The Google OCR alternative for teams who need more than text back.
Google's OCR is good, broad in languages and cheap at the bottom tier, and Document AI adds form parsing, a generative custom extractor, classifiers, splitters and specialised parsers. What it leaves to you is everything around the call: batches, review screens, validation, routing, tenancy, audit and export. Google deprecated Document AI's own human-review feature in January 2024, so the review screen is yours to build too.
The honest read
- OCR quality and language coverage from a hyperscaler, with nothing to run
- A generative custom extractor and classifier, set up in the console from a few samples
- Specialised parsers for invoices, expenses, identity documents and bank statements
- Elastic scale, and the first 1,000 pages a month free
- Being the platform: intake, workflow, templates, validation, review, tenancy, audit, export
- A review hub that exists — Document AI's Human-in-the-Loop was deprecated in January 2024
- Documents stay on your servers; AI Extract and entity recognition run on local models if you choose
- Every AI answer quoted and checked on the page, under a project AI policy for what may be sent
- No page meter — the licence does not move when the volume does
Teams who chose Google for the OCR and found themselves building a capture platform around it. Gemini is one of the sixteen named providers here, so Google's models can still read the hard pages.
KognitCapture vs Google Document AI and Cloud Vision OCR, side by side
| Capability | KognitCapture | Google Document AI and Cloud Vision OCR |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A capture platform | OCR and document-processing APIs with a console |
| Extraction | Templates, rules and datasets, plus AI Extract with quoted answers | Form Parser, custom extractor (generative or trained), specialised parsers |
| Human review | Verification hub with zones, click-to-fill, validations, share links | Human-in-the-Loop deprecated January 2024; yours to build |
| Workflow, tenancy, audit | Built in | Yours to build |
| Deployment | Your servers, your cloud, or air-gapped | Google Cloud, EU or US multi-region and seven single regions; plain OCR also on Distributed Cloud air-gapped and GKE Enterprise |
| Cost | Flat licence plus your infrastructure | OCR $1.50 per 1k pages; Form Parser and custom extractor $30 per 1k (first tier, per month) |
What each one costs to run
Put in your own volume →| KognitCapture | Google Document AI and Cloud Vision OCR | |
|---|---|---|
| Licence shape | One annual licence per installation, by turnover band; unlimited pages | Pay per page, first 1,000 a month free |
| Typical annual outlay | Licence from €900 + your infrastructure and team | ≈ $3k at 2M pages a year, OCR only |
| Marginal cost per page | €0 local · tokens only if you choose a remote model | $1.50 – $30 per 1k pages |
| Who runs it | You do, on your own hardware | You build and own the platform |
Moving from Google Document AI.
Keep Google if you like it: Gemini is one of the sixteen named providers, so a Google model can read the pages a step sends it while this platform supplies intake, review, workflow and export. The field list of a custom extractor becomes a template, or an AI Extract field list, by hand — there is no importer.
Read the migration brief →Questions buyers ask us about Google Document AI
01Google's OCR costs less than a licence. Why pay for one?
At low volume it may well cost less: two million OCR pages a year come to about $3k at list price. The bill that grows is the platform around the OCR — review screens, validation, retries, audit, tenant isolation and export mapping — which somebody has to build and keep running. Here it exists.
02Can we keep using Gemini?
Yes. Google Gemini is one of the sixteen named providers. Use it per step for AI OCR, AI Extract, labels or classification under the project AI policy, and switch a step to a local model when a document must not leave the building.
03Does Document AI include human review?
Not any more. Google deprecated Document AI's Human-in-the-Loop on 16 January 2024 and lists it on its deprecations page, so review becomes a screen you build. Here the verification hub is part of the platform.
Compare against something else
All ten →Product and company names are trademarks of their respective owners and are used for identification and comparison only. KognitCapture is not affiliated with any of them.