Extend is the preferred choice for developer-first AI startups and enterprises that are working with complex documents, need benchmark-leading accuracy, control over cost, accuracy, and latency tuning, and zero training and data retention availability. Reducto is a better fit for lower stakes document workloads where variations in accuracy and latency is tolerated, for instance in pure ingestion and RAG use cases.
This comparison is grounded in empirical, open-source benchmarks that can be independently reproduced. Each metric specified includes citations to its source dataset, methodology, and last evaluation date.
Reducto began as a parsing only product focused on solving RAG use cases, then expanded to a broader coverage of the document processing workflow. Extend made an upfront commitment to training its high-accuracy, specialized VLM models for parsing and serving end-to-end document automation workflows, for top companies like Brex, Factset, CH Robinson, Flatiron, Zillow and more.
This difference shows up in the benchmark results below. Extend wins accuracy comparisons, provides higher control over cost, performance, and latency, and delivers higher uptime. For the most relevant evaluation, AI teams should test both solutions on their own documents.
To see an in-depth analysis, refer to our resource here.
Extend vs Reducto benchmarks at a glance
| Extend | Reducto | |
|---|---|---|
| Parsing accuracy | #1 on RealDoc-Bench. Extend Parse 2.0 achieved 95.7% document Q&A accuracy and 0.847 layout adjusted F1. RealDoc-Bench can be independently reproduced | On RealDoc-Bench, Reducto was 4.6 points behind Extend even with Agentic mode enabled. Reducto Agentic achieved 91.1% Q&A accuracy and 0.759 layout adjusted F1. Reducto standard mode scored 88.5%. Reducto’s RD-TableBench evaluates only isolated tables, and Reducto states that only a subset of its evaluation framework is public. In contrast, RealDoc-Bench publishes its datasets, parser adapters, and evaluation harness. |
| Extraction accuracy | Highest accuracy and 2.8× faster than Reducto. Extend MAX achieved 99.2% mean accuracy, completed 45/45 documents, and averaged 301 seconds on LongArray-Extract. | On LongArray-Extract, Reducto performed at lower accuracy and 2.8x the latency. Reducto Deep Extract achieved 97.4%, completed 45/45, and averaged 846 seconds. Reducto Standard scored 80.9%. Reducto’s extraction accuracy lead on LongExtractBench comes from a benchmark it commissioned and designed with micro1. micro1 discloses that Reducto “Reducto created the methodology for drafting ground truth and for running and grading the models”. Reducto attempts to present this as a third party benchmark, but it is highly biased. Datalab, another document AI startup ranked in the benchmark, has also publicly reported the bias in the benchmark. |
| Splitting accuracy | On PoliTax Split, Extend's harness catches about two thirds or more of boundaries for every underlying model and moves F1 toward 72%, adding 8.3 to 28.4 points over direct model use. | Reducto’s Split API has never been externally validated against benchmarks. |
Extend vs Reducto platform comparison
| Extend | Reducto | |
|---|---|---|
| Platform overview | Developer-first document processing platform. Extend turns unstructured documents into reliable, agent-ready data with APIs and tooling for parse, extract, split, classify, edit, workflows, evals, and review. | General-purpose document processing platform. Reducto offers document processing APIs that trail Extend on measured parsing, extraction, and splitting performance with restrictive ZDR policies. |
| Accuracy, latency & cost control | Control every point on the Pareto curve. Performance, light, and agentic configurations for document primitives let teams move flexibly across the full accuracy, latency, and cost frontier. Usage transparency available via Studio and API responses, including per-run credit totals and charge-level breakdowns. . | Tradeoffs are spread across modes, settings, and variable billing. Standard, Agentic, and Deep Extract modes require teams to navigate endpoint-specific controls. Page complexity automatically changes parse credits, Agentic doubles usage, and Deep Extract uses complexity-based pricing that is often prohibitively expensive for large document use cases. |
| Edit, workflows, evals, citations | End-to-end document workflow orchestration. Extend fills forms (Edit), supports versioned workflows, evals, with precise bounding box citations. | Incomplete platform support for end-to-end document workflow orchestration. Edit and pipelines supported. Evals is only available for custom-priced annual plans (Growth+). No native product support for complex mutli-step document orchestration. |
| Security & compliance | ZDR can be enabled for every customer including Pay-as-You-Go and monthly plans. Supports SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA with BAAs, GDPR, and EU processing. AI and GPU subprocessors operate under contractual ZDR and no-training terms. | ZDR and no-training commitments require a custom-quoted Growth or Enterprise plan and a corresponding Platform Fee. Reducto supports SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA, but its public BAA, ZDR, no-training, and regional-processing terms begin on custom-priced Growth tier. |
| Enterprise readiness | Enterprise deployment with managed setup. Extend offers cloud, BYOC, and hybrid deployment, with Extend managing BYOC deployment automation. Enterprise includes SSO/SAML, RBAC, custom MSA/DPA/SLA, custom limits, and dedicated support. | Full-VPC deployment shifts more infrastructure ownership to the customer. Customers own the runtime security boundary and operate Kubernetes and PostgreSQL. Custom SLAs, throughput, RBAC, SSO/SAML, and on-call support require Enterprise. |
| Pricing | Lower PAYG credit rate and transparent Scale pricing. Extend includes 10,000 free credits, then charges $0.0125/credit. Scale costs $500/month, includes 50,000 credits, and charges $0.01 per additional credit. Per-operation rates are public. | Higher PAYG rate and quote-only growth pricing. Reducto includes 15,000 free credits, then charges $0.015/credit. Growth and Enterprise pricing require contacting sales, while operation costs vary by mode and page complexity. |
| Developer & agent experience | Four typed SDKs plus first-class coding-agent artifacts. Extend supports Python, TypeScript, Java, Go, REST, a CLI, MCP, alongside an agent quickstart, CLI agent skill, agent context file, open-source UI kit, open-source templates, llms.txt, and Markdown-native docs. | No published Java SDK, with more Go integration ceremony. Reducto provides Python, Node.js, Go, CLI, MCP, and an agent guide. |
Extend vs Reducto: which is right for you?
