Invoice PDF API

Overview

The Invoice PDF API generates professional PDF documents — invoices, receipts, quotes, refunds, and cancellation notices — from structured JSON data. Send your data as a POST request and receive a formatted PDF in the response.

Automate document generation in your applications — online shops, billing systems, SaaS platforms, or any workflow that needs consistent, professional documents at scale.

Key Features

• 5 document types: Invoice, Receipt, Quote, Refund (Credit Note), Cancellation
• 3 visual themes: Modern, Classic, Minimal
• 50 languages: Labels, dates, and currency formatting auto-adapted to locale
• Native Shopify support: Send Shopify order data directly — document type is auto-detected

Quick Start

Save the following JSON to a file called invoice.json:

{
    "document_type": "invoice",
    "document_number": "INV-001",
    "issue_date": "2026-01-15",
    "currency": "USD",
    "customer": {
        "name": "Alice Smith"
    },
    "items": [
        {"description": "Consulting Services", "quantity": 5, "unit_price": 150.00}
    ],
    "total": 750.00
}

Then run this command to generate the PDF:

curl -X POST "https://api.pdfcrowd.com/templates/business/" \
  -u "demo:demo" \
  -d @invoice.json \
  -o invoice.pdf

Examples below use demo credentials for testing. For production use, start a free trial or purchase a license.

Try It

See it in action — generate a sample invoice PDF in seconds.

HTTP Request

Send a POST request with a JSON body to the conversion endpoint. This section covers the endpoint URL, authentication, and available parameters.

Endpoint

POST https://api.pdfcrowd.com/templates/business/

The request body is JSON. Configuration is passed via query parameters.

Visual Styles

Authentication

Show authentication details

On success, returns application/pdf. On error, returns a plain text error message with the original HTTP status code from the conversion API (see Error Handling).

JSON Format

The PDFCrowd native format is a clean, nested JSON structure. It is the default when the app parameter is omitted. Here is the overall shape of a document:

Tip: Numeric fields accept both JSON numbers and strings (e.g. "quantity": 3 or "quantity": "3"). Do not include currency symbols or thousand separators.

{
    "document_type": "invoice",
    "document_number": "INV-2026-001",
    "issue_date": "2026-03-15",
    "currency": "USD",

    "seller": { ... seller details ... },
    "customer": { ... customer details ... },

    "items": [ ... line items ... ],

    "subtotal": 1440.00,
    "discount": { ... discount ... },
    "shipping": { ... shipping ... },
    "tax": { ... tax ... },
    "total": 1608.80,

    "notes": "...",
    "legal_notice": "...",
    ... document-type-specific fields ...
}

The sections below describe each part in detail.

Required Fields

Optional Fields

Seller Object

"seller": {
    "name": "Acme Corp",
    "email": "billing@acmecorp.com",
    "phone": "+1 212 555 0199",
    "website": "https://acmecorp.com",
    "tax_id": "EIN 12-3456789",
    "logo_url": "https://acmecorp.com/logo.png",
    "address": {
        "address1": "100 Market St",
        "address2": "Suite 300",
        "city": "San Francisco",
        "province": "CA",
        "zip": "94105",
        "country": "United States",
        "country_code": "US"
    }
}

Customer Object

"customer": {
    "name": "John Smith",
    "email": "john@example.com",
    "phone": "+1 555 0100",
    "company": "Smith & Co.",
    "tax_id": "US-TAX-001",
    "address": {
        "address1": "123 Main St",
        "address2": "Suite 4B",
        "city": "New York",
        "province": "NY",
        "zip": "10001",
        "country": "United States",
        "country_code": "US"
    }
}

Address Object

Used within seller, customer, and shipping objects. The country_code determines postal code placement — e.g. DE formats as 10117 Berlin while US formats as New York, NY 10001.

Line Items

"items": [
    {"description": "Web Design", "quantity": 10, "unit_price": 120.00, "sku": "SVC-01"},
    {"description": "Hosting", "quantity": 1, "unit_price": 240.00, "tax": 45.60}
]

Discount Object

"discount": {
    "amount": 100.00,
    "label": "Loyalty discount 10%"
}

Available on: invoice, receipt, quote, cancellation.

Shipping Object

"shipping": {
    "amount": 15.00,
    "name": "Express Shipping",
    "address": {
        "address1": "456 Oak Ave",
        "city": "Austin",
        "province": "TX",
        "zip": "73301",
        "country": "United States",
        "country_code": "US"
    }
}

Available on: invoice, quote.

