S
SElicit vs NotebookLM
Pricing, features, platforms and who each one suits — side by side.
E
Choose Elicit if…
- you need an API to build on
- you're in its core audience: academic researchers, pharma and medtech research teams
N
Choose NotebookLM if…
- you're in its core audience: students, researchers
Side by side
Feature Elicit NotebookLM
Pricing modelFreemiumFreemium
Starting price$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
CategoryResearch AssistantsResearch Assistants
CompanyElicit, inc.Google
Based in——
Founded——
Part of——
Key features
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
N NotebookLM
- Notebooks organized around your uploaded sources
- Answers questions using a Gemini model
- Up to 600 sources per notebook on top tiers
- Notebook sharing, with advanced controls on Enterprise
- Workspace and Workspace for Education access
- Enterprise security controls via Google Cloud
Plans and prices
From each vendor's site. Prices change — confirm before buying.
Elicit
BasicFree
Pro$49/user/mo ($588 billed annually)
Scale$229/user/mo ($2,748 billed annually)
EnterpriseCustom
NotebookLM
StandardFree
Plus (Google AI Plus)Price not stated
Pro (Google AI Pro)Price not stated
Ultra (Google AI Ultra)Price not stated
EnterpriseCustom
Strengths and limitations
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
NotebookLM
- Free Standard tier allows 100 notebooks and 50 sources per notebook
- Paid tiers raise limits to as many as 600 sources per notebook
- Available through Workspace, Workspace for Education and Google Cloud
- NotebookLM help page gives no prices; they sit on separate Google AI plan pages
- Watermarks stay on output in India, South Korea and Vietnam even on paid plans
- Google labels plan limits as subject to change
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Built from each vendor's public website; we haven't tested them hands-on. Editorial policy