Monica vs Side Copilot

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: Side Copilot — $2.90/mo vs $9.90/mo for Monica
Free plan: Both have one
Public API: Monica has one; not confirmed by us for Side Copilot
Higher Trust score: Monica — 86 vs 80 for Side Copilot
Best fit: Monica: People who compare answers across GPT, Claude and Gemini without paying three subscriptions · Side Copilot: people who keep dozens of tabs open across projects

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

MonicaMulti-model AI assistant living in a browser sidebar

Side CopilotBrowser side-panel extension that sorts tabs into spaces and runs an AI agent over what you have open.

Side by side

Fact	Monica	Side Copilot
Category	Browser Extensions & Copilots	Browser Extensions & Copilots
Pricing model	Freemium	Freemium
Starts at	$9.90/mo	$2.90/mo
Public API	Yes	Not confirmed
Trust score	86 / 100	80 / 100
Platforms	Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, API, Chrome extension	Chrome extension
Company	Butterfly Effect Pte. Ltd.	CursorDance, LLC
Launched	2023	—
Last verified	Oct 15, 2026	Oct 16, 2026

What our research says

Monica

Worth it if you want one subscription that reaches GPT, Claude and Gemini from wherever you already are; pointless if you live inside a single vendor's app and are happy there. The value is the sidebar and the model switching, not the intelligence, which is all rented.

Pros

Genuinely wide model roster, including image and video models, under one credit pool
Extension plus desktop plus iOS/Android means the same history follows you across devices
Separate prepaid developer API at platform.monica.im if you want the same aggregation in code

Cons

Prices are only visible after loading the pricing app, and the tier names have already shifted once (Unlimited became Max)
Advanced credits reset monthly, so heavy image or video use burns a Pro plan fast
You are a reseller's customer — outages, rate limits and model deprecations arrive second-hand
monica.cn is a separate China-market build run by a different legal entity, which confuses support and privacy expectations

Side Copilot

Tab management plus a chat that can actually see the tabs is a better combination than either half alone, and at $2.90 a month it is one of the cheapest paid extensions in this category. Note the rename: the product you find as Side Space is now Side Copilot, which matters when you search for support or reviews. Agent mode driving your live browser is the part to think about before installing.

Pros

Vertical tab sidebar with named spaces, free up to five
Chat mode answers across the tabs currently open
Agent mode automates grouping, history search and workspace rearrangement
Installs on Chrome, Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, Comet, Dia, Sigma, Firefox and Zen
$2.90/month is low for the category, with a 7-day refund window

Cons

Rebranded from Side Space, so older reviews and links point at a dead name
Agent mode needs broad permissions over your browsing
No Safari support
CursorDance, LLC publishes no address or team page

Which one fits

Choose Monica if you need

People who compare answers across GPT, Claude and Gemini without paying three subscriptions
Reading and summarising foreign-language pages and PDFs in-place while browsing
Light users who want AI attached to the browser rather than in another tab

Choose Side Copilot if you need

people who keep dozens of tabs open across projects
researchers who want to query several open pages at once
anyone on a Chromium browser other than Chrome