Anara vs AskYourPDF
We give Anara and AskYourPDF the same GPA: 3.2 out of 4.0. Anara grades higher on features. AskYourPDF grades higher on platforms. They get the same grade on value for money, the free plan and ease of use.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Anara
AI research assistant that cites the exact source passage
AskYourPDF
Chat with PDFs and other documents and get cited answers
How we grade them
| 3.2GPAAnaraVery good | 3.2GPAAskYourPDFVery good | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | BPlus is $8 a seat a month billed yearly, or $10 monthly, a bit under the $12 or so these tools usually start at. But the listing can't say how big the weekly usage limit is. Choosing your model and OCR need Pro at $16, and Deep Search needs Max at $80. | BPremium is $11.99 a month billed yearly, or $14.99 monthly, right around what these tools usually start at. It covers 50 documents and 1,200 questions a day, plus Knowledge Bases and OCR. The Claude models and Gemini 2.5 Pro eat credits, and Premium comes with just 10. |
| Free plan and trial | BNo card needed, and Zotero and Mendeley connect on the free plan. AI usage refreshes every day, but nobody says how much you get. Each upload tops out at 20 MB or 120 pages, so a long book won't fit. | BFree for good, with 50 questions a day. But it's 1 document a day, capped at 100 pages and 15 MB, on GPT-5 Mini only. The trial of the paid plans lasts 3 days, and one page calls it free while another calls it a $1 trial. |
| Features | AAsk one file, a folder or your whole library, and each answer opens the exact passage behind it. The agent searches PubMed, arXiv and JSTOR, the note editor suggests citations as you write, and it reads Word, PowerPoint, EPUB, audio and video as well as PDFs. | BIt does document chat fully: PDF, DOCX, EPUB, text files or a URL, answers that cite the page, and Knowledge Bases on paid plans for asking across many files. It's a reader, not a search engine, so it won't find papers. And the site now leads with a website chatbot and a form filler. |
| Ease of use | BNo App Store rating on record, so B is as high as we go. Upload your files and ask. The fiddly part is the plans: usage on each one is given as a multiple of another plan's, like 4x Plus or 5x Pro, never as a number. | BNo App Store rating on record, so B is as high as we go. Upload a file and ask, simple as that. What takes working out is the models: some come with your plan and others need credits. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb, Mac, iPhone and iPad, plus a Chrome extension and an add-in for Microsoft Word. It connects to Zotero, Mendeley, Google Drive, Notion and Slack. But the desktop app is Mac only and there's no Android app. | AWeb, iPhone, Android and a Chrome extension, with a Zotero hook-up and a developer API. The API is billed apart from the chat plans: free with 100 messages, or $49.99 a month. The extension is listed as a paid benefit. |
| Best for | answers you can check against the page | asking questions of long documents |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Anara and AskYourPDF. How we grade
Where they differ
- Anara starts at $8 per seat / month, billed yearly ($10 billed monthly). AskYourPDF starts at $11.99 per month, billed yearly ($14.99 billed monthly).
- Only Anara lists a macOS app.
- Only AskYourPDF lists an Android app.
- Anara also covers AI search, web clipper and AI agents.
At a glance
| Anara | AskYourPDF | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $8 per seat / month, billed yearly ($10 billed monthly) | $11.99 per month, billed yearly ($14.99 billed monthly) |
| Free plan | a daily allowance of AI usage and uploads, files of up to 20 MB or 120 pages each, and the Zotero and Mendeley connectors. No credit card required. | 1 document a day of up to 100 pages and 15 MB, with 50 questions and 3 conversations a day on the GPT-5 Mini model. |
| Free trial | None listed | 3-day trial of Premium or Pro; the pricing page calls it a free trial, the chat-with-PDF page a $1 trial. |
| Web | ||
| macOS | ||
| iOS | ||
| Android | ||
| Browser extension | ||
| Made by | Anara Labs, Inc. | Proton Labs |
| Price read from | anara.com | askyourpdf.com |
| Checked | Oct 5, 2026 | Oct 5, 2026 |
Who each one suits
Anara
- Researchers who want answers grounded in their own library of papers
- Working across hundreds of files and checking each claim against its source
- Zotero and Mendeley users, whose libraries import on every plan
- Writing with citations in a note editor or in Microsoft Word
AskYourPDF
- Students and researchers who want cited answers from long papers and books
- Very long files: Pro accepts documents of up to 6,000 pages
- Zotero users who want summaries and document chat inside their library
- Site owners who want a support chatbot trained on their own pages and files
Worth knowing
Anara
- The Free plan's AI usage limit refreshes daily, and each upload is capped at 20 MB or 120 pages.
- Choosing a model, OCR and the Google Drive, Notion and OneDrive connectors need Pro; Deep Search and Model Council need Max.
