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scite

AI-powered research platform that provides answers grounded in over 1.6 billion citation statements extracted from 280M+ peer-reviewed articles, preprints, books, patents, and datasets, using Smart Citations to classify each citation as supporting, contradicting, or mentioning.

Starting at$0/month
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In Plain English

AI-powered research platform that provides answers grounded in over 1.6 billion citation statements extracted from 280M+ peer-reviewed articles, preprints, books, patents, and datasets, using Smart Citations to classify each citation as supporting, contradicting, or mentioning.

OverviewFeaturesPricingUse CasesLimitationsFAQ

Overview

scite is an AI-powered research platform that fundamentally changes how researchers, students, and professionals evaluate scientific literature. Instead of simply counting how many times a paper has been cited, scite analyzes over 1.6 billion citation statements extracted from more than 280 million peer-reviewed sources to classify each citation as supporting, contradicting, or mentioning the referenced claim. This Smart Citation technology, built on deep learning models trained on millions of annotated citation contexts, gives users an evidence-based view of how scientific findings hold up over time.

The platform's scite Assistant is a conversational AI that answers research questions using exclusively peer-reviewed literature, with every claim backed by inline citations linking directly to Smart Citation context. Unlike general-purpose AI chatbots, the Assistant is designed to minimize hallucination by grounding all responses in indexed academic sources. In internal evaluations, over 90% of Assistant-generated citations were verified as accurately reflecting the source material.

scite's Reference Check feature allows authors to upload manuscripts and receive automated audits flagging any cited papers that have been retracted, issued editorial notices, or contradicted by subsequent research. This pre-submission tool has been used to review over 500,000 manuscripts since its launch, helping researchers avoid citing unreliable work before peer review. Custom Dashboards let users build visual citation landscape overviews for any topic, substance, or research question, quickly identifying patterns of scientific consensus or controversy across hundreds or thousands of papers.

The platform's full-text search capability extends beyond abstracts and metadata through direct licensing agreements with over 30 publishers, including Wiley, SAGE, and Taylor & Francis, surfacing findings buried in methods sections, supplementary materials, and discussion paragraphs that abstract-only tools miss entirely. scite's browser extension integrates with PubMed, Google Scholar, and major journal websites, overlaying real-time Smart Citation badges that display supporting and contradicting citation counts without requiring users to leave their existing research workflow.

As of early 2026, scite serves over 750,000 registered users across more than 1,200 institutional subscribers worldwide, including universities, pharmaceutical companies, and government research agencies. The platform processes approximately 2 million search queries per month and has classified citation contexts across all major academic disciplines, from biomedical sciences and engineering to social sciences and humanities. With the recent launch of MCP (Model Context Protocol) integration and a developer API, scite is expanding beyond its web interface to power citation intelligence in third-party research tools, AI agents, and institutional knowledge systems.

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Key Features

Smart Citations (1.6B+ classified)+

scite's deep learning model analyzes each citation context and classifies it as supporting, contradicting, or mentioning, with confidence scores displayed for each classification. Built on training data of millions of expert-annotated citation contexts, the system processes citation statements from over 280 million sources, making it the largest classified citation database available to researchers.

Full-Text Search Across Open Access and Paywalled Content+

Unlike tools limited to abstracts and metadata, scite searches the full text of articles through direct licensing agreements with Wiley, SAGE, and 30+ other publishers. This means researchers can find relevant findings mentioned in methods sections, supplementary materials, and discussion paragraphs that would be invisible to abstract-only search engines.

scite Assistant with Inline Verified Citations+

The conversational AI assistant generates answers exclusively from peer-reviewed literature, with every claim linked to its source paper and Smart Citation context. Users can click through to see the exact citation statement, verify whether it supports or contradicts the referenced finding, and follow links to the original paper for further reading.

Reference Check for Manuscript Validation+

Authors upload a manuscript and receive an automated audit of every reference, flagging papers that have been retracted, issued editorial notices, or contradicted by later work. This pre-submission tool has processed over 500,000 manuscripts, helping authors catch problematic citations before peer reviewers or editors identify them.

MCP Integration and Developer API+

scite offers an API for institutions and developers to build custom tools on top of its citation intelligence, plus a recently introduced MCP (Model Context Protocol) integration that allows AI agents and automated research workflows to query scite's Smart Citation database programmatically, enabling citation-aware AI applications beyond scite's own interface.

Pricing Plans

Free

$0/month

  • ✓Limited scite Assistant queries (up to 10 per month)
  • ✓Basic Smart Citation search
  • ✓Browser extension with citation badges
  • ✓Access to public citation reports

Regular

$20/month (billed monthly) or $144/year ($12/month billed annually)

  • ✓Unlimited scite Assistant queries
  • ✓Full Smart Citation search with advanced filters
  • ✓Reference Check for manuscript auditing
  • ✓Custom Dashboards for citation landscape mapping
  • ✓Full-text search across Open Access and paywalled content
  • ✓Export citation reports and data
  • ✓Priority indexing requests

Institutional

Custom pricing based on institution size (typically $2,000–$15,000+/year)

  • ✓Everything in Regular plan
  • ✓Campus-wide access for all students, faculty, and staff
  • ✓Usage analytics and admin dashboard
  • ✓SSO/SAML authentication
  • ✓API access for programmatic queries
  • ✓Dedicated account manager and onboarding support
  • ✓Custom integrations and MCP access
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Best Use Cases

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Use Case 1

Researchers conducting systematic reviews can use scite's Smart Citations to quickly identify which key findings in their domain have been supported or contradicted across hundreds of subsequent studies, dramatically reducing the time spent manually tracing citation chains and improving the overall rigor of their evidence synthesis.

