To generate invoice PDFs with PDFShift in Laravel, render the invoice as HTML on your server, send that HTML in a POST request to https://api.pdfshift.io/v3/convert/pdf with your secret key in the X-API-Key header, then save the returned PDF bytes in your application’s storage. If you include a filename and receive a temporary URL instead, download the PDF and store it yourself if it must remain available beyond PDFShift’s stated two-day URL period.
Choose the right invoice workflow
PDFShift converts HTML or a URL supplied by your application into a PDF. This fits invoices whose layout and content your Laravel app owns: render a Blade view from trusted invoice data and submit the resulting HTML to PDFShift. Its integration documentation identifies invoice generation as a use case. PDFShift’s Make integration documentation describes the conversion endpoint and output choices.
If the invoice is already part of a Stripe billing flow managed with Laravel Cashier, first consider Cashier’s documented invoice-PDF feature. That feature belongs to the Stripe billing flow; PDFShift instead converts HTML or URLs supplied by your application. Laravel Cashier billing documentation
Keep the PDFShift key on the server
Store the API key in server-side configuration, such as an environment variable read by Laravel configuration. Do not put it in a Blade page, frontend JavaScript, a public repository, or a URL exposed to the browser. PDFShift warns that a browser-side API call lets users inspect the code and recover the key. Its authentication guidance says the API uses the X-API-Key header; the help article notes a migration to that header as of 2025-05-06. PDFShift authentication help
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Implementation pattern: render, convert, and store
The following is an implementation pattern based on PDFShift’s documented request shape and Laravel’s server-side HTTP client. It is not a tested PDFShift-specific Laravel sample. Verify current request options and response handling against PDFShift’s API reference before deploying; the cited material establishes the source, filename, endpoint, and authentication pattern, but not Laravel-specific response parsing, error schemas, timeouts, or retry behavior.
1. Configure the secret
Put the key in the server environment and expose it through a Laravel config value. For example, add a pdfshift.key entry in a config file that reads an environment variable, then set that variable in the deployment environment. Avoid committing the actual secret.
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2. Render the invoice view from trusted data
Render a Blade template with an invoice model or validated data on the backend. Escape user-supplied text through Blade’s normal escaped output, and ensure any HTML intentionally rendered as markup is controlled by your application. PDFShift accepts HTML as the JSON source value; alternatively, that field can contain a URL. PDFShift request documentation
3. Submit the HTML and handle the response mode
Laravel-side outline:
$html = view('invoices.pdf', ['invoice' => $invoice])->render();
$response = Http::withHeaders([
'X-API-Key' => config('pdfshift.key'),
])->acceptJson()
->post('https://api.pdfshift.io/v3/convert/pdf', [
'source' => $html,
]);
// Inspect the response according to PDFShift's current API reference.
// If requesting direct PDF output, save the returned PDF bytes.
// If requesting filename-based output, handle the returned JSON URL,
// download its contents, then save those bytes locally.Add the relevant Laravel HTTP-client import and adapt response handling to the current API contract. The documented endpoint accepts JSON with a source field and uses the X-API-Key header. The available source does not establish exact response keys or error fields, so do not assume a JSON property name without checking the current reference.
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4. Pick direct PDF output or a temporary URL
- Direct PDF response: PDFShift says that without
filename, it returns the PDF itself. Save the response body as PDF bytes in application-controlled storage. - Temporary hosted URL: PDFShift says that with
filename, it temporarily stores the generated document and returns JSON with a URL available for two days. Fetch the file promptly and save it in your own storage if the invoice must remain accessible longer.
For either path, associate the stored object’s path or identifier with the invoice record, and serve it through your application’s authorization rules rather than assuming a temporary conversion URL is durable storage. Confirm the precise response format and any URL-fetch behavior in PDFShift’s current API reference. PDFShift output documentation
Storage, reliability, and cost considerations
Keep durable documents under your control
A temporary PDFShift URL is not a substitute for a retained invoice in your application. Save the bytes to your configured storage backend and record the storage reference against the invoice. Decide how your app handles duplicate generation, replacement, access control, and retention according to its own requirements; the cited PDFShift material does not establish legal invoice-retention rules.
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Handle failures without assuming undocumented behavior
Check the HTTP result before treating the operation as successful, and only persist a PDF after confirming that the response corresponds to the expected output mode. Consult the current Laravel HTTP-client documentation and PDFShift API reference for status handling, timeouts, retry policy, and error fields; those details are not specified by the source material cited here.
Free allowance
PDFShift’s FAQ states that an account receives 50 credits per month at no charge and without a credit card. This is the vendor’s stated allowance; verify the current account terms before relying on it. PDFShift FAQ
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Or skip the browser setup
PDFShift is for converting invoice HTML into PDFs; ScreenshotNeo is a different tool for capturing website pages as screenshots or PDFs. If the task is capturing a web page rather than rendering an app-owned invoice template, ScreenshotNeo offers a one-request API and an MCP server for AI agents. It removes cookie/consent banners, newsletter popups, and chat widgets before capture; bot checks, blank pages, and failed loads are never billed. Its free plan includes 1,000 screenshots a month without a card, and paid plans start at $5 for 3,000. Every feature is on every plan.
curl -G "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot" -d access_key=YOUR_API_KEY --data-urlencode url=https://stripe.com -o shot.webpSee the ScreenshotNeo API documentation for options, including screenshot formats and PDF capture. ScreenshotNeo is not an invoice-HTML conversion replacement; use it when you need a clean capture of a webpage. Sign up for 1,000 free screenshots a month with no card.
Quick Recap
Common problems to check
- Authentication failure: confirm that the key is present in server configuration and sent as
X-API-Key; never move it into client-side code. Check PDFShift’s current authentication guidance for account-specific requirements. - Unexpected response format: confirm whether the request uses
filename. PDFShift documents direct PDF output without it and JSON containing a temporary URL with it; parse the response according to the current API reference. - The invoice link stops working: a PDFShift URL returned for a filename is stated to remain available for two days. Download and persist the bytes in your own storage for longer retention.
- The stored file is not a usable PDF: verify the request succeeded and that your code saved PDF response bytes rather than JSON or an error response. Consult the current API error documentation for exact diagnostics.
- Invoice content is wrong or unsafe: check the Blade data passed to the view and escape untrusted values. Use a URL source only when it is an intended, accessible page; the source field accepts either HTML or a URL.
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