CiteTrue
Verified Oct 15, 2026 ActiveChecks citations against academic databases to catch fabricated or inaccurate references, including ones made up by AI.
Listed on EffectHub ·
Pricing
- Pricing model
- Freemium
- Paid options from
- $5.99/mo
- Billing
- Monthly
Free gives 30 verification credits a day. Plus is $5.99/month billed $71.88 a year for 1,000 credits a month, Pro $11.99/month (3,000) and Max $47.99/month (20,000), all shown on yearly billing; most citations cost 1 credit and hard ones up to 5. Credit packs valid for six months are sold separately, and purchases are non-refundable.
Use tool ↗About CiteTrue
CiteTrue verifies citations by checking each one's title, authors, publication year, DOI, and venue against academic databases, specifically aimed at catching the fabricated references that AI writing tools sometimes generate. It offers a free tier with 30 checks a day, and paid monthly subscriptions raise that to a few thousand checks a month along with the ability to export flagged results and get suggested replacement citations. Beyond the web app, it also ships as a Chrome extension, a Mac app, an API, and an MCP server for use inside other tools.
- Platforms
- Web · macOS · Chrome extension · API
- API
- Yes
- Last verified
- Oct 15, 2026
Verified sources
- Pricing page: Free 30 credits/day; Plus $5.99/mo billed $71.88/year (1,000/mo), Pro $11.99/mo (3,000/mo), Max $47.99/mo (20,000/mo); credits shared across Citation Finder, Paper Draft and AI Humanizer (15 October 2026)citetrue.com ↗
- Terms of Service: CiteTrue is operated by DocumentMind LLC, registered in Cheyenne, Wyoming, under Wyoming law (15 October 2026)citetrue.com ↗
Is CiteTrue legit?
We don’t label tools safe or unsafe. Below are the records we checked ourselves, each with the date we read it.
- Domain registered
- Sep 16, 2025 (1 year ago)Registry record (RDAP), registrar NameCheap, Inc., looked up Sep 6, 2026
- TLS certificate
- Issued by Google Trust Services, valid until Dec 16, 2026Seen in our own connection to the site on Oct 15, 2026
- Last checked
- Oct 15, 2026The site answered
- Operated by
- DocumentMind LLC, United StatesOur research, card verified Oct 15, 2026
Pros & cons of CiteTrue
CiteTrue targets a specific failure mode of AI writing tools, invented citations that look real but don't exist or don't say what's claimed, by checking each reference field against academic databases. Shipping it as a Chrome extension and API alongside the web app makes it easier to slot into an existing writing workflow than a check-one-document-at-a-time tool.
Pros
- Free tier offers 30 checks a day with no account cost
- Available as web, Chrome extension, Mac app, API, and MCP server
- Suggests replacement citations on paid tiers, not just flags
Cons
- Credits now also feed an 'AI Humanizer' and paper-drafting tools, an odd mix for an academic-integrity checker
- Paid tiers scale quickly in price for higher-volume checking, up to $47.99/month
- Accuracy depends on database coverage, which isn't detailed publicly
Best for
- Writers and researchers checking citations added by an AI drafting tool
- Anyone wanting a quick daily citation sanity-check without paying
- Developers wanting citation verification via API or MCP inside another tool
Not for
- Full manuscript or thesis review beyond citation accuracy
- Users needing more than 30 checks a day without a paid plan
Watch out: Hard citations can cost up to 5 credits each, and subscriptions and credit packs are non-refundable.
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