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The Semantic Scholar Insider’s Guide

Everything we know about Semantic Scholar in one document: what it costs, its grades, getting a refund, getting help and what else to look at. Read it here, or keep a copy.

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ToolGPAOctober 2026

Semantic Scholar

The Insider’s Guide

Free AI-powered search engine for scientific literature

Semantic Scholar, as pictured on semanticscholar.org

Every plan, grade, refund rule and rival among AI research tools, read from Semantic Scholar’s own pages.

Made by Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) · checked Oct 5, 2026 · toolgpa.com

3.2GPA

Contents

  1. 01WelcomeWhat it is, who it suits, its grades and the ten things to know first
  2. 02Insider tipsWhat most people miss: ways to pay less, settings worth changing and the catches
  3. 03What it costsEvery plan, the free plan, ways to pay less and how prices have moved
  4. 04What it doesIts main features, where it runs, what it works with and who makes it
  5. 05Where it standsIts grades against its category, and whether to keep it or make your own
  6. 06The alternativesThe tools it is most often weighed against, side by side
  7. 07Quick answersThe questions people ask about it, each answered in a line or two
  8. 08About ToolGPAWho made this guide, what else is on the site, and how to cite it

ToolGPA put this guide together from Semantic Scholar’s own pages, its app-store listings and our grades. Every fact in it is on Semantic Scholar’s page too, where it is kept up to date. Checked Oct 5, 2026.

Part 01 · Overview

Welcome

What it is, who it suits, its grades and the ten things to know first

3.2

GPA, above 26 of the 27 other AI research tools we grade

Semantic Scholar is a free academic search engine built by Ai2, the nonprofit Allen Institute for AI. It indexes more than 200 million papers from all fields of science and adds AI-generated TLDR summaries, a ranking of highly influential citations and personalized Research Feeds. Its Academic Graph API and bulk datasets are open to developers.

To get you started, here are 8 things to know about Semantic Scholar, taken from its own pages and our grades.

No store rating on record, so B is the ceiling.
From our grade for ease of use
  1. 1

    Best for free search across the scientific literature

    It's a search engine more than an assistant.

  2. 2

    It is free

    Semantic Scholar has no paid plan at all. Entirely free, with no paid plans. Papers can be read without an account; a free account adds a library, email alerts, Research Feeds and author page claiming.

  3. 3

    It runs on Web

    Web, with a browser extension too.

  4. 4

    Paper search with TLDR summaries

    Searches papers with filters for venue, author, publication type and date. TLDRs are very short AI summaries, available for nearly 60 million papers in computer science, biology and medicine.

  5. 5

    Highly Influential Citations

    A machine-learning model flags the citations where the cited paper had a significant effect on the citing one, so a long citation list has a starting point.

  6. 6

    Library and Research Feeds

    Save papers into folders, share public folders and bulk export citations. Turning on a Research Feed for a folder brings paper recommendations based on its contents.

  7. 7

    A 3.2 GPA, above 26 of 27

    That is against the other AI research tools we grade, on value, the free plan, features, ease of use and platforms.

  8. 8

    Keep it

    Semantic Scholar is free, so making your own would save you nothing.

Semantic Scholar at a glance

Pricing
Free
Free plan
Yes
Free trial
None stated
Runs on
Web, Browser extension
Made by
Allen Institute for AI (Ai2), since 2015
Category
AI Research Tools
Our grade
3.2 GPA, very good

The report card

Best for free search across the scientific literature

Semantic Scholar is a free search engine for scientific papers from the nonprofit Ai2, with more than 200 million papers, alerts and Research Feeds, and no paid plans. It's a search engine more than an assistant. TLDR summaries only cover computer science, biology and medicine, Semantic Reader is a beta that mostly covers arXiv, Ask This Paper works on a limited set of papers, and there's no phone app.

ToolGPA report cardSemantic ScholarGraded Oct 10, 2026
SubjectGradeComment
Value for moneyAEntirely free, with no paid plans, built by the nonprofit Ai2. Paid plans in this category start at $10 and mostly land around $12 a month, and this costs nothing.
Free plan and trialAYou can search and read papers without an account. A free account adds a library, email alerts, Research Feeds and author page claiming. There are no paid plans, so nothing is held back. The one cap is on API calls: a key starts at 1 request per second.
FeaturesCMore than 200 million papers with filters for venue, author, type and date, a flag on highly influential citations, and feeds that recommend from what you've saved. The gaps are on its own pages: TLDRs only cover computer science, biology and medicine, and Semantic Reader is a beta, mostly arXiv.
Ease of useBNo store rating on record, so B is the ceiling. There's nothing to set up: type a search, filter and read, with no account needed to start.
Platforms and integrationsBWeb and a browser extension, with links to Zotero, Mendeley and LibKey and an Academic Graph API where most endpoints work without a key. There's no phone app: the FAQ says to use the site in a mobile browser.
Grade point averageVery good, out of 4.03.2

An A is worth 4 points, a B 3, a C 2, a D 1 and an F nothing. The GPA is the average of the five.

