How long should an OCR evaluation take?

A thorough evaluation of 3-4 tools should take 1-2 weeks. Spend 2-3 days per tool running your test documents through, testing integrations, and evaluating the UI. Don't rush — switching tools later is more expensive than spending an extra week evaluating.

Should I involve IT in the evaluation?

Yes, if integration is important (and it usually is). Have IT review API documentation, security certifications, and data handling policies. For cloud-based tools, IT should verify compliance with your organization's data policies.

What accuracy rate should I require?

For automated workflows (no human review): 98%+ field-level accuracy. For human-in-the-loop workflows (someone reviews extractions): 90%+ is workable. Below 90%, you're not saving much time over manual entry.

How to Evaluate OCR Software: A Buyer's Checklist

Before You Start Evaluating

Most teams waste weeks testing OCR tools because they start evaluating before defining their requirements. Before you sign up for a single free trial, answer these questions:

What documents are you processing? — Invoices, receipts, contracts, forms, bank statements? Each type has different extraction needs
How many sources? — Documents from 3 vendors or 300? This determines whether template-based or template-free is right
What volume? — 50 documents/month or 5,000? Volume affects pricing dramatically
What fields do you need? — Just totals and dates, or full line-item extraction?
Where does the data go? — QuickBooks? SAP? A spreadsheet? Your tool needs to integrate
What's your accuracy threshold? — 95% with manual review, or 99%+ fully automated?

Step 1: Create a Test Document Set

Don't test with the vendor's sample documents — they're cherry-picked to look good. Use your own real documents:

10-20 documents minimum from your actual workflow
Include your hardest documents — the ones that cause the most manual work today
Include format variations — different vendors, layouts, languages
Include quality variations — clean PDFs, scans, and photos if applicable
Manually extract the correct data from each document (your "ground truth") to measure accuracy

Step 2: Shortlist 3-4 Tools

Don't try to evaluate 10 tools — it's paralyzing. Based on our reviews and your requirements from above, shortlist 3-4 candidates. For most teams:

One template-free tool (e.g., Lido)
One enterprise/established tool (e.g., Rossum or ABBYY)
One mid-market or budget option (e.g., Docsumo or DocuClipper)

Step 3: Test Each Tool (The Checklist)

For each shortlisted tool, run through this checklist:

Accuracy

Process your test document set through each tool
Compare extracted data against your ground truth
Measure field-level accuracy (not just character accuracy)
Note which fields are missed vs. which are wrong (different problems)
Test with your worst-quality documents specifically

Ease of Use

Time from signup to first successful extraction (under 30 minutes is good)
How intuitive is the interface?
Quality of documentation and tutorials
How easy is it to correct extraction errors?

Integration

Does it integrate with your existing systems? (accounting software, ERP, CRM)
API quality — is it well-documented? RESTful?
Webhook support for real-time processing?
Zapier/Make integrations if you're not building custom code?

Pricing

Calculate your actual monthly cost at current volume
Calculate cost at 3x volume (where will you be in a year?)
Check for hidden costs: per-field charges, overage fees, support tiers
Compare annual vs. monthly pricing
See our OCR Pricing Guide for detailed breakdowns

Reliability & Support

Uptime history and SLA guarantees
Support response time (test it during your trial!)
Data security certifications (SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR)
Data retention policies — where is your data stored and for how long?

Step 4: Red Flags to Watch For

"Contact sales" with no pricing page — Usually means expensive and non-negotiable
Required annual contracts for trials — You should be able to try monthly first
No free trial or demo with your own documents — If they won't let you test with real docs, that's a bad sign
Accuracy claims without methodology — "99% accurate" means nothing without knowing the test set
Long implementation timelines — Modern tools should work in hours, not months
Proprietary document formats — Can you export your data if you switch tools?

Step 5: Make Your Decision

Weight your evaluation based on what matters most to your team. For most organizations, the ranking is:

Accuracy on your specific documents (non-negotiable)
Integration with your workflow (saves ongoing time)
Total cost of ownership (not just per-page price — include setup, maintenance, and support)
Ease of use (affects adoption and training)
Vendor stability (will they be around in 3 years?)