Scite

Scite indexes how scientific papers cite each other and labels each citation by context, showing whether a later paper supports, contradicts or simply mentions the work it cites. On top of that it offers literature search, an AI assistant that answers questions with references, reference checks for manuscripts, collections with citation alerts, and access through an API, an MCP server, a Zotero plugin and a free browser extension.

It is aimed at students, academics, librarians and research teams who need to judge how well a finding has held up, not just how often it has been cited. Readers who only need occasional paper lookups may find a free academic search engine enough.

There is no permanent free plan; new users get a 7-day free trial. Basic costs $20 a month billed monthly ($12 a month on annual billing) and covers the assistant, search and citation reports. Pro costs $50 a month ($40 a month annually) and adds API access, larger collections and extra datasets. Enterprise pricing for institutions is quoted on request.