Who Semantic Scholar is for

  • Fits if you want free literature search across every field of science
  • Works for developers who need open scholarly data through an API

Who it is not for

  • Not for you if you want to question any paper, since Ask This Paper works on a limited set of them
  • Tight if you work outside computer science and the biomedical fields, where papers get no TLDR
  • Skip it if you want a phone app, as there isn't one and you use the mobile site
  • Watch out: Semantic Reader is still a beta and mostly covers arXiv papers
  • Tight if you build on the API: a key starts at 1 request per second, and keyless calls share one pool

Good to know

Good for

  • Free literature search across all fields of science
  • Keeping up with new papers through alerts and recommendation feeds
  • Developers who need open scholarly data through an API

Worth knowing

  • There is no smartphone app; the FAQ says the site is designed to be used in mobile browsers.
  • TLDR summaries are limited to papers in computer science and the biomedical fields.
  • Semantic Reader is in beta and covers mostly arXiv papers, and Ask This Paper works on a limited set of papers.
  • Unauthenticated API calls share one pool of 1,000 requests per second; an API key starts at 1 request per second.

Part 02 · Tips

Insider tips

What most people miss: ways to pay less, settings worth changing and the catches

6

Things most people miss, each from its own help pages

The things about Semantic Scholar that are easy to miss until they cost you: ways to pay less, settings worth changing and the catches at renewal or when you leave. Each one is from Semantic Scholar’s own pages, linked beside it.

Read on Oct 17, 2026. Read from Semantic Scholar's FAQ, which covers search, alerts, feeds, the library, author pages and PDF access, on 17 October 2026. Not tried out: these tips are what its own pages say.

  1. 1

    Shortcut

    Use quotes and full words: AND, OR and wildcards don't work

    Its FAQ says search doesn't support boolean operators or wildcards, but quoted phrases do work. It isn't case sensitive and generally doesn't expand abbreviations, so type "convolutional neural network" rather than CNN.

    semanticscholar.org
  2. 2

    Easy to miss

    Train a Research Feed with 5 good papers and 3 bad ones

    Feeds learn from the papers you save in a Library folder. The FAQ suggests saving 5 relevant papers and marking 3 as not relevant in the feed. It refreshes daily and only recommends papers from the last 3 months.

    semanticscholar.org
  3. 3

    Setting

    Cut alert emails down to once a week

    If paper and author alerts start to pile up, go to Account, Settings, General Settings, Alert Preferences. You can pick Once a Day or Once a Week, change the address they go to, and switch single alerts off or delete them.

    semanticscholar.org
  4. 4

    Easy to miss

    Sign up through your university to open paywalled PDFs

    Choose Sign Up With Your Institution under Create Account, which goes through OpenAthens. Papers your library pays for then show an Access PDF via Institution button, or Access PDF via LibKey where the publisher isn't a partner.

    semanticscholar.org
  5. 5

    Easy to miss

    Claim your author page with the email on your papers

    The FAQ says claims are usually approved faster if you use an email address that appears in your papers. Claim only one page: if your work is split across two, ask for a merge or move papers over with Add Papers. Edits take up to 24 hours.

    semanticscholar.org
  6. 6

    Leaving

    Your library exports in one go, citations in BibTeX and more

    Open Library, tick the papers you want and choose Export from the Papers Selected bar. For a single paper, Cite gives BibTeX, MLA, APA or Chicago, plus an EndNote file. Handy if you'd rather keep your list in Zotero too.

    semanticscholar.org

Part 03 · Pricing

What it costs

Every plan, the free plan, ways to pay less and how prices have moved

Free

No paid plan at all

Semantic Scholar is free to use.

You can search and read papers without an account.
From our grade for free plan and trial

  • Free

    $0

    Search, TLDR summaries, Semantic Reader, a paper library, alerts and Research Feeds, plus rate-limited API access.

The free plan

Entirely free, with no paid plans. Papers can be read without an account; a free account adds a library, email alerts, Research Feeds and author page claiming.

Read from semanticscholar.org on Oct 5, 2026.

