Published 2026-04-15 · 5 min read

Smallpdf vs ILovePDF for Excel and Office File Conversion [2026]

Quick Comparison

| Feature | Smallpdf | ILovePDF | |---|---|---| | Monthly visitors | ~200M | ~100M | | Free tier | 2 tasks/day, 5MB | Unlimited (with ads), 100MB | | Paid starting price | $12/month | $4/month (Basic) | | API available | Yes (paid) | Yes (paid) | | Macro preservation | No | No | | GDPR compliance | Yes (Swiss servers) | Yes (EU servers) | | Batch upload (free) | No | Yes (limited) | | OCR | Yes | Yes | | Desktop app | Yes | No |

Smallpdf: The Premium Consumer Play

Smallpdf launched in Switzerland in 2013. Its positioning is "PDF productivity" — not file conversion in the technical sense, but document workflows for business users. The tool set has grown to 21 functions covering conversion, compression, editing, e-signing, and collaboration.

Pricing (2026):

Free: 2 tasks/day, 5MB file size limit
Pro: $12/month (unlimited tasks, 5GB files, desktop app, priority processing)
Team: $7/user/month (minimum 3 users)
API: Separate enterprise pricing

Strengths:

The user experience is the best in class among consumer converters. Clean UI, fast processing, zero cognitive load. For a non-technical user converting one Excel file to PDF, it works in under 60 seconds.
Swiss data center with 1-hour automatic file deletion on free tier, 30-day on Pro. Smallpdf is the privacy story in this market.
The desktop app (Windows/Mac) is genuinely useful for power users who want offline processing and OS-level integration.
E-signature and annotation tools exceed what a pure-conversion competitor offers.

Weaknesses:

The free tier is the most restrictive in this comparison. Two tasks per day with a 5MB file cap means you hit the limit on the third conversion. This is aggressive upselling.
Excel conversion is a secondary capability. Smallpdf's core strength is PDF editing and signing — the Excel/Office conversion pipeline is LibreOffice-based and shows it.
No programmatic batch processing without the enterprise API. Converting 100 files requires 100 manual upload actions.
Pricing is the highest in this segment. $12/month for what is fundamentally a PDF tool is hard to justify if conversion is your primary use case.

What happens to Excel macros: Smallpdf uses LibreOffice as its conversion engine for Office files. When you upload an XLSM file and convert to PDF, the macro code is not transferred. The converted PDF is a static representation of the visible data — formatting, charts, and values — with no execution layer. The VBA code exists in the source XLSM, travels to Smallpdf's servers, and is discarded in the output. This is documented nowhere on the Smallpdf website; it simply happens.

For XLSM to XLSX conversions, behavior is similar to other tools: LibreOffice re-saves the file, macro code may technically survive in the file container but is not validated or tested. In practice, complex VBA with external dependencies, form controls, or ActiveX components frequently breaks.

ILovePDF: The Volume Play

ILovePDF launched in Barcelona in 2010, slightly before Smallpdf. Its strategy has historically been more aggressive on the free tier: unlimited conversions with ads, with paid plans unlocking batch processing, file size increases, and the API.

Pricing (2026):

Free: Unlimited conversions (with ads), 100MB max file size
Basic: $4/month — 100MB limit, no ads, batch processing
Pro: $6.61/month — 2GB limit, priority processing
Enterprise: Custom pricing with API

Strengths:

The free tier is genuinely usable. Unlimited conversions with a 100MB cap is a real differentiator against Smallpdf's 2-task/5MB free constraint.
Batch upload on paid tiers is well-implemented. You can drag 50 files into the interface and process them in one job.
Price. $4/month Basic or $6.61/month Pro is 50-65% cheaper than Smallpdf Pro for roughly comparable conversion capability.
EU-based servers (Barcelona/Frankfurt). GDPR compliance is native, not retrofitted.

Weaknesses:

The free tier uses ad revenue to subsidize unlimited conversions. This means the interface is cluttered and conversion results occasionally route through longer processing queues.
The API has been described as "basic" by developers: REST endpoints work, documentation is minimal, webhook support is absent, and the integration patterns are less developer-ergonomic than CloudConvert.
No desktop app. Browser-only, which is fine for casual use but a friction point for power users who want local file access.
ILovePDF's focus is narrower than Smallpdf — fewer annotation and editing features, no e-signature flow.

What happens to Excel macros: Same architecture, same outcome. ILovePDF converts Office files via LibreOffice headless. XLSM to PDF: macros dropped. XLSM to XLSX: macro code may survive in the file container but is not tested or guaranteed. The conversion pipeline was not built with macro-containing files as a use case.

