CitePlain vs cytado
CitePlain
citeplain.comcytado
cytado.comSide by side
| Figure | CitePlain | cytado |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $3.25/mo | $19/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 7 | 7 |
| Spec score · Citation generators | 8.9 (#4) | 8.5 (#13) |
| Privacy | CitePlain says saved references on the free tier live in browser local storage and never leave the device. | The Chrome extension says cytado receives only text that a user selects and submits, not other page content or browsing history. |
| Support | Email support is handled by one person, with replies promised within one business day and often within a few hours. | The product pages link to a support contact and contact form, while institution customers are invited to join a waitlist. |
| What it does | CitePlain creates formatted citations for web pages, journal articles, books, tweets, YouTube videos and podcasts. | cytado finds academic sources supporting a claim, reads the source document, extracts printed page numbers and produces citations or bibliographies. |
Plans
CitePlain
- FreeFree
- Pro monthly$4.99 a month
- Pro yearly$39 a year
- Founder Lifetime$89, paid once
- Lifetime Founder$89, paid once
- Lifetime$199, paid once
- Lifetime$199, paid once
cytado
- FreeFree
- TestFree
- TestFree
- Unlocked project$13, paid once
- Basic$19 a month
- Start$49 a month
- Pro$99 a month
In their own words
CitePlain
CitePlain creates citations and bibliographies from web pages, journal articles, books, tweets, YouTube videos, and podcasts. It accepts URLs, DOIs, or ISBNs, and uses publisher citation and Open Graph metadata, with Crossref lookup for DOIs and Open Library for ISBNs. The free plan includes APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 17, Vancouver, CSE, and BibTeX, plus a bibliography builder for up to 50 sources per batch. The extension for Chrome, Edge, and Firefox can read metadata from the active tab and provide BibTeX with a stable cite key for Overleaf or Zotero. Pro adds 24 specialised styles, batch URL import for up to 50 sources, and cloud storage synced across the web app and extension. Free-tier references stay in browser local storage. Pro costs $4.99 a month or $39 a year. Lifetime options are listed at 89.00 USD once and 199.00 USD once. CitePlain describes its focus as individual citations rather than replacing a research reference manager.
cytado
cytado helps users find academic sources for claims and build citations with printed page numbers, quotations and links to original sources. It formats footnotes and bibliographies in APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago, Harvard and numbered footnote styles, and supports BibTeX and RIS. Bibliographies can be exported to Word, PDF, LaTeX, BibTeX or RIS, or checked against Crossref, OpenAlex and Google Books. Integrations include Google Docs, Microsoft Word, Claude via MCP, ChatGPT and a Chrome extension. The Citation API can find sources for claims, retrieve sources for chapters and check usage. Its source corpus covers English, Polish and German publications. Unpaid projects are limited to one at a time and subject to daily and monthly search caps. The free plan requires no card; an Unlocked project costs $13, paid once, while monthly plans start at $19 a month. Documents without printed pagination do not receive page numbers.