Tax Object

"tax": {
    "amount": 136.40,
    "label": "Sales Tax",
    "rate": 8.25,
    "breakdown": [
        {"name": "TX State Tax 6.25%", "rate": 6.25, "amount": 103.44},
        {"name": "Austin Local Tax 2%", "rate": 2, "amount": 32.96}
    ]
}

Document Types

Set the document_type field to select the document template. Each type supports the common fields above plus type-specific fields.

Invoice

Set "document_type": "invoice". Full invoice with seller and customer details, line items, tax breakdown, discounts, shipping, bank details, and payment terms.

Receipt

Set "document_type": "receipt". Payment confirmation with transaction details, line items, and tip.

Quote

Set "document_type": "quote". Quotation with validity date and shipping details.

Refund / Credit Note

Set "document_type": "refund" or "credit_note". Refund notice with reason and original invoice reference.

Cancellation

Set "document_type": "cancellation". Order cancellation notice with reason and refund status.

Complete Example

{
    "document_type": "invoice",
    "document_number": "INV-2026-0042",
    "issue_date": "2026-03-15",
    "due_date": "2026-04-15",
    "currency": "USD",
    "purchase_order_number": "PO-9981",
    "payment_terms": "Net 30",
    "payment_instructions": "Please remit payment via ACH or check.",
    "notes": "Thank you for your business.",
    "fulfillment_status": "unfulfilled",
    "seller": {
        "name": "Acme Corp",
        "email": "billing@acmecorp.com",
        "phone": "+1 212 555 0199",
        "website": "https://acmecorp.com",
        "tax_id": "EIN 12-3456789",
        "logo_url": "https://pdfcrowd.com/static/images/icon2.svg",
        "address": {
            "address1": "100 Market St",
            "address2": "Suite 300",
            "city": "San Francisco",
            "province": "CA",
            "zip": "94105",
            "country": "United States",
            "country_code": "US"
        }
    },
    "customer": {
        "name": "Jane Cooper",
        "email": "jane@cooperdesign.com",
        "phone": "+1 415 555 0100",
        "company": "Cooper Design LLC",
        "address": {
            "address1": "456 Oak Ave",
            "city": "Austin",
            "province": "TX",
            "zip": "73301",
            "country": "United States",
            "country_code": "US"
        }
    },
    "items": [
        {"description": "Web Design Services", "quantity": 10, "unit_price": 150.00, "sku": "SVC-WEB-01"},
        {"description": "Hosting (annual)", "quantity": 1, "unit_price": 240.00}
    ],
    "subtotal": 1740.00,
    "discount": {"amount": 100.00, "label": "Loyalty discount"},
    "shipping": {"amount": 15.00, "name": "Express Shipping"},
    "tax": {
        "amount": 136.40,
        "label": "Sales Tax",
        "breakdown": [
            {"name": "TX State Tax 6.25%", "rate": 6.25, "amount": 103.44},
            {"name": "Austin Local Tax 2%", "rate": 2, "amount": 32.96}
        ]
    },
    "total": 1791.40
}

Shopify Integration

Send Shopify order data directly with ?app=shopify. Both REST API and GraphQL formats are supported. The appropriate document type (invoice, receipt, quote, refund, or cancellation) is selected automatically based on the order data.

Example

curl -X POST "https://api.pdfcrowd.com/templates/business/?app=shopify" \
  -u "demo:demo" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d @shopify_order.json \
  -o receipt.pdf

Shopify orders don't include seller details — pass your company information via query parameters such as seller_name, seller_email, logo_url, etc.

The document language and formatting are automatically detected from the customer's locale or the order currency. Status values (e.g. paid, fulfilled) are translated to the document language.

Localization

The currency field determines the currency symbol, number formatting, date formatting, and document language (labels, status translations).

Supported Currencies

The following currencies have full locale support with automatic language detection, labels, and date formatting. Any valid ISO 4217 currency code can be used.

Supported Languages

Labels, status translations, and formatting are available in 50 languages: Afrikaans, Arabic, Bengali, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Malayalam, Maltese, Marathi, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese.

Error Handling

400

Invalid JSON, missing required fields, or unknown document type.

405

Method not allowed. Only POST requests are accepted.

401

Invalid username or API key.

403

License expired, disabled, or no credits remaining.

429

Rate limit exceeded. Wait and retry.

430

Too many concurrent requests. Wait for current conversions to complete or upgrade your plan.

500

Internal server error.

AI Integration

Have your data in a custom JSON format? Ask an AI assistant to write the integration for you. Copy the prompt below, replace the placeholders, and paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, or any other AI coding assistant.

Write a Python script that:
1. Reads my JSON data file [DESCRIBE YOUR FILE OR PASTE A SAMPLE]
2. Transforms it to the PDFCrowd PDF Templates format
   (see https://pdfcrowd.com/invoice-pdf-api/)
3. Sends it to the API endpoint and saves the PDF to a local file