February 23, 2026
A manufacturing operations lead described what document processing looked like before automation: “If we were to do it effectively, it would be like two full-time jobs of just data entry reading PDFs.” His team had hired someone specifically to handle the volume. That person “hasn’t really had the chance” to do their actual job “because they’ve been bogged down in the busy work.”
ABBYY was supposed to fix this. With 150 pre-trained document models, enterprise-grade capabilities, and IDC Leader status, it looked like the right solution for a manufacturing company processing purchase orders, work orders, and supplier invoices at scale. In practice, manufacturing teams discover that ABBYY’s enterprise complexity creates its own set of problems — ones that mid-market manufacturers aren’t equipped to solve.
If you’re a manufacturing company evaluating ABBYY alternatives, here’s what drives teams to switch and what actually works for PO and invoice processing on the factory floor.
Lido is the strongest ABBYY alternative for manufacturing teams processing purchase orders, vendor invoices, and mixed-format shop floor documents. It extracts data from any document layout without templates, pre-trained models, or per-format configuration. ACS Industries, the world's largest vertically integrated wire mesh manufacturer, switched from UiPath to Lido and now processes 400 purchase orders per week automatically with complete accuracy.
ABBYY Vantage is a powerful platform. It handles 200 languages, offers process mining, and has a marketplace of pre-trained models. But manufacturing document processing exposes specific limitations that the platform’s breadth doesn’t address.
ABBYY is built for enterprises with dedicated IT teams and multi-month implementation budgets. Manufacturing companies in the mid-market — 50 to 500 employees — need to extract data from POs and get it into their ERP. They don’t need process mining, model marketplaces, or connector frameworks. They need a tool that works this week.
ABBYY users consistently flag this gap. G2 reviewers describe the interface as “complex and not intuitive” and note that advanced configurations “require IT professionals.” For a manufacturing operations team without dedicated IDP engineering resources, the platform’s power becomes overhead.
ABBYY’s 150 pre-trained models sound like a strength until you need one that doesn’t exist. Manufacturing POs come from hundreds of customers, each with a different format. If your customer’s PO layout doesn’t match a pre-trained model, you’re back to custom training — which requires the technical expertise that mid-market manufacturers typically lack.
Even when a pre-trained model exists, format variations within a document type cause problems. A PO from one automotive OEM looks nothing like a PO from a construction contractor. The model marketplace assumes standardization that manufacturing procurement doesn’t have.
Manufacturing environments generate handwritten documents — shop floor notes, handwritten PO amendments, annotated drawings, inspection reports. ABBYY handles handwriting on standardized forms but struggles with irregular handwriting and mixed annotations that are common in manufacturing.
G2 reviewers specifically flag this: “There’s a need for better AI models, handwritten recognition.” For manufacturing teams processing documents from the shop floor, this gap means a portion of their volume always falls back to manual entry.
ABBYY’s published pricing starts at $29.99 for 500 pages (Starter tier) and jumps to $199.99 for 5,000 pages (Popular tier). At manufacturing scale — hundreds of POs per week plus supplier invoices, packing slips, and quality documents — you’re quickly into enterprise pricing territory with custom quotes, lengthy sales cycles, and implementation fees.
G2 reviewers note that “licensing and support services are costly, with lengthy response times.” For a manufacturing company that needs results now, not after a procurement process, this timeline is a problem.
ACS Industries, the world’s largest vertically integrated wire mesh manufacturer, faced the same document processing challenge. Their operations team was processing 400 purchase orders per week arriving via email in every format — PDFs, spreadsheets, images, and email body text. Manual data entry was consuming 30 hours per week.
Rather than adopting an enterprise IDP platform, they chose Lido. Hugo Medel, EDI and AI Development Lead at ACS Industries, described the result: “Thanks to Lido, we’re processing approximately 400 weekly POs automatically with complete accuracy. We avoided a new hire and saved a chunk of money while reliably automating PO processing.”
The key differences that made this work:
Lido’s approach is fundamentally different from ABBYY’s. There are no pre-trained models to select, no custom training to configure, and no enterprise platform to deploy.
Evaluating other tools for manufacturing? See how ACS Industries replaced UiPath with Lido. For general document processing comparisons, see our Nanonets and Parseur alternatives.
Switching from ABBYY to Lido doesn’t require a migration project. There are no models to transfer, no training data to export, and no workflows to rebuild. You sign up, upload your documents, and get structured output.
Lido’s pricing is transparent: $29 per month for 100 pages, $7,000 per year for 42,000 pages, and enterprise plans from $30,000 per year with dedicated implementation support. At Scale and Enterprise tiers, Lido includes free implementation support to configure your specific workflow.
Start with 50 free pages — no credit card required. Upload your actual POs, including the ones from customers whose formats gave ABBYY trouble, and compare accuracy, speed, and output format against what you’re getting today.
Lido is the strongest ABBYY alternative for manufacturing companies because it requires no pre-trained models, no custom training, and no enterprise implementation project. ACS Industries, the world’s largest vertically integrated wire mesh manufacturer, processes 400 POs per week through Lido with complete accuracy, saving 30 hours per week. Lido works as a standalone tool that manufacturing operations teams can deploy in days, not months.
Manufacturing companies switch from ABBYY because the platform’s enterprise complexity exceeds what mid-market teams can implement and maintain. Pre-trained models don’t cover the full range of customer PO formats, custom training requires IT expertise most manufacturers lack, and implementation timelines stretch to months. Manufacturing teams need results this week, not after an enterprise deployment project.
Yes. Lido extracts data from handwritten PO amendments, shop floor notes, annotated drawings, and inspection reports. ABBYY’s handwriting recognition works on standardized forms but struggles with irregular handwriting common in manufacturing environments. Lido’s AI-powered extraction adapts to handwriting variation without requiring model training or template configuration.
Lido’s pricing is published and transparent: $29 per month for 100 pages, $7,000 per year for 42,000 pages, and enterprise plans from $30,000 per year. ABBYY’s pricing starts at $29.99 for 500 pages but scales quickly into custom enterprise quotes for manufacturing volumes. Lido includes free 24-hour reprocessing and free implementation support at Scale and Enterprise tiers, with no hidden fees or lengthy sales processes.
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