R Discovery 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

Entry price: The same for both — $12/mo
Free plan: Only R Discovery (scite has paid plans only)
Public API: scite has one; not confirmed by us for R Discovery
Best fit: R Discovery: Researchers who want a personalized feed of new papers in their field · scite: Checking whether a paper you plan to cite has been disputed in later literature
Platforms: R Discovery: Web, iOS, Android, Chrome extension · 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

R DiscoveryRecommends and summarizes research papers, chats with PDFs, and reads papers aloud, built by Cactus Communications.

sciteCitation index that shows whether papers support or contradict

Side by side

Fact	R Discovery	scite
Category	Academic Search & Literature Review	Research & Citation Tools
Pricing model	Freemium	Paid
Starts at	$12/mo	$12/mo
Public API	Not confirmed	Yes
Trust score	90 / 100	90 / 100
Platforms	Web, iOS, Android, Chrome extension	Web, Chrome extension, API
Company	Cactus Communications	Research Solutions, Inc.
Launched	—	2018
Last verified	Oct 15, 2026	Oct 15, 2026

What our research says

R Discovery

R Discovery is built around the daily habit of keeping up with a field: it recommends papers based on what you've already read, then lets you interrogate a PDF instead of skimming it cold. The free tier is usable on its own, but the features researchers actually want, literature review drafts and unlimited PDF chat, sit behind the $12/month Prime plan.

Pros

Personalized paper feed based on reading history across a large index
Chat directly with a paper's PDF instead of just searching its abstract
Generates a first-draft literature review from selected papers
Audio playback for papers, useful for reading on the move

Cons

Heavier AI features (literature review, unlimited PDF chat) require the paid Prime tier
Recommendation quality depends on how much reading history the account has built up
No API for pulling data into other research tools

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 R Discovery if you need

Researchers who want a personalized feed of new papers in their field
Skimming a paper's findings via chat before deciding to read the full text
Non-native English speakers who need abstracts translated

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