Part 04 · Features

What it does

Its main features, where it runs, what it works with and who makes it

2

Places it runs: Web and Browser extension

Free AI-powered search engine for scientific literature. Here is what it does, as its own site describes it, and what it covers: public API, AI features, AI search, research, citations.

The gaps are on its own pages: TLDRs only cover computer science, biology and medicine, and Semantic Reader is a beta, mostly arXiv.
From our grade for features
Paper search with TLDR summaries
Searches papers with filters for venue, author, publication type and date. TLDRs are very short AI summaries, available for nearly 60 million papers in computer science, biology and medicine.
Highly Influential Citations
A machine-learning model flags the citations where the cited paper had a significant effect on the citing one, so a long citation list has a starting point.
Library and Research Feeds
Save papers into folders, share public folders and bulk export citations. Turning on a Research Feed for a folder brings paper recommendations based on its contents.
Paper and author alerts
Email alerts report new citations of a chosen paper, or new papers and citations for an author you follow.
Semantic Reader
A beta reading view for most arXiv papers, with in-line citation cards, a table of contents, AI skimming highlights and on-demand definitions of terms.
Academic Graph API and datasets
A REST API for papers, authors, citations, venues and recommendations, plus downloadable datasets. Most endpoints work without a key.

Where it runs

  • Web
  • Browser extension

What it works with

  • Zotero
  • Mendeley
  • OpenAthens
  • LibKey
  • GetFTR

Who makes Semantic Scholar

Semantic Scholar is built by a research and product team inside Ai2, the Allen Institute for AI, a nonprofit research institute in Seattle. The search tool and its API are free to use; Ai2 is a 501(c)(3) organisation that has announced grant funding, such as $152 million from the NSF and NVIDIA in 2025.

Founded
2014allenai.org
Based
Seattle, Washingtonallenai.org
Ownership
Nonprofit. Semantic Scholar is a project of Ai2, which its own pages describe as a Seattle-based nonprofit AI research institute and 501(c)(3) organisation founded in 2014 by the late Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft.allenai.org
Funding
Ai2 announced in August 2025 that it had been awarded $75 million from the U.S. National Science Foundation and $77 million from NVIDIA, a combined $152 million, for OMAI, a project to build fully open AI models for science.allenai.org
Team
Over 200 people across Ai2, according to its careers pageallenai.org
Founders and leaders
Hiring
15 open roles across Ai2: 7 in research, 5 in applied science, 2 in engineering and 1 in strategic infrastructure programs, most of them in Seattleallenai.org
Partner program
Publisher partner program: publishers, data providers and aggregators send their content to Semantic Scholar's index; the page counts more than 50 direct partnerships. No payment terms are published.semanticscholar.org
Lately
Follow

Read on Oct 18, 2026 from the company’s own pages and from news reports. What is not stated there is left out.

Part 05 · Standing

Where it stands

Its grades against its category, and whether to keep it or make your own

26/27

Other AI research tools it is graded above

Semantic Scholar's GPA of 3.2 is higher than 26 of the 27 other AI research tools we grade, and level with 1.

It stands best on value for money (A, above 24 of 27) and worst on features (C, above 1).

Semantic Scholar has no paid plan.

On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.7 out of 4, and no tool on the category's chart scores higher without costing more.

Each grade against the category

Every bar is all 28 AI research tools we grade, cut by the letter each got. Semantic Scholar’s own letter is outlined.

  • AValue for moneyAbove 24 of 27
  • AFree plan and trialAbove 24 of 27
  • CFeaturesAbove 1 of 27
  • BEase of useAbove 13 of 27
  • BPlatforms and integrationsAbove 8 of 27

Price against what you get

Each dot is one of 25 AI research tools. Further left costs less; higher up scores better on features, ease of use and platforms. Semantic Scholar is the marked dot.

C2.0B3.0A4.0Free$5$10$20$50More for lessCosts more, scores moreCosts less, scores lessCosts more, scores lessR DiscoveryAi2 AstaElicitChatPDF

What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →

Keep it, or make your own?

Whether this is something you could build for yourself with an AI app builder, and what you would give up.

Keep it

Semantic Scholar is free, so making your own would save you nothing.

And it is not the kind of software a weekend replaces. It is one of the better ones too: its GPA of 3.2 is higher than 26 of the 27 other AI research tools we grade.

What you could not

  • A library of papers and sources to search.
  • A search engine with an AI model behind it.
  • Citation records for millions of papers.
  • It plugs into other products, Zotero, Mendeley and OpenAthens among them, and has an API.

