Updated 4 September 2026 · 51 tools, no paid placement
Search, Research & Academics
Connected Papers
By Connected PapersTel Aviv, Israel1 product across 1 category
Built for this. Builds a similarity graph from citation data rather than from a language model, so nothing in the output is generated and there is nothing to hallucinate.
- Free plan
- Yes
- 5 graphs a month, with all features included
- Month to month
- None
- Shortest billing is quarterly: $10/mo ($30 a quarter)
- Billed yearly
- $6/mo
- $72 a year, Academic plan −40%
Watch out: It finds neighbours of one seed paper, so a bad starting point gives a confidently wrong map. The free tier is 5 graphs a month with every feature included, so paying buys volume rather than capability, and there is no monthly option — billing is annual or quarterly.
All plans (5)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Free plan at $0: 5 graphs a month, with all features included |
| Academic | $10/mo quarterly · $6/mo yearly | unlimited graphs and every feature, for academics, non-profits and personal use |
| Business | $30/mo quarterly · $20/mo yearly | the same again, for business and industry |
| Academic Group and Business Group | $30/mo quarterly · $20/mo yearly | |
| Academic Library | Custom | unlimited graphs for all students and staff, with email, IP and single sign-on access and zero-effort integration |
Consensus
By ConsensusBoston, United States1 product across 1 category
Built for this. Searches published papers and tells you how many of them support a claim, which turns a yes-or-no question into a count you can inspect.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Basic paper search, 15 Pro messages a month and up to 3 Deep reviews a month
- Month to month
- $20/mo
- Pro
- Billed yearly
- $12/mo
- $144 a year, Pro plan −40%
Watch out: The consensus meter reflects the papers it found, not the state of the field. Deep reviews are the metered resource — 3 a month free, 15 on Pro, 200 on Deep — so that is what decides the tier rather than how much you search.
All plans (3)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Free plan at $0: basic paper search, 15 Pro messages a month and up to 3 Deep reviews a month, though the same card also describes the free tier as being without AI analysis |
| Pro | $20/mo · $12/mo yearly | unlimited Pro messages, 15 Deep reviews a month and unlimited access to every research tool |
| Deep | $65/mo · $45/mo yearly | everything in Pro with 200 Deep reviews a month, aimed at researchers and clinicians running frequent literature reviews. Team and Enterprise are priced on their own tab |
Elicit
By ElicitOakland, United States1 product across 1 category
Built for this. Searches actual papers and extracts findings into a table you can check, one row per study, rather than answering in prose.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Limited use of the Research Agent and Research Reports, but unlimited search across more than
- Month to month
- $19/mo
- Academic Plus
- Billed yearly
- $11/mo
- $132 a year, Academic Plus plan −42%
Watch out: Coverage is strongest in empirical fields. Extraction is a starting point for a literature review, not the review.
All plans (7)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Basic plan, free on both tabs: limited use of the Research Agent and Research Reports, but unlimited search across more than 138 million papers, unlimited summaries and unlimited chat with papers at full text |
| Academic Plus | $19/mo · $11/mo yearly | standard Research Agent, Reports and systematic review usage, export to RIS, CSV, BIB, PDF and DOCX, and 5 table columns at a time |
| Academic Pro | $69/mo · $39/mo yearly | 5x usage, the dedicated systematic review workflow that screens 5,000 papers, and 20 columns at a time |
| Academic Scale | $149/mo · $89/mo yearly | 9x usage, extraction and interpretation of figures, and live real-time collaboration |
| Industry Pro | $75/mo · $49/mo yearly | standard usage, the systematic review workflow, 20 columns and reports drawing on up to 135 data sources |
| Industry Scale | $279/mo · $169/mo yearly | 5x usage, figure extraction, live collaboration and up to 200 data sources |
| Enterprise | Custom | custom usage, unlimited paper alerts, no training on your data by default, screening of 40,000 papers with 40 columns, and PRISMA-grade screening and extraction accuracy. Academic and industry are separate ladders — academics get an extra Plus tier and pay less at every step |
EvidenceHunt
By EvidenceHuntAmsterdam, Netherlands1 product across 1 category
Built for this. Scoped to clinical evidence and built with practising clinicians, so the filters match how medical literature is actually appraised.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Unlimited questions on the low-cost models plus 3 PRO-quality questions, with chat history
- Month to month
- None
- Not published
- Billed yearly
- —
- No yearly price published
Watch out: Medicine only, and no use for research in any other field. It prices in euros rather than dollars, and the free tier gives you 3 PRO-quality questions before dropping you to the low-cost models.
