Scite is an AI research platform built around Smart Citations, which show whether later papers support or contradict a study, plus an assistant that answers questions from over 300 million scholarly articles. There's no free plan, but every paid plan starts with a 7-day free trial. Basic costs $20 a month, or $12 a month billed yearly, with the full assistant and search, 250 MCP credits a month and collections of up to 1,000 papers. Pro costs $50, or $40 yearly, and adds API access, 2,500 MCP credits and patent, clinical trial and grant data. Team costs $250 a month for 8 seats, and Enterprise is priced by users and usage.
Reviewed by EdGrows·Updated Oct 5, 2026This analysis is based on documentation, public user reports, and vendor materials — not yet on our own hands-on testing. How we rate
Citation counts tell you a paper is popular. They don't tell you whether it's right. Scite was built to fill that gap: for each paper it shows the sentences in which later studies cite it and whether those studies support or contradict the finding. Scite calls these Smart Citations and says it has indexed more than 1.6 billion of them.
Since then it has grown into a broader research platform. An AI assistant answers questions from the literature, search covers more than 300 million articles, and an MCP server lets other AI tools use Scite's data. Scite is now part of Research Solutions.
A citation can mean "this confirmed our result" or "we failed to replicate this." Scite separates the two. Open a paper and you see how many later studies support it and how many contradict it, each with the citing sentence in context.
That changes how you check a source. Before citing a striking result in a thesis or a grant application, you can see in a minute whether anyone has disputed it. Reference Check runs the same kind of check across the references in a manuscript. Citation alerts tell you when new papers cite work you're following.
Monthly prices with the yearly switches off. Turning them on drops Basic to $12 and Pro to $40 a month. Captured October 5, 2026.
| Basic | Pro | Team | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Billed monthly | $20 a month | $50 a month | $250 a month for 8 seats | Custom |
| Billed yearly, per month | $12 | $40 | Not listed | Custom |
| MCP credits a month | 250 | 2,500 | 2,500 per user | Pooled |
| Collections | Up to 1,000 papers | Up to 10,000 papers | Private and shared | Up to 50,000 papers |
| Also included | Full assistant and search, Smart Citation reports, alerts and dashboards | API access with $60 of API credit for a limited time, patent, clinical trial and grant datasets | Team analytics, central billing, $50 a month per extra seat | Unlimited users, SSO or IP access, regulatory and safety datasets |
Billed yearly, Basic comes to $144 a year and Pro to $480. Both start with a 7-day free trial. Enterprise is priced by users and usage, and adds safety datasets such as FAERS, MAUDE and 510(k) clearances for life-science companies.
No permanent one. The trial covers the paid features for seven days. Scite asks you to choose a plan when you start, and enrolls you in it automatically when the trial ends unless you cancel. Cancelling takes a minute from the Subscription section of your account.
Before paying, check whether your university already subscribes. Scite sells site licences to universities and research organizations, and its pricing page links to an article about use of the tool nearly doubling at Clemson University. For students and academics without institutional access, Scite offers a discount code to anyone who recommends it to their institution by email, copying Scite's support and sales teams.
The assistant answers a question with a short written response in which each claim links to the papers behind it. Scite stresses that answers come from real papers rather than generated text, and its full-text search looks beyond abstracts. That matters when the evidence sits in a results section.
MCP credits measure how much you use Scite from other AI tools. With the MCP server connected, an assistant such as Claude can search Scite's index and pull Smart Citation data into its answers. Basic includes 250 credits a month, which suits occasional use. Pro's 2,500 and its API access are aimed at people building Scite into their own workflows.
Perplexity searches the open web and answers general questions quickly, with an Education Pro plan at $10 a month. Consensus summarizes what the research says on a yes-or-no question, from $12 a month billed yearly. Neither shows you how a specific paper has been received by the studies that followed it, which is what Scite does best. Elicit is the better tool for extracting data across many papers for a systematic review, and Undermind for finding hard-to-locate studies in the first place.
If you start the trial, put the end date in your calendar. Scite charges for the plan you picked as soon as the seven days are up.
Not a permanent one. New users get a 7-day free trial of the paid features, and when it ends Scite enrolls you in the plan you chose unless you cancel first. Many universities buy Scite for their students and staff, so check your library before paying.
Scite offers discounts to students and academics who recommend it to their institution. You email the recommendation to your library and copy Scite's support and sales addresses, and Scite sends a discount code.
They show the sentence in which a later paper cites a study and whether that citation supports or contradicts the finding. Scite says it has indexed more than 1.6 billion citations this way.
Log in, open the Subscription section of your account and choose Cancel Plan. During the free trial, cancel before the seven days end to avoid being charged.
Perplexity searches the whole web and is quick for general questions. Scite works only from scholarly literature and adds citation context, showing whether later research backs a claim. For academic writing, Scite is the more reliable source check.
Cited AI search plus the new Computer agent: free plan, Pro at $20 or $200 a year, Max at $200, Computer credits, and the free Comet browser.
An academic search engine that answers from peer-reviewed papers. Basic search is free, Pro starts at $12 a month billed yearly, and students get up to 40% off.
A free chat app and one of the cheapest frontier-class APIs: V4.1-Flash with vision and open weights, from $0.15 per million input tokens off-peak.