the size or using a different language, remains a myth to me.
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Support Rating
CARET (Abacus Data Systems, Inc. )
I haven't had to contact HotDocs very often for support. I suppose I rated them mid-level simply because I would like to see more online training options or white papers to view to assist with learning. I want to understand how to do something versus having it done for me.
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Wondershare Technology
PDFelement is always in contact with me, by email and by giving constant tips and recommendations. But what makes me give you a 10, was the outstanding support service received on July 9th by one of your support professionals Amanda, who helped me with a tariff issue, and makes me [rate] your product.
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Implementation Rating
CARET (Abacus Data Systems, Inc. )
If you use WordPerfect X9 - choose"no word-processing software."
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Wondershare Technology
Just pay, download, activate and start using it
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Alternatives Considered
CARET (Abacus Data Systems, Inc. )
I haven't evaluated other products. We are so used to HotDocs that it would be difficult for us to switch to something else. We continue to use HotDocs because switching cost is high once you have already started. Be careful before beginning to use this program, as it is hard to breakaway.
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Wondershare Technology
I didn't try or buy other programs, but did a good bit of research on them. I went with PDFelement because of the lower pricing, and because of the rich features I learned it had. I also appreciated the great customer service I received from reps in the community forums, which showed me they have an aim in keeping their customers happy - which is always good to have when using fairly complex technical apps.
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Scalability
CARET (Abacus Data Systems, Inc. )
No answers on this topic
Wondershare Technology
Super easy Word style layout and format.
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Return on Investment
CARET (Abacus Data Systems, Inc. )
  • Time savings by employees when generating documents mean better ROI efficiency for labor.
  • Faster, more accurate turnaround for documents needing to be generated from templates.
  • Large capital expenditure depending on the number of users and developers.
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Wondershare Technology
  • For me, it's been very important to me that my business as a pet sitter and dog walker not leave a negative footprint on the environment. To that end, it's been very important that i'm able to do as much paperwork as possible without using paper. PDFelement is wonderful at helping me meet those goals.
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ScreenShots

Wondershare PDFelement Screenshots

Screenshot of AI-powered support for summaring/proofreading/rewriting/explaining/translating the PDF file content.Screenshot of file conversion to and from PDF format in high quality.Screenshot of PDF generation, which can be done from images, Word documents, and various formats, including batch create.Screenshot of certificate-based legal signatures, and documents can be sent to bulk signers, and signatures collected and tracked from anywhere, on any device.Screenshot of text recognition, from scanned PDFs and images.Screenshot of the PDF text editor, with images, forms, and pages.