All plans (3)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Basic plan, free: unlimited questions on the low-cost models plus 3 PRO-quality questions, with chat history |
| Pro | 16.50 euros a month billed yearly, or 20 euros month to month, opening on a 7-day free trial | unlimited questions on the best models rather than only the low-cost ones. EvidenceHunt prices in euros, not dollars, so these figures are not directly comparable with the rest of this list |
| Team or Organisation | no price published | tailored to the organisation through a sales conversation or a booked demo |
Gemini Deep Research
By Google DeepMindLondon, United Kingdom6 products across 6 categories
Built for this. Runs a multi-step search across dozens of sources and returns a structured, referenced report. Strong first pass on an unfamiliar field.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Included in the free Gemini tier, with a limited number of reports
- Month to month
- $4.99/mo
- Google AI Plus
- Billed yearly
- $4.17/mo
- $49.99 a year, Google AI Plus plan −16%
Watch out: Searches the open web, not scholarly databases. It will miss paywalled literature a library search would find.
All plans (4)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Included in the free Gemini tier, with a limited number of reports |
| Google AI Plus | $4.99/mo | 2x the usage limits. Deep Research is part of the Google AI plans, not sold separately |
| Google AI Pro | $19.99/mo | 4x the usage limits and the Pro model behind longer reports |
| Google AI Ultra | $99.99/mo | 5x the Pro limits for the heaviest research use |
Gemini Notebook
By Google DeepMindLondon, United Kingdom6 products across 6 categories
Built for this. You upload the sources and it answers only from them, linking every sentence to the passage it came from. The strongest verification pattern here.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free, and the core product is not gated: what a paid plan buys is headroom — a bigger notebook
- Month to month
- $4.99/mo
- Google AI Plus
- Billed yearly
- $4.17/mo
- $49.99 a year, Google AI Plus plan −16%
Watch out: Deliberately limited — it will not answer what your documents do not cover, and cannot tell you whether they are any good. Paid headroom comes from a Google AI subscription rather than a plan of its own.
All plans (4)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Free, and the core product is not gated: what a paid plan buys is headroom — a bigger notebook, more sources per notebook and higher limits on Audio and Video Overviews and Slides |
| Google AI Plus | $4.99/mo | the cheapest step that raises its limits, with more Gemini access, increased feature limits and a bigger notebook. Introductory offers were showing: $1.29/month for 3 months, or $44.99 for the first year |
| Google AI Pro | $19.99/mo | expanded Gemini access for complex research, expanded feature limits and a large notebook size. Introductory offers were showing: $4.99/month for 3 months, or $179.99 for the first year |
| Google AI Ultra | $99.99/mo | the highest Gemini access and the largest source limits, for working across several big notebooks |
Litmaps
By LitmapsWellington, New Zealand2 products across 1 category
Built for this. Draws a citation map you can steer, so the shape of a literature becomes visible rather than being a list of titles.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free, capped rather than trial-limited: 2 Litmaps with 100 articles per map, basic search
- Month to month
- $12.50/mo
- Pro
- Billed yearly
- $10/mo
- Pro plan −20%
Watch out: A map is a prompt to read, not a substitute for reading. The free tier stops at 2 maps of 100 articles each, so a real review needs Pro, and Pro is priced on separate education and commercial tabs.
