Scite vs The Lens
Scite
scite.aiThe Lens
lens.orgSide by side
| Figure | Scite | The Lens |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $14/mo | $83.33/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 7 |
| Spec score · Research Paper Discovery Tools | 7.8 (#11) | 7.7 (#12) |
| Founded | 2018 | The Lens says it launched in 2001, while its predecessor Patent Lens work began in 1999. |
| Headquarters | Henderson, Nevada, USA | West End, Queensland, Australia |
| Purpose | Scite helps researchers discover and evaluate scientific literature through Smart Citations that show whether later studies support, contradict, or mention a paper. | The Lens connects scholarly and technological knowledge, including patents and scholarly works, to support discovery, analysis, decision-making and partnering. |
| Support | Scite lists [email protected] for subscription questions and assistance. | The Lens lists [email protected] and [email protected] as contact emails and provides a support request form. |
Plans
The Lens
- Academic / non-commercial accessPriced on request
- Individual commercial use$1,000 a year
- Academic WorkspaceFree
- Anonymous accessFree
- API TrialFree
- Individual Professional Workspace$1,000 a year
- API Member | Custom AccessPriced on request
In their own words
Scite
Scite helps researchers discover and assess scientific literature through citation context. Its Smart Citations classify later citation statements as supporting, contrasting with, or mentioning a paper. Scite Search matches citation statements extracted from full text and supports citation chaining, filters, and alerts. Reference reports display citation text with filters for classification, section, year, or source type. Scite Assistant answers from peer-reviewed literature and links each answer to its source, while Reference Check examines manuscript references for citation context, retractions, editorial notices, and contrasting findings. Collections can import papers from Zotero, Mendeley, DOI CSV files, or search results and alert users to new citations and retractions. Integrations include an API, Zotero plugin, browser extension, institutional holdings, and MCP connections for ChatGPT and Claude. Scite reports indexing 317M+ articles and extracting 1.6B+ Smart Citations. It offers web, API, and extension access, with a free plan and paid plans from 20 /mo annually.
The Lens
The Lens connects scholarly literature and patent records for discovery, analysis, decision-making, and partnering. Patent search offers Boolean, structured, biological, and classification queries, alongside filters and sorting. The Lens says its scholarly collection contains more than 200 million records and links scholarly works to patents through citations. PatSeq tools search, analyze, and share biological sequences disclosed in patents. Search results can be visualized in charts and dashboards, which users may save and share. Registered users can save collections and queries, add notes, and receive notifications when new indexed results match them. Lens Profiles combine author and inventor records and support ORCID linking and synchronization. Anonymous browsing is free, as is a non-commercial academic workspace for users with an academic institutional email. Individual commercial users need commercial-use permissions through a subscription or institution. The Individual Professional Workspace costs $1,000 a year. APIs support programmatic search and retrieval, subject to approved access and a token.