S
SConsensus vs Elicit
Pricing, features, platforms and who each one suits — side by side.
C
Choose Consensus if…
- you want the lower entry price ($20/mo vs $49/mo)
- you're in its core audience: students, academic researchers
E
Choose Elicit if…
- you're in its core audience: academic researchers, pharma and medtech research teams
Side by side
Feature Consensus Elicit
Pricing modelFreemiumFreemium
Starting price$20/mo$49/mo
Free plan
Free trial
API
Open source
Source citations—
Academic paper search—
Upload own documents—
Citation export—
Zotero/ref manager sync—
Systematic review tools—
Shared workspaces—
PlatformsWeb, APIWeb, API
CategoryResearch AssistantsResearch Assistants
CompanyConsensusElicit, inc.
Based in——
Founded——
Part of——
Key features
C Consensus
- Search across 400M+ scientific papers
- Pro Search and Deep Search synthesized answers
- Ask Paper chat with a single study
- Consensus Meter for scientific agreement on yes/no questions
- Study Snapshots summarizing findings and methods
- Citation Graph of paper relationships
- Citation export in RIS, BibTeX and CSV
- API and MCP access
E Elicit
- Search across 138M+ academic papers
- Automated screening and data extraction for systematic reviews
- Research reports with sentence-level citations
- Research Agent for in-depth questions
- Routines that refresh work with new research
- Library to store and reuse sources
- API and MCP server for agent integrations
- Zotero import
Plans and prices
From each vendor's site. Prices change — confirm before buying.
Consensus
Free$0
Pro$20/mo or $144/year (~$12/mo billed yearly)
Deep$65/mo or $540/year (~$45/mo billed yearly)
TeamsCustom
EnterpriseCustom
Elicit
BasicFree
Pro$49/user/mo ($588 billed annually)
Scale$229/user/mo ($2,748 billed annually)
EnterpriseCustom
Strengths and limitations
Consensus
- Free plan includes unlimited Papers searches
- Indexes over 400 million scientific papers
- Citation export to RIS, BibTeX and CSV
- API and MCP calls included on every plan
- Free plan limited to 10 Pro messages and 3 Deep reviews a month
- Pro plan includes only 15 Deep reviews a month
- No mobile apps listed; web only
- Support offered in English only
Elicit
- Free plan includes unlimited paper search, summaries and chat
- AI claims backed by sentence-level citations
- API access starts at the Pro plan
- Enterprise plan does not train on your data by default
- Free plan has limited Research Agent and Reports usage
- Collaboration features require the $229/user/month Scale plan
- Paid prices are listed on annual billing
- No mobile apps listed
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Built from each vendor's public website; we haven't tested them hands-on. Editorial policy