All plans (3)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Free, capped rather than trial-limited: 2 Litmaps with 100 articles per map, basic search taking up to 20 seed inputs, monthly literature alerts and no collaboration |
| Pro | $12.50/mo · $10/mo yearly | unlimited Litmaps and unlimited articles per map, advanced search with unlimited inputs, and weekly or configurable alerts rather than monthly. Litmaps prices Pro on two sub-tabs, education and commercial; these are the education figures |
| Team | no price published on the pricing page | Pro features plus team-wide collaboration, which neither Free nor Pro includes |
OpenEvidence
By OpenEvidenceCambridge, United States1 product across 1 category
Built for this. Built for clinical literature. Answers cite primary medical research, and it is free for verified clinicians.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free for verified clinicians, ad-supported
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
Watch out: Medicine only, and access is gated behind clinician verification. No use for a history or engineering student.
Paperguide
By PaperguideMilton, United States1 product across 1 category
Built for this. Covers finding papers, reading them, managing references and drafting in one place, which is unusually broad for this category.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free, capped by credits: 2,000 AI credits a month across Research Agents, Research Reports and
- Month to month
- $15/mo
- Academic Plus
- Billed yearly
- $9/mo
- Academic Plus plan −40%
Watch out: Breadth costs depth against the tools that do one of those jobs properly. A young product, so expect it to keep changing shape.
All plans (8)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Free, capped by credits: 2,000 AI credits a month across Research Agents, Research Reports and the AI Writer, with a limited reference manager and limited AI searches, and no systematic reviews |
| Academic Plus | $15/mo · $9/mo yearly | 12,500 credits a month, unlimited reference manager and systematic reviews of up to 1,000 papers |
| Academic Pro | $49/mo · $29/mo yearly | 50,000 credits a month, systematic reviews of up to 5,000 papers and image and table extraction |
| Academic Evidence | $99/mo · $69/mo yearly | 150,000 credits a month and PRISMA-grade dual screening. This is the team tier |
| Industry Plus | $29/mo · $17/mo yearly | |
| Industry Pro | $69/mo · $39/mo yearly | |
| Industry Evidence | $199/mo · $119/mo yearly | |
| Enterprise | Custom | custom credits and systematic reviews of up to 20,000 papers |
Perplexity
By PerplexitySan Francisco, United States1 product across 3 categories
Built for this. Purpose-built for cited web answers. Every claim carries a numbered link, and Comet extends it across normal browsing.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free tier with citations in every answer, basic AI models and limited daily use
- Month to month
- $20/mo
- Pro
- Billed yearly
- —
- No yearly price published
Watch out: A citation proves a source was consulted, not that it supports the sentence attached to it. Click through on anything that matters.
All plans (6)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Free tier with citations in every answer, basic AI models and limited daily use |
| Pro | $20/mo | deep research, top AI models, expanded Computer access, 4,000 bonus credits |
| Max | $200/mo | expert-level research, frontier models, 35,000 bonus credits and 10,000 monthly credits |
| Enterprise Pro | $34/mo yearly | no training on your data, SSO, SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA and GDPR compliance, 500 Computer credits a seat |
| Enterprise Max | $271/mo yearly | the most advanced reasoning models, 15,000 Computer credits a seat, SCIM and audit logs |
| Additional security and governance | Custom | role-based access control, custom retention, volume discounts |
Rayyan
By Rayyan SystemsCambridge, United States1 product across 1 category
Built for this. Built for systematic reviews — thousands of abstracts screened by a team, with blinding and conflict resolution built into the workflow.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free forever, pitched at your first systematic review rather than as a trial
- Month to month
- None
- Shortest billing is quarterly: $8.33/mo ($24.99 a quarter)
- Billed yearly
- $4.99/mo
- $59.88 a year, Essential plan −40%
Watch out: Overkill for anything smaller than a formal review. Individual seats are cheap, but the institutional tier starts at 5 licenses for $2,500 a year.
All plans (5)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Free forever, pitched at your first systematic review rather than as a trial |
| Essential | $8.33/mo quarterly · $4.99/mo yearly | |
| Advanced | $13.33/mo quarterly · $8.33/mo yearly | |
| Business or Academic | $41.67/mo yearly | |
| Enterprise | Custom |
ResearchRabbit
By LitmapsWellington, New Zealand2 products across 1 category
Built for this. Follows citations outward from papers you already trust and keeps alerting you as new ones appear. Strong for finding what you did not know to look for.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free forever, and unusually complete: unlimited searches across more than 310 million articles
- Month to month
- $12.50/mo
- ResearchRabbit+
- Billed yearly
- $10/mo
- ResearchRabbit+ plan −20%
Watch out: Owned by Litmaps since May 2025 and overlaps it heavily, down to charging the same $10 and $12.50. Discovery only — it will not read or summarise anything for you, and the free tier stops at 50 seed articles.
