Buy once instead of Smallpdf
3 apps in the directory cover what people use Smallpdf for. 2 of them are a one-time purchases, and one costs nothing at all.
Read the catch on each one before you switch — a one-time price is not automatically the better deal, and we say so where it is not.
The replacements
PDFgear
free PDF editor for Mac with no account and no paid tier
Free Free
Closed source with no stated business model, so nothing guarantees it stays free
PDF Squeezer
drag a fat PDF in, get a small PDF out, for twenty dollars
$19.99 Perpetual
Compression only: no editing, OCR or signing, and a future major version may be paid
UPDF
one payment, four devices, Mac and phone on the same licence
$79.99 Lifetime tier
The AI Assistant is a separate US$69/year subscription, not part of the lifetime licence