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Use Case 2

Before submitting a paper for peer review, authors can upload their manuscript to scite's Reference Check tool to automatically flag any cited papers that have been retracted, contradicted, or issued editorial notices since they were originally read, catching problematic references that could undermine the manuscript's credibility.

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Use Case 3

Grant writers can use the scite Assistant to quickly assemble cited, peer-reviewed evidence supporting their proposed hypotheses, ensuring that every claim in the proposal is backed by literature that has itself been validated by subsequent research through Smart Citation analysis.

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Use Case 4

Journalists covering scientific topics and policy analysts evaluating evidence-based claims can use scite to verify whether a study cited in press releases or policy documents has been broadly supported or contradicted by the wider research community, adding rigor to their reporting and recommendations.

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Use Case 5

Pharmaceutical companies and clinical research teams can use scite's Custom Dashboards to map the citation landscape around a drug compound, treatment approach, or biomarker, quickly identifying which foundational studies have been replicated and supported versus those that remain contested or contradicted.

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Use Case 6

Professors can use scite to teach students how to critically evaluate sources by demonstrating the difference between papers that have been widely supported versus those that have been contradicted, instilling evidence-based research habits that go beyond simple citation counting.

Limitations & What It Can't Do

We believe in transparent reviews. Here's what scite doesn't handle well:

  • ⚠Citation classification relies on NLP and may misinterpret nuanced, conditional, or context-dependent academic language, particularly in fields with highly specialized terminology
  • ⚠No full-text article access — scite shows citation contexts and metadata but users must access the full papers through their own institutional subscriptions or open-access repositories
  • ⚠Coverage of non-English language publications, conference proceedings, and regional journals is significantly thinner than coverage of major English-language publishers
  • ⚠Newly published papers may take weeks to be indexed and have their citation contexts classified, creating a lag for researchers tracking very recent developments
  • ⚠The free tier provides only limited Assistant queries and feature access, making meaningful evaluation of the platform difficult without committing to a paid subscription

Pros & Cons

✓ Pros

  • ✓Smart Citations classify citing context as supporting, contradicting, or mentioning — a capability no other citation tool provides at this scale, with 1.6B+ citation statements classified
  • ✓All AI-generated answers are grounded exclusively in peer-reviewed literature with inline source links, significantly reducing hallucination risk
  • ✓Full-text search across both Open Access and paywalled content through direct agreements with 30+ publishers including Wiley and SAGE, surfacing findings that abstract-only tools miss
  • ✓Reference Check catches potentially unreliable citations in manuscripts before submission, saving authors from citing retracted or contradicted work
  • ✓Browser extension integrates seamlessly with PubMed, Google Scholar, and journal websites, adding citation context without disrupting existing research workflows
  • ✓Database covers 280M+ sources including articles, preprints, books, patents, and datasets across disciplines, making it one of the most comprehensive research AI platforms available

✗ Cons

  • ✗Free tier is heavily limited in the number of Assistant queries, making it impractical for regular research use without a paid plan
  • ✗Citation classification accuracy is not perfect — automated NLP can misclassify nuanced or ambiguous citation contexts, requiring manual verification of critical claims
  • ✗Coverage skews toward English-language journals and well-indexed publishers; niche, regional, or non-English literature may be underrepresented
  • ✗Does not provide full-text access to papers — users still need institutional subscriptions or open-access availability to read the cited sources
  • ✗Real-time indexing lag means very recently published papers may not appear in results for weeks after publication
  • ✗Custom dashboards and advanced features have a learning curve that may overwhelm users who only need quick citation checks

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does scite cost?+

scite pricing starts at $0/month. They offer 3 pricing tiers.

What are the main features of scite?+

scite includes Smart Citations: Automatically classifies every citation statement as supporting, contradicting, or mentioning the referenced claim, using NLP analysis of over 1.6 billion citation contexts., scite Assistant: Conversational AI that answers research questions using only peer-reviewed sources, with inline citations and links to Smart Citation context for each claim., Reference Check: Upload a manuscript and receive an automated report flagging cited papers that have been contradicted, retracted, or have editorial notices — before you submit for peer review. and 2 other features. AI-powered research platform that provides answers grounded in over 1.6 billion citation statements extracted from 280M+ peer-reviewed articles, prepr...

What are alternatives to scite?+

Popular alternatives to scite include [object Object], [object Object], [object Object], [object Object]. Each offers different features and pricing models.
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What's New in 2026

scite has launched an MCP (Model Context Protocol) integration, enabling developers to connect scite's Smart Citations database and search capabilities to AI agents and automated research workflows. The platform has also expanded its publisher partnerships beyond 30 providers, grown its indexed source base past 280 million documents, and introduced confidence scores on Smart Citation classifications to help users gauge reliability at a glance.

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Quick Info

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