All plans (3)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Free forever, and unusually complete: unlimited searches across more than 310 million articles, unlimited library and collections, and sharing a collection to collaborate. The cap is 50 seed articles and core rather than advanced search settings |
| ResearchRabbit+ | $12.50/mo · $10/mo yearly | raises the seed-article cap from 50 to 300, adds advanced search controls, multiple projects and Signals alerts |
| Institution | no price published, sold through a sales conversation | everything in RR+ plus volume discounts, LibKey integration with your research library, thousands of managed users, usage statistics and dedicated support |
Scholarcy
By ScholarcyLondon, United Kingdom1 product across 1 category
Built for this. Breaks a paper into structured cards — aims, method, findings, limitations — instead of one block of summary, which makes skimming a stack of them practical.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free Article Summarizer: imports a range of file formats but stops at 10 summaries, and exports
- Month to month
- $9.99/mo
- Scholarcy Plus
- Billed yearly
- $7.50/mo
- $90 a year, Scholarcy Plus plan −25%
Watch out: Structure comes from the paper being conventionally written; it copes badly with anything that is not. The free tier stops at 10 summaries, so a reading list of any size needs the paid plan.
All plans (2)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Free Article Summarizer: imports a range of file formats but stops at 10 summaries, and exports flashcards only one at a time |
| Scholarcy Plus | $9.99/mo |
Scite
By SciteBrooklyn, United States1 product across 1 category
Built for this. Shows whether later papers supported or contradicted the one you are reading. Nothing else on this site answers that question.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Connect, free and without a card: 25 MCP credits a month to use Scite inside ChatGPT, Claude
- Month to month
- $20/mo
- Basic
- Billed yearly
- $12/mo
- Basic plan −40%
Watch out: Coverage depends on publisher agreements, so an absence of contrasting citations is not evidence of agreement. The free tier is a connector for other AI tools, not the Scite platform: no Assistant, no Search.
All plans (6)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Connect, free and without a card: 25 MCP credits a month to use Scite inside ChatGPT, Claude and other AI tools, grounded in more than 300 million papers. It is a connector rather than a cut-down platform — the Assistant and Search are not included at all |
| Basic | $20/mo · $12/mo yearly | the full platform, with Assistant and Search, 250 MCP credits a month, Article Smart Citation reports, collections up to 1,000 papers and citation alerts. Opens on a 7-day free trial |
| Pro | $50/mo · $40/mo yearly | adds API access, 2,500 MCP credits a month, collections up to 10,000 papers and the patent, clinical trial and grant datasets. Opens on a 7-day free trial |
| Team | $50/mo | everything in Pro plus private and shared collections, team usage analytics, centralised billing and 2,500 MCP credits per user |
| Academic | no price published, sold through a sales conversation and based on users and usage | campus or department-level access by domain, IP or university email, unlimited users inside the licensed group, collections up to 50,000 papers and librarian dashboards |
| Enterprise | no price published, also sales-led | full API access with custom limits, collections up to 50,000 papers, enterprise MCP integration, SAML and SSO, and Article Galaxy full-text delivery |
You.com
By You.comPalo Alto, United States1 product across 2 categories
Built for this. Answers a question from one live search pass and lists the pages it used beside the answer, so a claim can be checked without leaving it.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free tier of 100 web search queries a day, no API key required
- Month to month
- None
- Not published
- Billed yearly
- —
- No yearly price published
Watch out: The company has moved toward developers: the pricing page now sells APIs by the thousand calls, and the consumer assistant has changed shape several times while that happened. Good for checking a fact, less safe to build a habit on.
