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CiteTrue vs scite

Two fact sheets from our own research, side by side — pricing, platforms, API access and status re-checked by us rather than quoted from the vendors. CiteTrue starts at $5.99, scite at $20. Both have a free tier. Both ship a public API.

CiteTrueChecks citations against academic databases to catch fabricated or inaccurate references, including ones made up by AI.sciteCitation index that shows whether papers support or contradict

Side by side

FactCiteTruescite
CategoryResearch & Citation ToolsResearch & Citation Tools
Pricing modelFreemiumFreemium
Starts at$5.99 month$20 month
Public APIYesYes
PlatformsWeb, macOS, Chrome Ext, APIWeb, Chrome Ext, API
CompanyCiteTrueResearch Solutions, Inc.
Launched—2018
Last verifiedSep 1, 2026Sep 6, 2026

What our research says

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

  • No company or location information disclosed on the site
  • 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

scite

The citation-classification dataset is the moat — no other research assistant tells you a paper has been contradicted 14 times. Use it to vet sources, not to discover them; Elicit and Consensus are better at the initial sweep.

Pros

  • Supporting/contrasting/mentioning classification is genuinely unique among research tools
  • Zotero plugin and free browser extension carry the data into existing workflows without an account
  • Full API access to papers, tallies, citations and Reference Check endpoints
  • Backed by a public company since the 2023 acquisition, so it is unlikely to disappear

Cons

  • Classification quality depends on full-text access; low-coverage publishers yield sparse tallies
  • $20/mo monthly is a hard sell against free-tier competitors unless you cite heavily
  • The Assistant is competent but not clearly better than dedicated research chat tools
  • Free tier is capped at roughly 100 reports a month

Which one fits

Choose CiteTrue if you need

  • 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

Choose scite if you need

  • Checking whether a paper you plan to cite has been disputed in later literature
  • Systematic reviews where you must justify why a source was included or dropped
  • Auditing your own manuscript's reference list before journal submission
  • Librarians and institutions wanting citation-context badges inside existing discovery tools

More comparisons

All CiteTrue alternatives →All scite alternatives →Browse all Research & Citation Tools →