Consensus vs Elicit
Consensus
consensus.app
Elicit
elicit.comSide by side
| Figure | Consensus | Elicit |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $20/mo | $11/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 7 | 13 |
| Spec score · AI Research Assistants | 9.4 (#1) | 8.4 (#9) |
| Spec score · AI Search Engines | 9.4 (#1) | 8.3 (#6) |
| Spec score · Ai Search Tools | 9.5 (#1) | 8.3 (#5) |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States | Covina, California, USA |
| Integrations | Consensus supports Zotero library import and exports CSV or RIS files compatible with reference managers including EndNote, Mendeley, and Zotero. | Elicit can connect through its MCP server to Claude Desktop, Claude Code, and other MCP-compatible clients using OAuth 2.0. |
| Research Agent | Research Agent plans multi-step searches, chains tools such as citation crawling and DOI lookup, and returns citation-backed answers grounded in peer-reviewed research. | The Research Agent gathers evidence from scientific databases, academic journals, public data sources, and internally uploaded documents. |
Plans
Consensus
- ProPriced on request
- DeepPriced on request
- Free TierFree
- Pro$20 a month
- Deep$65 a month
- EnterprisePriced on request
- TeamsPriced on request
Elicit
- BasicPriced on request
- Plus$11 a month
- Plus$132 a year
- Pro$39 a month
- Pro$468 a year
- Scale$89 a month
- Scale$1,068 a year
- EnterprisePriced on request
- BasicFree
- Plus$11 a month
In their own words
Consensus
Consensus is an AI workspace and academic search engine for scientific research, available on web, Android, iOS, and as an extension. It searches more than 220 million peer-reviewed papers, with the database updated weekly, and offers filters for publication date, access, citations, journal rank, study design, population, sample size, and other paper details. Its Research Agent plans multi-step searches, uses tools such as citation crawling and DOI lookup, and returns citation-backed answers. Consensus says citations in its AI summaries correspond to exact paper quotes, with the relevant section identified and PDF text highlighted when available. Medical Mode searches a selected collection of about 8 million papers and 50,000 clinical guidelines from the top 1,000 medical journals. Users can import Zotero libraries and export CSV or RIS files for reference managers. Consensus also works in ChatGPT, Claude, and Microsoft 365 Copilot; API and MCP calls share a monthly allowance. The Free Tier costs nothing. Pro is $20 a month, or $144/year billed annually; Deep is $65 a month, or $540/year billed annually.
Elicit
Elicit is an AI research assistant for researchers gathering and assessing evidence. Its Research Agent draws on scientific databases, academic journals, public data sources, uploaded documents, a corpus of 138 million academic papers, and the wider web. A session can use up to 20 uploaded resources, including PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, and JPG files. Elicit offers Research Agent sessions, Research Reports, and Systematic Reviews, and supports AI-generated claims with sentence-level citations to underlying sources. It can find up to 1,000 relevant papers and analyze up to 20,000 data points at once. Research Reports export as PDF or Word, tables as CSV or Excel, and references as RIS or BIB. Elicit runs on the web and provides an API, but API access requires Pro or above. Its MCP server connects to Claude Desktop, Claude Code, and other compatible clients using OAuth 2.0. Basic is free with limited usage for Research Agent and Research Reports; Plus costs $11 a month. Pro is $39 a month and Scale is $89 a month. Elicit states that it has achieved SOC 2 Type II compliance.