All plans (6)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Free tier of 100 web search queries a day, no API key required |
| Web Search API | $5 per 1,000 calls, 1 to 100 results a call, news included | $100 free credit |
| Contents API | $1 per 1,000 pages extracted as Markdown or HTML, several URLs a request | $100 free credit |
| Answer API | $5 per 1,000 calls for a cited, synthesised answer | $100 free credit |
| Research API | from $12 per 1,000 calls on Lite, rising through Standard, Deep, Exhaustive and Frontier tiers | $100 free credit |
| Finance Research API | from $110 per 1,000 calls on Deep, with an Exhaustive tier above | $100 free credit |
AskYourPDF
By ProtonLabs TechnologyBirmingham, United Kingdom1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Straightforward document chat with citation back to the page, and it handles long PDFs without the usual truncation.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free, but tightly capped: 1 document a day, 100 pages per document and a 15MB upload limit
- Month to month
- $14.99/mo
- Premium
- Billed yearly
- $11.99/mo
- Premium plan −20%
Watch out: A thin layer over a general model, so it inherits that model’s habits. Little here that a general assistant with file upload does not also do.
All plans (4)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Free, but tightly capped: 1 document a day, 100 pages per document and a 15MB upload limit |
| Premium | $14.99/mo · $11.99/mo yearly | 50 documents a day, 2,500 pages per document and a 31MB upload limit |
| Pro | $19.99/mo · $14.99/mo yearly | 150 documents a day, 6,000 pages per document and an 877MB upload limit |
| Enterprise | Custom | 1,000 documents a day, unlimited pages per document and a 1,431MB upload limit |
BLUF
By BLUF1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Summarizing and explaining web pages.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free to sign up and use
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
BookAbout
By BookAbout1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Research and information discovery.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free to sign up and use
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
chatd
By chatd1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Reading and querying documents.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free to sign up and use
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
ChatGPT deep research
By OpenAISan Francisco, United States3 products across 8 categories
Strong fit. Long autonomous research runs that produce a cited write-up. Useful for scoping a topic before you commit to reading.
- Free plan
- Yes
- A small number of deep research runs on the free ChatGPT tier
- Month to month
- $20/mo
- ChatGPT Plus
- Billed yearly
- —
- No yearly price published
Watch out: Web-first rather than database-first. Verify every citation before it enters a bibliography.
All plans (4)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | A small number of deep research runs on the free ChatGPT tier |
| ChatGPT Plus | $20/mo | far more deep research runs, advanced models and Codex. Deep research is part of the ChatGPT plans, not sold separately |
| ChatGPT Pro | $100/mo | |
| ChatGPT Business | $25/mo · $20/mo yearly | $100 or $125 for a premium seat with 5x the usage |
ChatPDF
By ChatPDF1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Reading and querying documents.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free to sign up and use
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
Claude research mode
By AnthropicSan Francisco, United States3 products across 7 categories
Strong fit. Holds long papers in context well, which suits close reading and synthesis across several full texts at once.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Reading and summarising papers works on the free Claude tier
- Month to month
- $20/mo
- Pro
- Billed yearly
- $17/mo
- $200 a year, Pro plan −15%
Watch out: Not connected to indexed scholarly databases. There is no separate research plan: longer runs come with a Claude subscription.
All plans (6)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Reading and summarising papers works on the free Claude tier |
| Pro | $20/mo · $17/mo yearly | extended multi-step research runs. Research mode is part of the Claude plans, not sold separately |
| Max | $100/mo | |
| Team standard seat | $25/mo · $20/mo yearly | |
| Team premium seat | $125/mo · $100/mo yearly | |
| Enterprise | $20/mo |
DocuChat
By DocuChat1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Research and information discovery.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free to sign up and use
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
Explainpaper
By ExplainpaperUnited States1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Highlight the passage that lost you and get it explained at the level you ask for, in place, without leaving the paper.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free for everyone, forever, and not metered: unlimited highlight explanations, follow-up
- Month to month
- $16/mo
- Pro
- Billed yearly
- $12/mo
- Pro plan −25%
Watch out: Explains what a passage says rather than whether it is right, and a confident explanation of a flawed method reads exactly like a good one. The free tier is unlimited but runs on weaker models, so what you pay for is the quality of the explanation rather than more of it.
