Automate Basics

scite vs Elicit vs Gemini Notebook

Pick up to 4 tools and see their free plans, entry prices, platforms and limits in one table. Every fact comes from each vendor's own pages, checked 16 October 2026.

Compared on
scite

Free trial · from $12/mo

Elicit

Free plan · from $49/user/mo

Gemini Notebook

Free plan · from $4.99/mo

What it isResearch tool that shows how papers have been cited, with an AI assistantAI research assistant that searches and summarises academic papersGoogle's source-grounded research notebook, renamed Gemini Notebook in 2026
Free planNoLimited Research Agent and Research Reports usage; unlimited search across 138M+ papers, summaries and chat with papers; Zotero import; 20MB PDF limit100 notebooks, 50 sources per notebook, 50 chats per day, 3 Audio Overviews and 3 Video Overviews per day, 10 Deep Research reports per month
Cheapest paid plan$12/mo billed annually (Basic)scite pricing$49/user/mo billed annually (Pro)Elicit pricing$4.99/mo (Google AI Plus)Gemini Notebook pricing
What it covers$144 billed yearly; the pricing page says yearly billing saves $96.Billed $588 a year on annual billing; academic users can choose discounted plans, from Plus at $11 per user a month billed annually.Upgrades come through Google AI plans, which also cover the Gemini app and cloud storage. Plus raises limits to 200 notebooks, 100 sources per notebook and 200 chats per day.
Free trial7-day free trial of Basic or Pro; you are enrolled in the plan chosen at the start unless you cancel before it endsNone statedNone stated
PlatformsWeb, APIWeb, APIWeb
Integrations (vendor's figure)Not statedNot statedNot stated
Open sourceNoNoNo
Good for
  • Checking how a paper has been cited before relying on it
  • Finding research to support a report or grant application
  • Tracking new citations of key papers
  • Finding and summarising studies on a topic
  • Pulling key figures from many papers into one table
  • Running a structured literature review
  • Studying a set of reports or papers and asking questions about them
  • Turning documents into an audio summary to listen to
  • Preparing a briefing from meeting notes and research files
Watch out for
  • No free plan on the pricing page, and since October 2026 free accounts get no MCP credits
  • MCP access from ChatGPT, Claude and other tools needs a paid plan or the free trial
  • API access requires the Pro plan
  • The free plan has limited Research Agent and report usage
  • One monthly usage pool per plan; unused usage does not roll over
  • Pro screens up to 5,000 papers in a systematic review
  • The free plan allows 50 sources per notebook and 50 chats per day
  • Audio and Video Overviews are capped at 3 per day on the free plan
  • Watermark removal is limited to Pro and Ultra
Made byResearch SolutionsElicitGoogle

Entry prices are the cheapest paid plan, as each vendor publishes it; “What it covers” says what that price is per (a user, a channel, a brand, a number of contacts). The sources are listed on each tool's page.

Every tool in AI research tools is on its category page, with the written head-to-heads on Compare.