By Jenni AINew York, United States1 product across 1 category
Strong fit. Writes alongside you in an academic register and inserts citations as it goes, in your reference style.
Free plan
Yes
10 AI autocompletes a day, 10 PDF uploads, 3 AI edits, 5 AI chat messages, 3 reviews, unlimited
Month to month
$30/mo
Plus
Billed yearly
$12/mo
Plus plan −60%
Watch out: A suggested citation still has to be checked against the source. The free tier is metered in autocompletes rather than words, at 10 a day, and month-to-month billing costs two and a half times the annual rate on both paid plans.
All plans (3)
Plan
Price
What you get
Free
$0
Free tier: 10 AI autocompletes a day, 10 PDF uploads, 3 AI edits, 5 AI chat messages, 3 reviews, unlimited citations across more than 10,000 styles, and editor content export
Plus
$30/mo · $12/mo yearly
5,000 autocompletes a month, unlimited PDF uploads, 500 AI edits and 500 AI chat messages a month, 10 reviews a month, full document export and live chat support
Pro
$73/mo · $29/mo yearly
unlimited autocomplete, PDF uploads, AI edits, AI chat and reviews, with full document export and priority support
By Crimson AIMumbai, India1 product across 1 category
Built for this. Edits against journal conventions and subject-specific usage rather than general style, and flags the things reviewers flag.
Free plan
Yes
5,000 words a month of writing assistance, 4 proofread files or reports a month on credits, 5
Month to month
$20/mo
Premium
Billed yearly
$6.67/mo
$80 a year, Premium plan −67%
Watch out: Academic English only — it is the wrong tool for a blog post. The yearly prices on the cards are 40 per cent offers on Premium and Confidential Data, whose standing rates are $80 and $500, and the free tier stops at 5,000 words a month.
All plans (4)
Plan
Price
What you get
Free
$0
Basic plan, free at $0: 5,000 words a month of writing assistance, 4 proofread files or reports a month on credits, 5 AI writing requests a month, Lite and Standard modes only, standard data privacy and 1 plagiarism score a month
Premium
$20/mo
every writing feature including the grammar checker, paraphraser, consistency and file proofreading, all advanced writing modes, the APA, IEEE, ACS and AGU style guides, and the native Microsoft Word app
Premium Plus
$125 a year, with no offer applied to it
everything in Premium at double the credits, file translation across more than 30 languages, and proofreading of up to 240 files a year as editable files
Confidential Data
$500 a year is the standing rate, cut to $300 by the same 40 per cent offer
everything in Premium Plus plus an offline grammar checker app, unlimited AI writing, instant data deletion with no training on your text, and sovereignty and regulatory compliance. These are the Individuals prices; Enterprise and Institution are quoted on their own tabs
By LearneoRedwood City, United States2 products across 1 category
Built for this. The paraphraser most students actually use, with modes that change how far it moves from your original rather than one setting.
Free plan
Yes
Paraphrasing up to 125 words at a time in 2 modes, basic grammar fixes, humanizing up to 125
Month to month
$19.95/mo
Premium
Billed yearly
$8.33/mo
Premium plan −58%
Watch out: Rewriting someone else’s sentence is still their sentence, and universities treat it that way. The free tier caps paraphrasing at 125 words at a time, and paying month to month costs about two and a half times the annual rate.
All plans (3)
Plan
Price
What you get
Free
$0
Free tier: paraphrasing up to 125 words at a time in 2 modes, basic grammar fixes, humanizing up to 125 words for 6 uses a day, basic summaries, and limited access to the AI detector
Premium
$19.95/mo · $8.33/mo yearly
full access to paraphrasing in unlimited modes, advanced grammar recommendations, full humanizing, custom summaries and full access to the AI detector
Team Plan
no price published on the plan cards, sold through a separate page
everything in Premium plus team usage metrics, a user management dashboard, centralised billing, data control, and priority assistance with account management support
By ProWritingAidLondon, United Kingdom1 product across 1 category
Built for this. Built for manuscripts rather than emails: pacing, repetition, dialogue tags and the reports a novelist actually wants. Sells a lifetime licence.