All plans (3)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Free for everyone, forever, and not metered: unlimited highlight explanations, follow-up questions and Zotero import. The limit is model quality — the free tier runs on what Explainpaper calls basic AI models |
| Pro | $16/mo · $12/mo yearly | |
| Teams | no price published, sold through a sales conversation | everything in Pro plus team management, priority support and volume discounts |
Humata
By HumataAustin, United States1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Ask questions across a set of uploaded documents and get answers with the page they came from, which suits a folder of papers rather than one.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free, capped at 60 pages of use in total rather than per month, with the basic features and
- Month to month
- $9.99/mo
- Expert
- Billed yearly
- —
- No yearly price published
Watch out: Answers only from what you upload, so the quality of the shortlist is the quality of the answer. The free tier is 60 pages in total, and the step from Expert to Team switches from a flat rate to per user.
All plans (4)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Free, capped at 60 pages of use in total rather than per month, with the basic features and GPT-5 support |
| Expert | $9.99/mo | |
| Team | $49/mo | |
| Enterprise | Custom | personalised service and enterprise security for large teams |
IKI AI
By IKI AI1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Research and information discovery.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free to sign up and use
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
Iris.ai
By Iris.ai1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Research and source summaries.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free to sign up and use
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
Komo Search
By Komo Search1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Research and information discovery.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free to sign up and use
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
Liner
By Liner1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Finding and organizing web information.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free to sign up and use
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
Map This
By Map This1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Reading and querying documents.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free to sign up and use
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
Otio
By Otio1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Research and source summaries.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free to sign up and use
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
PDF Parser
By PDF Parser1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Reading and querying documents.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free to sign up and use
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
Petal
By PetalCambridge, United States1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. A document library with AI built in rather than a chat window you paste into, so your sources stay organised between sessions.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free, with 1GB of cloud storage, one seat and three guests. Support is included rather than
- Month to month
- $4.25/mo
- Plus
- Billed yearly
- $2.55/mo
- Plus plan −40%
Watch out: You have to commit to keeping documents in it for the value to appear. The individual tiers are separated by storage rather than by features, and the two cheapest are priced for .edu addresses — without one they cost around two thirds more.
All plans (7)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Free, with 1GB of cloud storage, one seat and three guests. Support is included rather than priority |
| Plus | $4.25/mo · $2.55/mo yearly | $2.99 and $4.99 respectively month to month. 2GB of storage |
| Advanced | $8.49/mo yearly | $9.99 and $13.99 month to month. 10GB of storage and priority support |
| Premium | $29.99/mo · $25.49/mo yearly | |
| Teams Starter | $59.99/mo · $50.99/mo yearly | 5 seats, 10 guests and 50GB |
| Teams Pro | $119.99/mo · $101.99/mo yearly | 20 seats, 100 guests and 1TB |
| Teams Enterprise | Custom |
Recap
By Recap1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Summarizing online information.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free to sign up and use
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
SciSpace
By SciSpaceBengaluru, India1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Explains a paper section by section while you read it, and will answer questions against the PDF in front of you.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free tier with limited papers
- Month to month
- $20/mo
- Premium
- Billed yearly
- $12/mo
- Premium plan −40%
Watch out: Explanations are only as good as the paper is clear, and it will paraphrase confidently past a passage it has not understood. Paid tiers are metered in credits rather than papers, and the jump from the entry tier to the next is more than five times the price.
