AI tools for researchers
AI tools for researchers
Create a free account and you get 25 credits to start — then everything runs pay-as-you-go, with no subscription. Four tools cover the pre-submission core — Pre-Check (acceptance-probability scoring), Gaps & Literature Search, the Journal Finder, and the Duplicate Publication Checker — and two more are everyday utilities that are free and need no account: a Citation Generator and a Graphical Abstract Maker. One heavier tool spends more credits: AI Review. This page is the honest index — what each tool does, what it costs in credits, and which one you actually need for the stage you're at.
The low-credit tools
Searching for research gaps is free. Two more tools cover the pre-submission stage of a paper — scoring (with the duplicate-publication check bundled in) and journal selection — for 15 credits a run; two more utilities are free and need no account. Create a free account and you get 25 credits to start:
- Pre-Check — paste a title + abstract, get acceptance odds for top, mid and open/emerging journals, the detected field, and a ranked target-journal shortlist in seconds. The odds come from where the most similar papers in the 4.5M-paper local library were published, scaled by per-field acceptance-rate anchors. 15 credits per run. → /pre-check
- Gaps & Literature Search — search any topic free: the field overview (queried live from OpenAlex), then the papers the search found, table first, in a comparison table and a list you can filter, sort and export — mined from 100,000+ papers in a 4.5M-paper local library. 120,000+ open gaps pre-indexed. The search is free; unlocking one topic costs 50 credits and that single charge covers the filled rows — a column no delivered paper fills is left out rather than shown empty — the cross-paper synthesis, the open research questions themselves, the research proposal drafted on those rows and one Pro Report run — nothing inside the gap tool is sold separately. → /research-gaps
- Journal Finder — paste a title + abstract for a ranked shortlist of target journals from a 17,500-venue index, each with tier, open-access status, citation rate, publisher, and a predatory-journal flag. 15 credits per run. → /journal-recommender
- Duplicate Publication Checker — cross-references your title + abstract against 7 public databases (CrossRef, PubMed, Europe PMC, arXiv, medRxiv, bioRxiv, Unpaywall) and a 4.5M-paper library in parallel, to flag prior publication and overlapping work. Bundled into Pre-Check, so it costs a Pre-Check run (15 credits) and nothing extra. → /duplicate-publication-checker
- Citation Generator — paste a DOI or title and get a formatted citation in APA, MLA, Vancouver, and Chicago, plus BibTeX and RIS for Zotero/Mendeley/EndNote. Metadata from CrossRef + OpenAlex, deterministic — free, no account needed, nothing stored. → /cite
- Graphical Abstract Maker — turn a title and 1-4 key findings into a clean, colorblind-safe graphical abstract, downloadable as vector SVG or 2000×1200 PNG, entirely in your browser — free, nothing uploaded. → /graphical-abstract
The heavier tool
One tool involves real LLM cost on every run, so it spends more credits. It is explicitly cheaper than the alternatives it replaces:
- AI Review — upload a full manuscript PDF and 8 specialist agents return a structured editorial decision with line-level revision suggestions in under 15 minutes. 30 credits per review. → /ai-review
Which tool do I need?
A quick decision guide by where you are in the research cycle:
- Starting a new project, looking for a question → Gaps & Literature Search (free to search; 50 credits to unlock the topic — the filled table, the gaps, the proposal and one Pro Report run).
- Have a draft, wondering if it's ready → Pre-Check (15 credits) for acceptance odds for top, mid and open/emerging journals.
- Draft is solid, deciding where to submit → Journal Finder (15 credits).
- Worried about prior publication or overlap with earlier work → Duplicate Publication Checker (bundled into Pre-Check, 15 credits a run).
- Need to format a reference fast from a DOI → Citation Generator (free, no account needed).
- Journal wants a graphical or visual abstract → Graphical Abstract Maker (free, in your browser).
- Want a full, calibrated peer-review report before you submit → AI Review (30 credits).
Why credits, and why they're cheap
It's a deliberate model, not a trial gimmick. Pre-Check (with the duplicate-publication check inside it) and the Journal Finder run on local indexes and public metadata lookups rather than LLM calls, so we can price them at 15 credits a run. The gap search runs on those same local indexes and makes no LLM call at all, so it costs nothing. The Citation Generator is a public metadata lookup and the Graphical Abstract Maker runs entirely in your browser, so both stay free with no account. Creating an account is free and starts you with 25 credits, enough for one Pre-Check or one Journal Finder run on your draft.
The two tools that carry real per-run LLM cost spend more credits: AI Review, and unlocking a research-gap topic (50 credits), which reads our whole collection on your topic, synthesises the research gaps out of the filled rows, drafts the proposal on them and includes one Pro Report run. That is one charge per topic on purpose — the gaps, the proposal and the Pro Report are all computed from rows you have already paid for, so charging again for them would be charging twice. Everything is pay-as-you-go: buy credits in one-time packs, and they never expire. No subscription, no rate-limit games, no upsell baked into the tool itself.