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
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
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
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
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
By Google DeepMindLondon, United Kingdom6 products across 6 categories
Built for this. Sits inside Gmail, Docs and Drive, so it already has your context. Very large context windows and a generous free tier.
Free plan
Yes
Free tier with generous limits
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: Which underlying model you get varies by tier, and quality varies with it. Plus and Pro were both showing introductory offers when checked — a fraction of the price for the first three months, or a discount on the first year — so the number on the page is not the standing price, and the rows here quote the standing one.
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
Two things separate these and both are on every card.
Fit
Whether a tool is built for this job, a strong fit for it, or
able to do it without that being its focus.
Free plan
Whether there is a tier you can keep using rather than a
trial that expires.
The order
Fit first, then a free plan, then alphabetical. There is
no score, no weighting we decline to publish, and nothing on this site a company can buy.
Questions
What is the best ai for summarizing documents?
There is no single answer, which is why this page lists 9 rather than one: Gemini Notebook, Humata, AskYourPDF, Petal, Scholarcy, Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, SciSpace. 5 of them are built for this kind of work rather than able to do it. Start with a free one.
Which of these have a free plan?
9 of the 9: Gemini Notebook, Humata, AskYourPDF, Petal, Scholarcy, Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, SciSpace. Free means a real free tier you can keep using, not a trial that expires.
How was this list chosen?
By hand, from the 750 products this site tracks, and it is checked against the catalogue on every build — a product renamed or removed breaks the build rather than quietly disappearing from here. Nothing on this site can be paid for: no listing, no position, no wording.
