AnswerThis vs Elicit

AnswerThis

• Graduate students writing a literature review for a thesis
• Clinical and medical teams running systematic reviews
• Researchers who keep their references in Zotero or Mendeley
• Writers who want search, library and drafting in one tab

Elicit

• Researchers running systematic reviews with screening and data extraction
• Finding papers from a research question instead of exact keywords
• Teams that need cited evidence reports to support a decision

AnswerThis

• Pro includes 10 Max queries and 2 systematic reviews a month; unlimited systematic reviews start on Research.
• The marketing pricing page and the in-app pricing page disagree on tier names and limits; the plans here follow the in-app page.
• The marketing page also lists separate Industry plans at higher prices, starting at $90 per seat a month billed monthly.
• Only a web app is listed; the site mentions no mobile or desktop apps.

Elicit

• The pricing page defaults to industry rates; the $11 Plus plan appears only when Academic is selected.
• The systematic review workflow, Routines and API access start at the Pro plan.
• Monthly usage does not roll over. Extra usage on Pro and Scale is billed in $100 increments, up to a limit you set.
• Real-time collaboration, extraction from figures and the admin panel need Scale or Enterprise.

AnswerThis

Cited search and chat

Ask a question or paste a protocol, then filter by database, journal quality, date and study type. Each answer carries clickable citations that jump to the passage they rely on.

Library

Collections, tags, highlights and full-text search across the papers you save or upload, with sync to Zotero and Mendeley.

AI Writer

Import a draft or start a new one, cite from the library in one click, check for AI-written or plagiarized text and switch between more than 2,000 citation styles.

Systematic review pipeline

Screening, data extraction, meta-analysis and evidence grading run in one workflow with each change logged. The site describes it as PRISMA and Cochrane compliant.

Shared workspaces

Co-authors can be invited into a shared workspace to suggest changes, with roles and permissions set by the owner.

Research gaps and citation maps

Separate tools look for research gaps, map citations, run bibliometric analysis and draw diagrams from the literature.

Elicit

Research Agent

Gathers evidence from scientific databases, journals, public data sources and uploaded documents, then produces cited reports, tables, figures and slides.

Paper and clinical trial search

Semantic search over more than 138 million papers from Semantic Scholar, PubMed and OpenAlex, plus about 545,000 clinical trials, so a query does not depend on exact keywords.

Research reports

Generates research briefs through a process modeled on systematic reviews. You can change which papers and what information a report covers.

Systematic review workflow

Automates screening and data extraction, with a Pro workflow that can screen 5,000 papers. A Chrome extension fetches full texts through your institution's journal access.

Library and Zotero import

Stores sources in collections with tags so they can be reused across projects, and takes in papers from Zotero, PDFs, and .ris or .bib files.

Routines and API

Routines rerun Research Agent work to pick up new evidence, and an API covers search, reports and systematic reviews. Both start at the Pro plan.

AnswerThis

• Free$0

  Search across 250M+ papers with cited answers and summaries, 5 saved projects and export to Zotero, Mendeley and EndNote.

• Pro$14

  per month, billed yearly ($168); $35 billed monthly

  Unlimited basic queries, 10 Max queries and 2 systematic reviews a month, unlimited library storage and the AI Writer on standard models.

• Research$30

  per month, billed yearly ($360)

  Unlimited systematic reviews, 50 Max queries a month on advanced research models, full-text AI screening and an onboarding call.

• Max$100

  per month, billed yearly ($1,200)

  300 Max queries a month on frontier models, unlimited systematic reviews and library, and priority support.

Elicit

• Basic$0

  Unlimited paper search, summaries and chat with papers, Zotero import, and limited Research Agent and report usage.

• Pro$49

  per user / month, billed annually ($588); $75 billed monthly

  Standard usage, a systematic review workflow that screens 5,000 papers, 20 table columns at a time, Routines and API access.

• Scale$169

  per user / month, billed annually ($2,028); $279 billed monthly

  5x the usage of Pro, real-time collaboration, extraction from figures, 30 table columns at a time and an admin panel with seat management.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Custom usage, SSO and SAML, screening of 40,000 papers, 40 extraction columns, custom data sources and unlimited API access.

AnswerThis

• Annual discount

  Save 60% with annual billing

  The in-app pricing page labels annual billing as saving 60%. Pro is $14 a month billed yearly ($168 up front) against $35 a month billed monthly.

Elicit

• Annual discount

  Save 35% to 39% with annual billing

  On industry pricing, Pro is $49 a month billed annually against $75 billed monthly, and Scale is $169 against $279. The pricing page labels these as savings of 35% and 39%.

• Education

  Academic pricing from $11 per user / month

  Choosing Academic on the pricing page shows Plus at $11, Pro at $39 and Scale at $89 per user / month, billed annually, or $19, $69 and $149 billed monthly.

• Nonprofit

  Nonprofits can use the academic plans

  Elicit has no separate nonprofit discount, but its help center says nonprofits can subscribe to the academic plans, its lowest pricing tier.