What is Scite?
Citation analysis platform built around Smart Citations - it shows not just that a paper was cited but whether the citing paper supported, contrasted or merely mentioned the finding, with the surrounding sentence as evidence.
Verifying whether a claim has held up in the literature since publication.
Main features
- Smart Citations classified as supporting / contrasting / mentioning
- citation statements with context
- Reference Check for manuscripts (flags retracted or heavily contrasted references)
- Scite Assistant chat over the citation graph
- dashboards for institutions
- browser extension overlaying Smart Citations on journal sites.
Practical use cases
- Checking whether a cited finding has actually been replicated or contested
- screening a manuscript's reference list for retracted work
- assessing the real influence of a paper beyond raw citation count
- research-integrity review.
Who is it for?
- Researchers, librarians, research-integrity officers, publishers, universities, pharma regulatory and medical-affairs teams.
Pricing, free access & limits
Subscription; heavy institutional licensing
Plans described in the source
Personal plan around $20/mo or roughly $144-180/yr billed annually. Student pricing reduced. Institutional and enterprise licences quoted per organisation (typically the main revenue model). A free limited view is available via the browser extension and some public pages.
Free plan
Limited free access - basic Smart Citation badges via the browser extension and some public reports.
Free trial
Yes - a short free trial of the Personal plan is typically offered; institutional trials via sales.
Usage limits to consider
Free access shows limited Smart Citation detail; full citation statements and Reference Check require a subscription. Institutional access is the normal route for universities.
Confirm current plans and pricing ↗Strengths & tradeoffs
These points summarize the supplied research, rather than hands-on test results.
Strengths noted in the source
- The supporting/contrasting distinction is genuinely unique and directly useful for research integrity
- Reference Check catches retracted citations before publication
- deep institutional integrations
- strong library adoption.
Limitations to consider
- Coverage depends on full-text access agreements, so some citation statements are missing
- classification accuracy is good but imperfect
- individual pricing is high relative to Consensus
- narrow use case outside academia.
Platforms, languages & integrations
Platforms
- Web, browser extensions (Chrome, Firefox, Edge)
Languages
- English interface; corpus predominantly English
API access
Yes - Scite API available on paid and institutional plans
Integrations and exports
- Zotero, EndNote, Mendeley, ORCID, publisher platforms, institutional discovery layers, browser extension overlays on PubMed/journals
Evaluation notes
Most valuable as a verification layer rather than a discovery tool. For a literature review, pair Scite (does this hold up?) with Elicit (what does the literature say?).
Explore similar tools
Other tools in AI Research Tools. Compare their specific features and limits for your task.
Frequently asked questions
What is Scite best for?
Verifying whether a claim has held up in the literature since publication.
What free access does Scite offer?
Limited free access - basic Smart Citation badges via the browser extension and some public reports.
What limits should I check before using Scite?
Free access shows limited Smart Citation detail; full citation statements and Reference Check require a subscription. Institutional access is the normal route for universities.
Does Scite provide an API?
Yes - Scite API available on paid and institutional plans
Sources & editorial notes
Based on the directory editor’s supplied research. The source does not provide a verification date for this row. Importing a record does not independently verify every product claim.
Additional references named in the research
scite.ai/pricing; help.scite.ai