ChatPDF vs Scholarcy

Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.

ChatPDF

Ask questions about PDFs and get answers with citations

Free plan · from $89.99/yr

Scholarcy

Summarizes research papers into interactive flashcards

Free plan · from $90/yr

Where they differ

ChatPDF starts at $89.99 per year or $14.99 per month (US App Store in-app purchase). Scholarcy starts at $90 per year, or $9.99 per month billed monthly.
Only ChatPDF lists macOS, Windows, iOS and Android apps.
Only Scholarcy lists a browser extension.
ChatPDF also covers chat assistant and AI search.

In commonFree planWebResearchCitations

	ChatPDF	Scholarcy
Pricing	Free plan	Free plan
Starts at	$89.99 per year or $14.99 per month (US App Store in-app purchase)	$90 per year, or $9.99 per month billed monthly
Free plan	2 documents a day, usable without an account. A free account adds saved history and multi-file folders. Free files are capped at 120 pages or 10 MB.	Free Article Summarizer: the pricing page lists a limit of 10 summaries with flashcards exported one at a time, and its FAQ gives the limit as 1 summary per day.
Free trial	None listed	7-day free trial of the paid plan; billing starts afterward unless you cancel first.
Web
macOS
Windows
iOS
Android
Browser extension
Made by	ChatPDF GmbH	Scholarcy Limited
Price read from	apps.apple.com	web.archive.org (not the vendor's own page)
Checked	Oct 5, 2026	Oct 5, 2026

ChatPDF

Students and researchers who want quick answers from a paper or textbook chapter
Asking questions across several files kept in one folder
Trying a document chat tool without creating an account
Turning course material into flashcards or slides

Scholarcy

ChatPDF

The website shows Plus prices only in an upgrade dialog and sets them per visitor; the prices here are US App Store in-app purchases, and web checkout may differ.
The free plan covers 2 documents a day, and the site's limits cap free use at 20 messages a day and files of 120 pages or 10 MB.
AI Research summaries are built from abstracts, and chatting with a full paper works only for open-access papers.
The best model is reserved for Plus; ChatPDF says it routes queries between GPT-4o and GPT-4o-mini.

Scholarcy

Scholarcy's site turned automated readers away, so prices come from Internet Archive copies of its price data (April 2026) and pricing page (March 2026).
The free Article Summarizer is limited to 10 summaries on the pricing page and 1 summary per day in its FAQ.
Free accounts can import files of up to 11 MB; a subscription raises the limit to 50 MB.
The synopsis and enhanced summaries are written in English even when the source is in another language.

ChatPDF

Chat with documents: Ask questions about a PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Markdown or text file with the chat and the document side by side. Clickable citations scroll to the passage an answer came from.
Multi-file folders: Put files in a folder to ask questions across all of them in one conversation. Folders and saved chat history need a free account.
AI Research: Ask a question to find academic papers and get a summary with citations, built from the papers' abstracts. Filters narrow results to recent or influential work.
YouTube and website chat: Paste a YouTube or website link to ask questions about it. Video answers include clickable timestamps and an interactive transcript.
Flashcards, slides and writing: Makes flashcards that export to Anki, Quizlet, Brainscape or CSV, and slides that export to PowerPoint. The AI Writer drafts text with citations and exports to Word or Markdown.
Developer API: A backend API adds PDFs by URL or file upload and answers questions about them, with optional page references. API files are limited to 2,000 pages or 32 MB.

Scholarcy

Summary flashcards: Each imported document becomes a structured flashcard with key concepts, highlights, a summary and a sidebar of important points that jump to the relevant section.
Enhance modes: A summary can be rewritten in seven styles, among them school level, general reader, undergrad level, researcher, a bulleted list, a one-liner or around your own question.
Research comparison: Shows how a study differs from, builds on, confirms or counters earlier research. References carry Scite data on how often a cited paper has been supported or disputed.
Tables, figures and references: Extracts figures with their captions, downloads a paper's tables as one Excel file, and exports the reference list as RIS or BibTeX for a reference manager.
Import and browser extensions: Takes PDF, Word, PowerPoint, HTML, XML, LaTeX and text files, article and YouTube URLs, and imports from Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and Zotero. Extensions summarize the page you have open.
Export and literature matrix: Flashcards export to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, RIS and Markdown for Obsidian, Roam and Notion. Several flashcards can be combined into a literature matrix or one bibliography.

ChatPDF

Free$0
2 documents and 20 messages a day, with files of up to 120 pages or 10 MB and folders of up to 5 files.
Plus$14.99
per month on the US App Store; $89.99 for the yearly plan
Unlimited questions and documents, files of up to 2,000 pages or 150 MB, 50 PDFs per folder and the higher-quality model.

Scholarcy

Free Article Summarizer$0
Imports a range of file formats, with a limit of 10 summaries and flashcards exported one at a time.
Scholarcy Plus$9.99
per month, billed monthly; $90 billed yearly
Unlimited and enhanced summaries, a saved flashcard library with notes and highlights, export of up to 100 flashcards at once and literature matrices.

ChatPDF

Annual discount
About 50% off with the yearly plan
On the US App Store the yearly Plus plan is $89.99 against $14.99 a month. That works out to about $7.50 a month, half the monthly rate.

Scholarcy

Annual discount
25% off with yearly billing
The archived pricing page labels the yearly Scholarcy Plus plan with a 25% discount: $90 a year against $9.99 a month.