Elicit

What is Elicit?

Elicit is an AI-powered research platform that helps researchers search, summarize, and extract data from over 125 million academic papers. It serves more than 2 million researchers across academia, pharmaceuticals, government, and industry who need to synthesize large bodies of evidence quickly. Where traditional literature review tools stop at search, Elicit automates the full workflow from finding papers to extracting structured data and generating research reports with sentence-level citations.

Key Features

• Research Reports: Generates structured research briefs from your query in seconds, inspired by systematic review methodology, with full citations back to source papers
• Systematic Review Workflow: Automates screening and data extraction for formal literature reviews, handling up to 5,000 papers per review on Pro plans
• Paper Search Across 138M+ Sources: Searches a corpus of over 138 million academic papers with semantic understanding, not just keyword matching
• Data Extraction Tables: Pull specific data points from papers into structured columns, extracting from up to 200 data sources on higher tiers
• Chat With Papers: Ask follow-up questions about individual papers or groups of papers and get answers grounded in the actual text
• Research Alerts: Monitors new publications matching your research interests and notifies you when relevant papers appear
• Library Organization: Save and organize papers across projects, with Zotero import support for existing reference collections

Use Cases

• Academic researchers: Run literature reviews in hours instead of weeks by automating paper screening and data extraction across thousands of sources
• Pharma and biotech teams: Synthesize clinical evidence and competitive intelligence from published studies for drug development and regulatory submissions
• Policy analysts: Gather and structure research evidence to support policy recommendations and government reports
• Graduate students: Complete thesis literature reviews faster by letting Elicit surface relevant papers and extract key findings automatically
• Not ideal for: Teams that need to search proprietary or internal document repositories, since Elicit focuses on published academic literature

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths:

• Intuitive interface that researchers can start using productively within minutes, even without technical background
• Sentence-level citations on every claim make it simple to verify and trace information back to source papers
• Processes up to 20,000 data points simultaneously, making large-scale evidence synthesis practical for individual researchers
• Responsive customer support with active Discord community and email responses typically within 24 hours
• Discount programs for students, nonprofits, and YC companies reduce the barrier for resource-constrained teams

Weaknesses:

• The free tier limits you to 2 automated reports per month and 2 table columns, which feels restrictive for any serious research project
• Pro pricing at $49/month (billed annually) is a significant jump from free, with no mid-range option for occasional but regular users
• Coverage is limited to published academic papers, so grey literature, preprints on some platforms, and proprietary databases are not included
• Some users report occasional slowdowns when processing very large extraction jobs

Pricing

• Basic (Free): Unlimited paper search across 138M+ papers, 2 automated reports per month, 2 table columns, chat with papers, Zotero import
• Pro: $49/month (billed annually), systematic review workflow screening 5,000 papers, 144 reports per year, 20 table columns, 135 data sources, 10 research alerts, API access
• Scale: $169/month (billed annually), everything in Pro plus figure extraction, real-time team collaboration, 240 reports per year, 200 data sources, 30 table columns, admin panel
• Enterprise: Custom pricing, SSO/SAML/2FA, screen 40,000 papers, 40 table columns, unlimited alerts and API access, dedicated customer success

Student, nonprofit, and YC discounts are available across paid tiers. No credit card required for the free plan or 14-day trial.

FAQ

Is Elicit free to use?

Elicit offers a free Basic plan with unlimited paper search and summaries, but limits you to 2 automated reports per month. Paid plans start at $49/month (billed annually) for researchers who need systematic review features and higher extraction limits.

How many papers can Elicit search?

Elicit searches across more than 138 million academic papers. The corpus covers a broad range of disciplines and is continuously updated as new research is published.

How is Elicit different from Google Scholar?

Google Scholar is a search engine that returns links to papers. Elicit goes further by automatically extracting data from papers, generating structured summaries with citations, and organizing findings into tables you can filter and export. It is built for evidence synthesis, not just discovery.

Can Elicit help with systematic reviews?

Yes. The Pro plan includes a dedicated systematic review workflow that can screen up to 5,000 papers, with customizable extraction columns and structured data output. The Scale and Enterprise plans increase these limits further.

Does Elicit provide accurate citations?

Elicit provides sentence-level citations that link every claim back to the specific passage in the source paper. Users consistently note the transparency of citations as a key strength, though you should still verify critical findings against the original text.

Does Elicit have an API?

Yes. API access is included starting with the Pro plan at $49/month. Enterprise plans offer unlimited API access for integration into research workflows and internal tools.