Head-to-Head: Excel-Specific Scenarios

Scenario 1: Convert one Excel report to PDF, free, right now

Smallpdf: Works if it's your first or second task today and the file is under 5MB.
ILovePDF: Works, unlimited, up to 100MB. You'll see some ads.
Winner: ILovePDF. The free tier actually functions.

Scenario 2: Convert 200 Excel files to PDF in one session

Smallpdf: Requires Pro ($12/month). Batch via UI then available.
ILovePDF: Requires Basic ($4/month). Better value at this use case.
Winner: ILovePDF on price. Both technically support it.

Scenario 3: XLSM to PDF with macro code preserved

Smallpdf: Not possible. Macros dropped.
ILovePDF: Not possible. Macros dropped.
Winner: Neither. This is an unserved use case in both products.

Scenario 4: Building a small internal tool that auto-converts Excel files

Smallpdf: Enterprise API pricing (not published). Premium positioning means cost-per-conversion at scale is high.
ILovePDF: Basic REST API at Pro tier. Workable for light usage, limited for serious integration.
Winner: Neither platform is the right tool here. CloudConvert or a self-hosted LibreOffice instance wins this scenario.

Scenario 5: Privacy-sensitive financial documents

Smallpdf: Swiss servers, 1-hour deletion on free tier, SOC 2 certification. Best privacy story.
ILovePDF: EU servers, GDPR compliant, files deleted after processing. Adequate but less rigorous documentation.
Winner: Smallpdf if privacy is the primary concern.

The Comparison Neither Tool Wants You to Make

Both Smallpdf and ILovePDF are excellent at what they were designed for: fast, user-friendly PDF conversion for documents where the content is visual (invoices, reports, presentations). They are not tools for developers, not designed for macro-containing automation files, and not engineered for use cases where the conversion fidelity of executable code matters.

The gap that exists here — macro preservation, VBA module extraction, XLAM handling, DOCM processing — is not a market Smallpdf or ILovePDF is pursuing. Their user base is predominantly non-technical, their pricing rewards volume throughput, and macro preservation requires either COM automation or library-level implementation (Aspose.Cells, EPPlus + custom VBA extractor).

For founders researching this gap as a product opportunity, the competitive landscape is documented in the Macro-Safe Converter Research Kit. The kit includes the full competitive analysis across six dimensions, the top 20 target keywords with search volume, and implementation patterns for building a macro-preserving converter — the product neither Smallpdf, ILovePDF, CloudConvert, nor Zamzar has shipped.

Which Should You Use?

Choose Smallpdf if:

Privacy and data security are non-negotiable
You need e-signature or annotation tools alongside conversion
You want a desktop app for offline access
You're willing to pay for the best UX in the consumer tier

Choose ILovePDF if:

You need a free tier that actually works without a daily limit
Cost is the primary decision factor
You're doing batch conversions and want the cheapest paid tier
You don't need API integration

Choose neither if:

You're converting Excel files where macros are part of the deliverable
You're building an application and need API reliability + webhooks
You need to convert files where the VBA code itself is the product

FAQ

Is Smallpdf better than ILovePDF? It depends on the use case. Smallpdf has a better UX, stronger privacy guarantees, and a desktop app. ILovePDF has a better free tier and lower paid pricing. For pure document-to-PDF conversion without privacy concerns, ILovePDF's free tier makes it the default for casual users.

Do Smallpdf or ILovePDF preserve Excel macros? No. Both use LibreOffice headless for Office file conversions. VBA code is not transferred to the output format when converting to PDF, XLSX, or other non-macro formats. See Why Every Online Converter Destroys Your Excel Macros for the technical explanation.

Is Smallpdf Pro worth $12/month? If conversion is your only use case, no — ILovePDF or CloudConvert deliver comparable conversion at lower cost. If you need e-signature, annotation, and the desktop app as a bundle, Smallpdf Pro is reasonable for a business user who handles documents daily.

What's the file size limit on ILovePDF free? 100MB on the free tier. This is significantly larger than Smallpdf's 5MB free limit and covers most standard Excel and Word files.

Are these tools safe for confidential documents? Both claim file deletion after processing, both are GDPR compliant. Smallpdf's Swiss jurisdiction and SOC 2 certification make it the better choice for compliance-sensitive use cases. For genuinely confidential files, local processing (LibreOffice desktop, COM automation) eliminates the upload risk entirely.

Real-World Examples

See how macro loss plays out in practice — and what recovery actually looks like:

Stop losing Excel macros to broken converters

Macro-Safe Converter preserves VBA macros through XLSM conversions. One-time kit — no subscription.

Get the Kit — $9 one-time →