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Petal vs Scholarcy

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. Petal publishes a starting price ($2.55); Scholarcy does not. Both have a free tier. Only Scholarcy ships a public API.

PetalReference manager that answers questions across your PDF libraryScholarcyBreaks research papers into summary flashcards with extracted references

Side by side

FactPetalScholarcy
CategoryReference & Citation ManagementPaper Reading & Summarization
Pricing modelFreemiumFreemium
Starts at$2.55 month—
Public APINoYes
PlatformsWeb, Chrome ExtWeb, Chrome Ext, API
CompanyPaladin Max, Inc.Texthelp
Launched20182018
Last verifiedSep 6, 2026Sep 6, 2026

What our research says

Petal

The one tool in this space that is a real reference manager first and a document chatbot second, which matters if citations are part of your output. If you only need to interrogate a handful of PDFs, a general assistant does that for free.

Pros

  • Automatic metadata extraction and deduplication removes the worst part of library upkeep
  • Sourced answers link back to the passage rather than paraphrasing without provenance
  • Word add-in and browser importer cover the actual writing workflow, not just reading
  • Paid entry price is a few dollars a month, far below research-AI subscriptions

Cons

  • Free tier's 400 AI credits do not replenish, so it is a trial rather than a usable plan
  • 1 GB of free storage fills fast with scanned PDFs
  • Multi-document chat and AI Create are locked to the Advanced tier and above
  • No API, so it cannot feed a lab's own pipelines

Scholarcy

The strongest option when you need a consistent structured breakdown of a specific paper you already have. It is a summariser, not a discovery engine, so it does not replace Elicit or Consensus for finding what to read.

Pros

  • Flashcard structure (claims, methods, limitations) is consistent enough to compare papers side by side
  • Citation links resolve to open-access copies, saving a separate hunt
  • Exports to Word, Excel and reference managers rather than trapping output in the app

Cons

  • Extraction quality drops on badly formatted or scanned PDFs
  • Free tier's roughly 10 summaries a month runs out within one review session
  • Site is behind aggressive bot protection, which makes automated or scripted use awkward

Which one fits

Choose Petal if you need

  • Graduate students and academics managing a growing citation library
  • Literature reviews where answers must be traceable to a specific source passage
  • Small research groups sharing annotated collections with co-authors

Choose Scholarcy if you need

  • Postgraduates screening a pile of PDFs before deciding what to read fully
  • Building a literature matrix across a set of papers
  • Librarians and study-skills teams wanting an institutional licence

More comparisons

All Scholarcy alternatives →Browse all Reference & Citation Management →