All plans (7)
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Free tier with limited papers |
| Premium | $20/mo · $12/mo yearly | 1,200 credits a month, Pro model access, unlimited file downloads, deep research, systematic review and papers from Google Scholar, PubMed and arXiv |
| Advanced | $90/mo · $70/mo yearly | 10,000 credits a month, ten times Premium, expert models, verified reports and unlimited refreshes at 5,000 credits each time you hit the limit |
| Max | $200/mo · $160/mo yearly | 40,000 credits a month, up to 16 parallel agent chats and early feature access |
| Teams Premium | $25/mo · $15/mo yearly | the same 1,200 credits per user, plus admin role management |
| Teams Advanced | $100/mo · $75/mo yearly | 10,000 credits per user and up to 8 parallel agent chats each |
| Teams Max | $220/mo · $175/mo yearly | 40,000 credits per user and 16 parallel chats each |
Simplescraper
By Simplescraper1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Research and information discovery.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free to sign up and use
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
SkimIt.ai
By SkimIt.ai1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Research and source summaries.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free to sign up and use
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
Slite - Ask
By Slite - Ask1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Research and information discovery.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free to sign up and use
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
Talk Web
By Talk Web1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Research and information discovery.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free to sign up and use
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
Teach Anything
By Teach Anything1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Research and information discovery.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free to sign up and use
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
The Drive AI
By The Drive AI1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Finding answers in stored documents.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free to sign up and use
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
Yonoo
By Yonoo1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Research and information discovery.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free to sign up and use
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
Youtube Transcript AI Summary
By Youtube Transcript AI Summary1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Research and source summaries.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Free to sign up and use
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
Anara
By Anara1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Researching documents with source citations.
- Free plan
- No
- No usable free tier
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
Andi
By Andi1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. A web search built for agents rather than people: one call returns ranked results scored for accuracy, in a format meant to be read straight into a prompt.
- Free plan
- No
- No usable free tier
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
Watch out: Priced by outcome rather than per call — an easy lookup costs less than a hard one, and content returned adds a token charge — so the bill moves with the questions asked. Credits are bought up front.
Checkmyidea
By Checkmyidea1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Research and information discovery.
- Free plan
- No
- No usable free tier
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
Feedly Leo
By Feedly Leo1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Web research and answer discovery.
- Free plan
- No
- No usable free tier
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
Genei
By Genei1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Research and source summaries.
- Free plan
- No
- No usable free tier
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
InfraNodus
By InfraNodus1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Research and information discovery.
- Free plan
- No
- No usable free tier
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
Insight7
By Insight71 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Research and information discovery.
- Free plan
- No
- No usable free tier
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
Skipit.ai
By Skipit.ai1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Research and information discovery.
- Free plan
- No
- No usable free tier
- Month to month
- None
- Nothing to pay — there is no paid tier
- Billed yearly
- —
- No paid tier to buy
Search, Research & Academics pages
More specific “Best AI” pages for this kind of work.
Best AI for College Students
Coursework, deadlines, lecture notes and free tiers
Best AI for Student Research
Sources, citations and papers for coursework
Best AI for Exam Preparation
Practice questions, flashcards and revision from your own notes
Best AI for Market Research
Sizing, competitors and findings with sources attached
Best AI for Academic Research
Papers, scholarly evidence and open-web search
Best AI for Research Papers
Finding, reading and citing published work
Best AI for Literature Reviews
Abstract screening, field mapping and synthesis
Best AI for Finding Research Papers
Keyword search, citation trails and coverage
Questions
What is the best AI for research, citations and fact-checking?
There is no single answer, which is why this page lists 51 of them rather than one. 15 are built specifically for this kind of work; the rest do it well without it being their focus. Start with a free one and change your mind cheaply.
Which of these are free?
43 of the 51 have a genuine free plan you can sign up for today: Connected Papers, Consensus, Elicit, EvidenceHunt, Gemini Deep Research, Gemini Notebook, Litmaps, OpenEvidence, Paperguide, Perplexity, Rayyan, ResearchRabbit, Scholarcy, Scite, You.com, AskYourPDF, BLUF, BookAbout, chatd, ChatGPT deep research, ChatPDF, Claude research mode, DocuChat, Explainpaper, Humata, IKI AI, Iris.ai, Komo Search, Liner, Map This, Otio, PDF Parser, Petal, Recap, SciSpace, Simplescraper, SkimIt.ai, Slite - Ask, Talk Web, Teach Anything, The Drive AI, Yonoo, Youtube Transcript AI Summary. Free here means a real free tier, not a trial that expires.
How were these chosen?
Every AI product we know of that fits this category is listed, whether or not there is any money in it for us. Ordering is by how well a tool fits the task and whether it has a free plan. Placement is not for sale.
How current are the prices?
Prices were last verified on 4 September 2026. They change often, so confirm on the provider's own pricing page before you spend anything.
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