CitePlain vs Paperpal
CitePlain
citeplain.comPaperpal
paperpal.comSide by side
| Figure | CitePlain | Paperpal |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $3.25/mo | $11.58/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 7 | 15 |
| Spec score · Citation generators | 8.9 (#4) | 8.7 (#8) |
| Audience | CitePlain describes itself as suited to quickly generating an individual citation and says it is not trying to replace Zotero as a research reference manager. | Paperpal describes its tools as designed for students and researchers, and offers solutions for universities and publishers. |
| Browser extension | The extension is listed for Chrome, Edge, and Firefox and reads metadata from the active tab. | Yes |
| Privacy | CitePlain says saved references on the free tier live in browser local storage and never leave the device. | Paperpal says it never uses user documents, uploads, or personal information to train its AI models and allows users to delete documents. |
| Support | Email support is handled by one person, with replies promised within one business day and often within a few hours. | Paperpal provides a Help Center and lists [email protected] as its contact email. |
| What it does | CitePlain creates formatted citations for web pages, journal articles, books, tweets, YouTube videos and podcasts. | Paperpal is an AI academic writing and research assistant covering drafting, editing, research, citations, document checking and submission preparation. |
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
Paperpal
- Prime$144 a year
- Prime$25 a month
- Pro$348 a year
- Pro$59 a month
- FreeFree
- FreeFree
- Prime$12 a month
- Paperpal Prime$25 a month
- Prime Monthly$25 a month
- Pro$29 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.
Paperpal
Paperpal is an AI research and academic writing workspace for students and researchers, combining writing help, citation tools, and academic checks. Users can upload references and PDFs, ask questions, and receive cited findings from more than 300 million verified research articles. Writing tools cover academic suggestions, paraphrasing, tone changes, word reduction, grammar, proofreading, and citation formatting. Its checker suite looks for plagiarism and AI-writing patterns, checks references, and assesses journal submission readiness. Paperpal runs on the web and as a browser extension; it also offers a Microsoft Word add-in and browser-extension support for Google Docs and Overleaf. The free plan includes 200 language suggestions, five generative AI uses per day, 7,000 plagiarism-check words per month, and five daily AI-detection scans of up to 1,200 words each. Prime costs $144 a year billed annually, or $25 a month billed monthly. Pro costs $348 a year billed annually, or $59 a month billed monthly. Paperpal says it does not train its AI models on user documents, uploads, or personal information, and allows document deletion.