What is Scite.ai?
Scite is an AI research platform for finding and evaluating scientific literature, with an Assistant that answers questions from scholarly articles, full-text citation search, Smart Citations and Collections. It runs on the web, as a browser extension and Zotero plugin, and through MCP and an API, and it says it works inside Claude, ChatGPT and other MCP-compatible assistants.
Who it's for
Scite sells Basic to individuals, Pro for deeper research and API use, and Enterprise to universities and organizations, and its site says it serves researchers, students and industry experts. Its pricing page says a small team can start with Pro seats and move to Enterprise later.
Pros & cons
Strengths
- Scite says it reads across 323M+ full-text scholarly articles and has indexed 1.6B+ citations; its Assistant page gives a different figure (250M+ in page metadata), so treat the totals as Reported.
- Scite says Smart Citations show how later research has supported, challenged or discussed a paper, with classification as supporting or contrasting evidence.
- Scite lists unlimited Assistant queries, full-text literature search, Smart Citation reports and citation alerts on Basic, plus collections of up to 1,000 papers.
- Scite lists a browser extension that shows citation badges, a Zotero plugin, library Holdings access for full text, an MCP server and an API.
- Pro adds patents, clinical trials and grants, collections of up to 10,000 papers, 2,500 MCP credits a month (Basic has 250) and self-service API access.
- Enterprise lists unlimited users with pooled usage, access by SSO, IP, domain or email, collections of up to 50,000 papers and regulatory and safety datasets such as FAERS, MAUDE and 510(k).
Limitations
- No free plan is listed for the product; Basic and Pro include a 7-day free trial that converts to the chosen plan unless canceled, and the Assistant page says chat history is saved only with a free trial. Free accounts have no MCP access.
- MCP credits are capped (250 a month on Basic, 2,500 on Pro); the pages do not explain how credits are used per call or whether they roll over, and REST API limits are enforced separately.
- Scite's API docs say a Pro self-service key is for evaluation (Search snippets are redacted), commercial or research use of Search needs a separate license, and the terms say API and connector access is licensed to you personally.
- The terms say fees are non-refundable and subscriptions renew monthly, with cancellation needed at least 30 days before the month you want to avoid; the pricing page says you can cancel from the Subscription section and avoid trial charges by canceling before the trial ends. The pages differ, so confirm before buying.
- The terms prohibit scraping and bulk or systematic retrieval, bar using retrieved content to train AI models, and provide the service as is, leaving it to users to verify sources. Scite says it does not use Customer Data to train AI systems.
Plans and pricing
- Free (API only): $0. Listed only in API docs: public Papers and Tallies endpoints need no API key. It is not a plan for the Assistant or search product.
- Basic: $12 a month billed annually ($144 a year), or $20 monthly. Assistant, full-text search, Smart Citation reports, citation alerts, 250 MCP credits a month, collections up to 1,000 papers, no self-service API key. 7-day trial.
- Pro: $40 a month billed annually ($480 a year), or $50 monthly. Everything in Basic plus API access, 2,500 MCP credits a month, collections up to 10,000 papers, patents, clinical trials and grants. The pricing page lists a $60 API credit as limited time. 7-day trial.
- Team: $40 per seat a month billed annually, or $50 per seat monthly. Listed in the markdown pricing page and docs, not as a separate plan on the pricing page, which says to add seats with Pro on one bill. Adds shared Collections and alerts and user analytics; up to 15 seats by self-service.
- Enterprise: Custom. Unlimited users with pooled usage, SSO, collections up to 50,000 papers, regulatory and safety datasets, extended usage reports, a dedicated customer success manager and enhanced security.
Prices were read from scite.ai/pricing, scite.ai/pricing.md and the docs pricing page, which agree. The pricing page shows only annual-billing prices in USD; the $20 and $50 monthly prices come from the markdown page and docs, and Team is not on the pricing page. Confirm on the live pricing page, since taxes, discounts and promotions can change the checkout price.
Details checked October 2026 against the vendor's own pages. Prices and limits change, so confirm before you buy. Official pricing page ↗
Sources
This profile was compiled from these public pages. We have not run hands-on tests.
Scite.ai — at a glance
Scite is an AI research platform for finding and evaluating scientific literature, with an Assistant that answers questions from scholarly articles, full-text citation search, Smart Citations and Collections. It runs on the web, as a browser extension and Zotero plugin, and through MCP and an API, and it says it works inside Claude, ChatGPT and other MCP-compatible assistants.
Try Scite.ai →