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Elicit 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.

The short answer

Cheaper paid plan
scite — $12/mo vs $49/mo for Elicit
Free plan
Only Elicit (scite has paid plans only)
Public API
Both have one
Best fit
Elicit: Systematic reviews and evidence synthesis where every included paper needs the same fields pulled · scite: Checking whether a paper you plan to cite has been disputed in later literature
Platforms
Elicit: Web · scite: Web, Chrome extension

From our own records as of each tool's last check. Anything we have not confirmed is left out rather than guessed. How we verify

ElicitLiterature review workflow that extracts data into tablessciteCitation index that shows whether papers support or contradict

Side by side

FactElicitscite
CategoryAcademic Search & Literature ReviewResearch & Citation Tools
Pricing modelFreemiumPaid
Starts at$49/mo$12/mo
Public APIYesYes
Trust score94 / 10090 / 100
PlatformsWeb, APIWeb, Chrome extension, API
CompanyElicitResearch Solutions, Inc.
Launched20212018
Last verifiedOct 15, 2026Oct 15, 2026

What our research says

Elicit

Elicit is the only one of these tools that treats a literature review as a structured extraction job rather than a chat, which is exactly right for the work. The price assumes you are billing someone else for the hours it saves.

Pros

  • Column-per-field extraction into a table is the correct shape for review work and rare elsewhere
  • Free tier is unusually generous: unlimited search, summaries and full-text chat
  • Every claim links back to the paper it came from
  • API access is included from the first paid tier rather than sold separately

Cons

  • The $49 to $169 jump is steep and Scale is priced for institutions, not labs
  • Free tier's limits on the Research Agent and Reports are not quantified anywhere on the pricing page
  • Extraction accuracy still needs spot-checking against the source PDF
  • Coverage is paper-centric, so grey literature and preprint-heavy fields are thinner

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, browser extension and MCP server carry the data into existing workflows
  • Pro plan includes API access to papers, tallies, citations and Reference Check
  • 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
  • No permanent free plan any more, only a 7-day trial that converts automatically
  • The Assistant is competent but not clearly better than dedicated research chat tools
  • API access now requires the Pro plan, not Basic

Which one fits

Choose Elicit if you need

  • Systematic reviews and evidence synthesis where every included paper needs the same fields pulled
  • Researchers screening hundreds of abstracts against defined inclusion criteria
  • Pharma, policy and academic teams that need an auditable trail back to sources

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

Elicit vs scite: the questions people ask

Is Elicit cheaper than scite?

On published entry prices, scite starts lower — $12/mo against $49/mo for Elicit. Entry price is the lowest paid plan as we last verified it; what each plan includes differs.

Does Elicit or scite have a free tier?

Elicit has a free tier; scite has paid plans only.

Which has a public API, Elicit or scite?

Both ship a public API, so either can be built on; the fact table above shows the platforms each one runs on.

More comparisons

All Elicit alternatives →All scite alternatives →Browse all Academic Search & Literature Review →