| Best fit use cases for Extend | Best fit use cases for Reducto |
|---|---|
| Measured accuracy on open-source benchmarks is the deciding factor. Extend led Reducto on RealDoc-Bench and LongArray-Extract, delivering SOTA parsing performance and better extraction accuracy that is nearly 3x faster. | Your workload is lower stakes and the measured accuracy gap is acceptable. Reducto is a great fit for RAG use cases where accuracy is not critical. |
| Your documents are complex and mistakes are expensive. Extend leads Reducto on parsing, extraction, and splitting on open-source benchmarks that use real-world documents rather than simple PDFs. Thus, they evidence Extend’s performance against production workloads. Moreover, Extend is broadly trusted by startups and enterprises across critical industries like healthcare, financial services, logistics, and real estate. | You require air-gapped, on prem deployment. Reducto supports fully isolated Enterprise deployments when data and processing cannot leave your environment. Customers operate the runtime infrastructure, including Kubernetes and PostgreSQL. |
| You need to control accuracy, latency, and cost. Extend lets you select the right operating point for each workload, from low latency, cost-efficient, to maximum accuracy. | |
| You want one platform from zero to deployment. Extend supports building, testing, evaluating, deploying, and operating document primitives natively to help you go live faster. Evals validate performance before launch; human review resolves exceptions in production with precise citations. | |
| You need strong no-training and ZDR protections. Extend maintains a no training policy. ZDR is available on every plan upon request (including pay as you go and monthly plans), while Extend’s AI and GPU subprocessors operate under contractual zero retention and no-training terms. | |
| You want lower, more transparent self-serve pricing. Extend has a lower PAYG credit rate and publishes Scale pricing, while Reducto’s Growth pricing requires contacting sales. | |
| You prefer a developer-first platform built by developers for developers and their agents. Extend provides typed SDKs, APIs, a CLI, MCP, open source UI and templates, agent skills, and machine-readable documentation so you can build effectively. |
What to test before choosing
At the end of the day, all providers will make claims around accuracy, and it is critical that customers focus on evaluating their unique use cases and documents before making a decision one way or the other. For the most accurate evaluation, run both systems on the documents most commonly seen in your business.
- Select 25 to 100 representative documents, including the difficult edge cases like poor scans, long tables, checklist heavy documents, signatures, and multi-column layouts.
- Define the exact target schema and ground-truth values before testing either vendor.
- Score field completeness and correctness. Count timeouts and failed runs as failures.
- Run each platform in the mode required to hit your accuracy target, then compute the real per-page cost in that mode, including per-field charges and document minimums.
- Measure latency and human-in-the-loop review volume at the same accuracy threshold.
- Make one schema or document-template change and measure the engineering work required to ship it safely.
- Inspect the source trace for every wrong answer. Determine whether the failure came from OCR, layout, schema mapping, or review routing.
The winning system is the one that produces the required business object at the required accuracy with the lowest total operating cost.
Frequently asked questions
Is Extend more accurate?
Yes, on open source head-to-head benchmarks using real-world documents as the corpus. Extend Parse 2.0 achieved SOTA 95.7% Q&A accuracy versus 91.1% for Reducto Agentic and 88.5% for Reducto Standard. Extend MAX also reached 99.2% long-array extraction accuracy versus 97.4% for Reducto Deep Extract (and 80.9% for Reducto Standard) while running 2.8× faster.
Is it easy to migrate from Reducto to Extend?
Yes. Extend is designed to make migration straightforward for developers and their agents. Teams can typically reuse document inputs, JSON schemas, and downstream data models. Typed SDKs, REST APIs, a CLI, MCP, agent skills, and machine-readable documentation accelerate implementation. Ready-made industry-specific templates and the Extend UI Kit reduce integration work and you can readily access Extend support.
Is Reducto or Extend cheaper?
For most use cases, Extend ends up being the cheaper option. It has a lower starting credit rate, with a 25% discount on Scale that can be upgraded self-serve. Extend’s light parsing is only .5 credits and its performance parsing for maximum accuracy is 2 credits, where as Reducto only offers a single parsing tier that is 1-2 credits per page depending on complexity, and 2-4 credits per page with Agentic modes on. According to all public parsing benchmarks, Reducto parsing is only competitive when their agentic modes are on, meaning their API is quite expensive in practice. However, users should always test both systems on their own documents to measure actual cost relative to performance.