What this rests on. Semantic Scholar’s listing: what it does, where it runs, what it plugs into and what it costs. It is a judgement about the kind of software this is. We have not built a replacement for it, and making your own means looking after it too. How we decide, and every tool’s verdict.

Part 06 · Alternatives

The alternatives

The tools it is most often weighed against, side by side

Consensus, Elicit, ResearchRabbit, Connected Papers and Scite

The 5 tools Semantic Scholar is most often weighed against, with where each one differs from it.

Part 07 · Questions

Quick answers

The questions people ask about it, each answered in a line or two

13

Questions, each answered in a line or two

The short version of everything above, for when you only need the answer. Each one is told in full in its part of the guide.

Is Semantic Scholar free?

Yes. Semantic Scholar is free to use.

How much does Semantic Scholar cost?

Semantic Scholar lists one plan. Free: $0.

What platforms does Semantic Scholar work on?

Semantic Scholar is available on Web. It also has a browser extension.

Does Semantic Scholar have an Android app?

No Android app was listed when its pages were read on Oct 5, 2026. Semantic Scholar is listed for Web.

Does Semantic Scholar have an iPhone app?

No iPhone app was listed when its pages were read on Oct 5, 2026. Semantic Scholar is listed for Web.

Is Semantic Scholar open source?

Semantic Scholar is not described as open source on its own site, as read on Oct 5, 2026.

Does Semantic Scholar have an API?

Yes. Semantic Scholar offers a public API, according to its own site.

What does Semantic Scholar integrate with?

Semantic Scholar's listing names Zotero, Mendeley, OpenAthens, LibKey and GetFTR.

Who makes Semantic Scholar?

Semantic Scholar is made by Ai2 (Allen Institute for AI). Semantic Scholar is a project of Ai2, which its own pages describe as a Seattle-based nonprofit AI research institute and 501(c)(3) organisation founded in 2014 by the late Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft.

What are the alternatives to Semantic Scholar?

The closest alternatives to Semantic Scholar in our directory are Consensus, Elicit, ResearchRabbit, Connected Papers and Scite.

How does Semantic Scholar compare with other AI research tools?

Semantic Scholar's GPA of 3.2 is higher than 26 of the 27 other AI research tools we grade, and level with 1.

Is Semantic Scholar good value for money?

ToolGPA grades Semantic Scholar A for value for money. Semantic Scholar has no paid plan.

Could I make my own version of Semantic Scholar?

Semantic Scholar is free, so making your own would save you nothing. And it is not the kind of software a weekend replaces.

Where this guide comes from

The prices, plans, platforms and features were read from Semantic Scholar’s own pages on Oct 5, 2026, and the grades were given on Oct 10, 2026. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Semantic Scholar's own pages on 5 October 2026. Also tested with a demo account on 2026-05-29.

Every tool we list gets five grades, A to F, each with its reason, and a GPA that averages them. How each is decided is at toolgpa.com/grades. This guide is ToolGPA’s own work; it is not made, paid for or approved by Allen Institute for AI (Ai2). Prices change, so check semanticscholar.org before you buy.

Part 08 · About

About ToolGPA

Who made this guide, what else is on the site, and how to cite it

3,189

Tools graded, in 94 categories

ToolGPA grades software the way a school report grades a pupil: five subjects, a letter for each with the reason written beside it, and a GPA that averages them. Prices, plans and platforms are read from each maker’s own pages and dated, so you always know how fresh a figure is.

Every grade, review and ranking on ToolGPA is our own judgement. No company can pay for a grade or change one. Every tool on the site has a guide like this one, free to download and pass on. It all lives at toolgpa.com.

  • 3,189

    tools graded

  • 94

    categories

  • 426

    price changes on record

  • 579

    apps priced in 12 countries

What else is on toolgpa.com

Scan for the live page

Prices and grades as they are today

Quoting this guide?

Please name ToolGPA and link to the live page, so readers can check the figures for themselves:

ToolGPA, "Semantic Scholar: The Insider's Guide", checked Oct 5, 2026. https://toolgpa.com/tools/semantic-scholar

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Everything in this guide is ToolGPA’s own summary of what Semantic Scholar’s pages, its app-store listings and public reviews said on the dates shown. Grades are our judgement under the rules at toolgpa.com/grades. Every grade, review and ranking on ToolGPA is our own judgement. No company can pay for a grade or change one. Semantic Scholar is a trademark of its owner, and this guide is not made, paid for or approved by Allen Institute for AI (Ai2). Prices and plans change: check semanticscholar.org before you buy.