Free plan
Yes
Free tier with a word limit, plus Story Canvas and 2 runs of the line editing report a day
Month to month
$30/mo
Premium
Billed yearly
$10/mo
$120 a year, Premium plan −67%
Watch out: The volume of suggestions is overwhelming until you turn most of them off. There are three ways to pay — monthly, yearly, or a one-off lifetime licence — and the yearly rates the page shows are sale prices rather than the standing ones.
All plans (3)
Plan
Price
What you get
Free
$0
Free tier with a word limit, plus Story Canvas and 2 runs of the line editing report a day
Premium
$30/mo · $10/mo yearly
everything in the free tier plus unlimited runs of the line editing report. A Storyteller Sale running as this was checked cut the yearly rate 25 per cent to $7.50 a month, or $90 for the year
Premium Pro
$36/mo · $12/mo yearly
everything in Premium plus 30 chapter critiques a day. The same sale cut its yearly rate to $9 a month, or $108 for the year. Yearly and lifetime both carry a 3-day money-back guarantee, and the sale applies to yearly plans only
By GrammarlySan Francisco, United States1 product across 1 category
Built for this. Works inside the apps you already write in rather than a separate window, which is why it actually gets used. Grammar, tone and clarity in place.
Free plan
Yes
Writing without spelling and grammar mistakes, tone detection, and 100 AI prompts for
Month to month
$30/mo
Pro
Billed yearly
$12/mo
$144 a year, Pro plan −60%
Watch out: Better at fixing than composing. It smooths writing toward a neutral register, which is not always what you want.
All plans (3)
Plan
Price
What you get
Free
$0
Free tier: writing without spelling and grammar mistakes, tone detection, and 100 AI prompts for generating text
Pro
$30/mo · $12/mo yearly
rewriting whole sentences in a click, tone adjustment, unlimited personalised suggestions, and plagiarism and AI-text detection. It opens on a 7-day free trial with nothing to pay on the day and a reminder two days before it ends
Enterprise
Custom
adds proactive AI across the apps you work in, dedicated support, bring-your-own-key encryption, custom roles and permissions, and data loss prevention
By LearneoRedwood City, United States2 products across 1 category
Built for this. Strong across more than 30 languages rather than English alone, and it can be self-hosted, which almost nothing else in this category offers.
Free plan
Yes
Free tier covering basic grammar and spelling
Month to month
$24.90/mo
Premium
Billed yearly
$5.83/mo
$69.90 a year, Premium plan −77%
Watch out: Owned by the same company as QuillBot since 2023. Month to month costs more than four times the annual rate, and there are four payment intervals to pick between, so the interval matters more than the tier.
All plans (3)
Plan
Price
What you get
Free
$0
Free tier covering basic grammar and spelling
Premium
$24.90/mo · $16.63/mo quarterly · $5.83/mo yearly
enhanced grammar, punctuation and style checking, up to 150,000 characters a text field, unlimited AI sentence paraphrasing, a style guide and the browser add-on
Teams
$11.07/mo
everything in Premium plus user management, a team style guide and a team dictionary. Every price on the page includes VAT
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 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
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
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
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
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 writing papers?
There is no single answer, which is why this page lists 13 rather than one: Jenni AI, Trinka AI, Claude, ChatGPT, QuillBot, ProWritingAid, Grammarly, LanguageTool, Gemini Notebook, Elicit, SciSpace, Paperguide, Scholarcy. 11 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?
13 of the 13: Jenni AI, Trinka AI, Claude, ChatGPT, QuillBot, ProWritingAid, Grammarly, LanguageTool, Gemini Notebook, Elicit, SciSpace, Paperguide, Scholarcy. 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.
