1. Should you try Scite.ai? Overview

What it is	Scite.ai is a citation-intent verification layer for scientific literature, not a general-purpose research chatbot.
Country / HQ	Brooklyn, New York, USA
Best for	Systematic reviewers / meta-reviewers checking if a cited result held up
Check before buying	Watch out: General-purpose research generation (Perplexity / ChatGPT Deep Research broader)
Editor rating	4.4 / 5
Pricing signal	Free tier + paid from $20/mo

2. Features What it does

Feature	What it does
Smart Citations	Classify each citation as supporting / contrasting / mentioning; show snippet + section context — 1.6B+ classified citations, 300M+ sources; deep-learning classifier, confidence scores shown
Scite Assistant	Natural-language Q&A grounded in full-text corpus, answers carry verifiable citation statements — LLM-based; not autonomous synthesis, hallucination risk on complex asks
Reference Check	Upload manuscript PDF → scan every ref for retraction status, editorial notices, support/contrast balance — Used by journals/preprint screeners
Advanced Search	Query citation statements not just metadata; filter by support/contrast, journal, year, section — Full-text licensed deals (Wiley, BMJ, Cambridge) give paywalled reach
Dashboards + Collections	Track a DOI set; alert on new supporting/contrasting citations or retractions — Basic 1,000 / Pro 10,000 papers per collection
Integrations	Chrome extension (Scholar/PubMed badges), Zotero plugin, ChatGPT/Claude connectors, REST API, MCP server (250–2,500 credits/mo by plan) — Only Pro+ gets self-service API key; MCP = agent-facing
Evidence datasets	Patents, clinical trials, grants, drugs/devices/safety (Pro+) — Need dataset scopes on API

Plan	Price / mo	Key limits & who it fits
Free	$0	— 0 Public Papers/Tallies endpoints, no Assistant, no Smart Citation reports behind login wall Browse-only; 7-day trial auto-enrolls to chosen paid plan
Basic	$20/mo	$12/mo ($144/yr) 250/mo Assistant unlimited, full-text search, 1,000-paper collections, ChatGPT/Claude integrations Individual researchers; no REST API key
Pro	$50/mo	$40/mo ($480/yr) 2,500/mo + self-service API key, 10,000-paper collections, patents/grants/clinical trials in search Power users / API evaluators
Team	$50/user/mo	$40/user/mo ($480/user/yr) 2,500/user/mo Pro per seat, pooled org collections, central billing ≤20 seats typical self-serve
Enterprise	Custom	Custom Pooled SSO/SAML, managed credentials, extra Evidence scopes, dedicated CSM Research Solutions sales-led

Access type	Details
access_type	web-browser-extension-zotero-mcp-api-no-desktop-app
access_display	🌐 scite.ai (browser) · Chrome extension (Scholar/PubMed) · Zotero plugin · iOS/Android web-responsive · MCP server (scite.ai/mcp) · REST API (Pro+) · no offline desktop client

Source	Rating	What it says
G2	4.7/5	~27 Ease-of-use, Smart Citation accuracy, literature-review speed praised; small n
Trustpilot	3.8–4.1/5	~220 Strong tool, but assistant hallucinations (fabricated DOI), broken BibTeX export, cancel/billing friction, support latency
Capterra	sparse	<10 No robust sample; mirror G2 pros
Academic eval (Bakker 2023 etc.)	—	— Supporting/contrasting precision decent, recall lower esp. for contrasting; misclassification on nuanced frames

✔ Suitable	✘ Not suitable
• Systematic reviewers / meta-reviewers checking if a cited result held up • Grant writers & postdocs stress-testing their reference list • Journal editorial screens / retraction checks (Reference Check) • Pharma / regulatory writers needing patent/clinical-trial citation context • AI-agent builders wanting citation-sentiment MCP tool	• General-purpose research generation (Perplexity / ChatGPT Deep Research broader) • Pure discovery engine for “what’s new in field” (Semantic Scholar free) • Non-English / humanities / very recent preprint-heavy fields (coverage gaps) • Users expecting zero hallucination from Assistant (needs human pass) • Students without institutional subsidy (price friction at $20/mo)

Competitor	How it differs	Best for
Citation-intent	Consensus	$10.99/mo
Discovery (free)	Semantic Scholar	$0
Agentic lit review	Elicit	~$49/mo
Deep research	Perplexity, ChatGPT Deep Research	$20/mo
Citation graph	Litmaps, Connected Papers	freemium
Systematic review	Rayyan	freemium
Academic LLM	Scispace (Typeset)	freemium

Who should pick it	Systematic reviewers / meta-reviewers checking if a cited result held up
Who should skip it	General-purpose research generation (Perplexity / ChatGPT Deep Research broader)