Scite

What is Scite?

Scite is a literature search and citation analysis platform that reads the full text of research papers to show how each one has been cited. Its Smart Citations classify every citing statement as supporting, contrasting or mentioning, so you can see whether later work backs up a claim rather than just counting citations. An AI Assistant answers research questions from the same evidence, and each claim links to the specific sentence in the source paper. Scite says it indexes more than 280 million articles, preprints, books, patents and datasets and is used by over two million researchers, students and industry experts.

Scite was founded in 2018 as a Brooklyn startup led by co-founder and chief executive Josh Nicholson. Research Solutions, Inc., a Nasdaq-listed research workflow company, announced its acquisition of Scite on 27 November 2023 without disclosing the price, and customer support now runs through Research Solutions email addresses. At the time of the deal Scite had about 21,000 active individual subscribers. The service was live with a seven-day trial for new individual subscribers when we checked in October 2026.

Key Features

• Smart Citations: Scite labels each citing statement as supporting, contrasting or mentioning the paper it cites. Tallies appear for papers, journals, authors, institutions and funders, so you can judge how a finding has held up over time.
• Scite Assistant: Scite’s Assistant answers research questions with references that link to the exact sentence in each source paper. Unite.AI reports a table mode and a search strategy view that lists the publications used to draft each answer.
• Full-text citation search: Scite searches citation statements pulled from full texts, not only titles and abstracts. Filters by year, section, field and citation type help you find discussions hidden in methods, results or limitations sections.
• Reference Check: Scite’s Reference Check scans an uploaded manuscript for retracted references, editorial notices and contrasting citations, according to Educators Technology. It suits a pre-submission check, though it cannot confirm that you interpreted each source correctly.
• Collections and alerts: Scite lets you build collections of papers and get alerts about new citations and retractions. Basic holds up to 1,000 papers per collection and Pro up to 10,000, with imports from Zotero, Mendeley or DOI lists.
• Extra datasets on Pro: Scite’s Pro plan adds patents, clinical trials and grants to the searchable corpus. Industry researchers and grant writers can trace how science moves into applications without switching to separate databases.
• MCP connectors for AI assistants: Scite connects to Claude, ChatGPT and other MCP-compatible assistants, with 250 MCP credits a month on Basic and 2,500 on Pro. Your chatbot can then pull citation-backed evidence while you work.
• Browser extension, Zotero plugin and API: Scite’s browser extension adds citation badges to sites such as PubMed and Google Scholar, Unite.AI reports. A Zotero plugin brings Smart Citations into your library, and Pro includes developer API access.

Pros

• Shows how a paper is cited: Scite reveals whether later research agrees with, disputes or only mentions a study. That context catches weak or contested findings that a plain citation count would hide, which makes literature reviews more reliable.
• Answers tied to real sentences: Scite’s Assistant links every claim to the specific sentence in a source paper. You can check each statement in seconds, which cuts the risk of citing a source that does not say what an AI summary claims.
• Broad publisher coverage: Scite has indexing agreements with Wiley, SAGE and more than 30 other publishers, plus the open access corpus. That gives it citation context from paywalled papers that free academic search engines often cannot show.
• Fits existing reference workflows: Scite imports libraries from Zotero and Mendeley and offers a Zotero plugin, Capterra reviewers note. Researchers can add citation checks without abandoning the reference manager they already use.
• Works inside AI chat tools: Scite’s MCP access lets Claude, ChatGPT and similar assistants query its evidence base directly. Researchers who already draft with a chatbot get citation-grounded answers without copying results between tabs.
• Trial before you pay: Scite offers new individual subscribers a seven-day free trial on monthly or yearly plans. You can test the Assistant and Smart Citations on your own topic and cancel before the first charge.

Cons

• Automated labels can misread nuance: Scite classifies citations automatically, and Educators Technology warns that labels can misread hedged language or statements covering several claims. A missing contrasting label does not prove a finding is uncontested, so read the key papers yourself.
• No full free plan: Scite requires a paid plan or active trial for Search and the Assistant, and free accounts lack MCP access. Unite.AI lists the absence of a fully free plan as a drawback for students on tight budgets.
• Prices rose in 2026: Scite’s top individual tier rose from $20 to $50 a month in mid-2026, according to CostBench pricing snapshots. API access and patent data now sit on the more expensive Pro plan.
• Patchy coverage in niche fields: Scite depends on machine-readable full text, which varies by discipline, publisher and language. Unite.AI notes citation data can be incomplete in niche fields, so smaller areas may show few classified statements.
• Slower than general chatbots: Scite’s Assistant responds more slowly than mainstream language models, Unite.AI reports. The extra time goes on retrieving and grounding sources, but it can feel sluggish when you only need a quick overview.
• Privacy care needed for uploads: Scite may process data mainly in the United States, and its policy describes analytics and advertising cookies, per Educators Technology. Avoid uploading confidential manuscripts or identifiable data without your institution’s approval.

Who is Using Scite?

• Graduate students and academics: Checking whether key papers are supported or disputed before citing them.
• Librarians and universities: Providing institution-wide access through Enterprise licences.
• Industry and R&D researchers: Tracing evidence across papers, patents and clinical trials.
• Writers and editors: Running reference checks for retractions before submission.

Pricing

Scite costs $20 a month for Basic and $50 a month for Pro, with yearly billing at $144 and $480 and a seven-day free trial for new individual subscribers (official pricing page, October 2026).

Directory figures differ: Educators Technology lists Basic and Pro as billed annually at $20 and $50 with a free Connect tier, while Capterra shows a CA$20 Individual plan. Students and academics can ask for a discount by recommending Scite to their institution, and checkout prices may reflect promotions, so confirm the figure before you subscribe.

What Makes Scite Unique?

Citation context is Scite’s main differentiator: it tells you not just that a paper was cited but whether the citing authors agreed with it. Most AI research assistants summarise abstracts, while Scite grounds answers in classified citation statements extracted from full text, including paywalled papers covered by publisher agreements. That makes it particularly useful for spotting contested or retracted evidence before you build an argument on it.

Compatibilities and Integrations

• Reference managers: Zotero plugin and imports from Zotero, Mendeley and DOI lists.
• AI assistants: MCP connectors for Claude, ChatGPT and other MCP-compatible tools.
• Browser: An extension that shows citation badges on PubMed, Google Scholar and publisher pages.
• Developers and institutions: API on Pro and Enterprise, plus SAML single sign-on for organisations.

Scite Tutorials

Scite’s core workflow takes about ten minutes to learn on the trial.

1. Start the seven-day trial at scite.ai and choose a monthly or yearly plan.
2. Search a paper or DOI and open its Smart Citation report to see supporting and contrasting statements.
3. Ask the Assistant a research question and click through each linked sentence to verify it.
4. Import your Zotero or Mendeley library into a collection and switch on citation alerts.
5. Install the browser extension so citation badges appear while you read on Google Scholar or PubMed.

How We Rated It

Summary

Scite suits researchers, students and librarians who need to know whether the papers they cite are supported or disputed by later work. Its main limits are automated labels that can miss nuance, uneven coverage in niche fields and the lack of a fully free plan after the 2026 price changes. We rate it highly for evidence quality and integrations, with some caution on cost. Use the seven-day trial on a live literature review and verify every contrasting citation by reading the paper.