- The pricing page's scripts show the prices recorded here to visitors without a paid plan, while its initial HTML lists an earlier, higher set (Plus $10, Pro $20, billed yearly).
- The desktop app is for Mac only and there is no Android app. Anara's FAQ says it does not currently offer a student discount.
AskYourPDF
- The free plan covers 1 document a day, capped at 100 pages and 15 MB, and uses GPT-5 Mini only.
- Knowledge Bases, OCR and Chrome extension access appear only in the benefits of the paid plans.
- Claude 4.5 Sonnet, Claude 4.5 Opus and Gemini 2.5 Pro need credits on every paid plan; Premium includes 10 and Pro 30.
- The terms say all sales are final, with no refunds or pro-rata credits.
Key features
Anara
- Chat across your library
- Ask questions of a single file, hundreds of files in a folder or the entire library. Anara says one conversation can work across up to 10,000 files.
- Answers cited to the passage
- Every answer carries inline citations that open the exact passage in the source document, in numbered form or an academic citation style.
- Agent and paper search
- The agent searches your library, the web and academic databases such as PubMed, arXiv and JSTOR, then returns a cited synthesis. It can also import files and reorganize folders on request.
- Write and cite
- The note editor matches your writing to your library and the web to suggest citations, and builds formatted reference lists. An add-in brings the same tools into Microsoft Word.
- File handling
- Reads PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Markdown, EPUB, images, audio and video; audio and video are transcribed automatically. OCR for scanned documents is part of Pro and above.
- Deep Search and Model Council
- On the Max plans, Deep Search runs multi-step research across your library and the web, and Model Council puts one question to several models at once.
AskYourPDF
- Chat with documents
- Upload a PDF, DOCX, EPUB or TXT file, or paste a URL, and ask questions in plain language. Each answer cites the page it came from, and the site says it works in more than 100 languages.
- Knowledge Bases
- Premium and Pro group documents into a Knowledge Base, so that one question draws a single cited answer from every file in it.
- Choice of AI models
- The free plan runs on GPT-5 Mini. Paid plans add GPT-5, GPT-5.2 and Gemini 2.5 Flash, while Claude 4.5 Sonnet, Claude 4.5 Opus and Gemini 2.5 Pro draw on credits.
- AI Agent for websites
- Trains a chatbot on your website and uploaded files and embeds it with one line of code. Visitors can open a support ticket when the agent cannot answer.
- AI form filler
- Fills fillable and non-fillable PDF forms using data taken from another PDF, a text file or pasted content.
- Developer API
- Adds documents by upload or URL and answers questions about them. API plans are separate: free with 100 messages, or $49.99 a month for 6,000 messages and 60,000 pages.
Plans
Anara
Free$0
Limited AI usage that refreshes daily, uploads of up to 20 MB or 120 pages each, and Zotero and Mendeley connectors.
Plus$8
per seat / month, billed yearly ($96); $10 billed monthly
A larger weekly usage limit, credits for extra usage, uploads of up to 100 MB or 600 pages, science database connectors and 5 collaborators per folder.
Pro$16
per seat / month, billed yearly ($192); $20 billed monthly
4x the usage of Plus, a choice of every AI model, uploads of up to 300 MB or 10,000 pages, OCR, cloud storage connectors and 50 collaborators per folder.
Max 5x$80
per seat / month, billed yearly ($960); $100 billed monthly
5x the usage of Pro, plus Deep Search, Model Council, uploads with no size or page limit and unlimited folder collaborators.
Max 20x$160
per seat / month, billed yearly ($1,920); $200 billed monthly
The same features as Max 5x with 20x the usage of Pro.
EnterpriseCustom
SSO/SAML and SCIM provisioning, SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certified security, SharePoint live sync and a shared Slack channel for support.
AskYourPDF
Free$0
1 document a day of up to 100 pages and 15 MB, with 50 questions and 3 conversations a day on GPT-5 Mini.
Premium$11.99
per month, billed yearly; $14.99 billed monthly
50 documents a day of up to 2,500 pages and 31 MB, 1,200 questions a day, Knowledge Bases, OCR, the Chrome extension and 10 credits.
Pro$14.99
per month, billed yearly; $19.99 billed monthly
150 documents a day of up to 6,000 pages and 877 MB, longer replies, priority support and 30 credits.
EnterpriseCustom
Unlimited pages per document and unlimited questions, up to 1,000 documents a day and custom credits. Sold through sales.
Ways to pay less
Anara
- Annual discount
Save 20% with yearly billing
Billed yearly, Plus is $8 a seat per month against $10 billed monthly, Pro is $16 against $20 and Max 5x is $80 against $100. The pricing page labels the yearly option as a 20% saving.
AskYourPDF
- Annual discount
Up to 25% off with annual billing
The pricing page labels annual billing as 25% off. Premium is $11.99 a month billed yearly against $14.99 billed monthly, and Pro is $14.99 against $19.99.
