Decision
Paper discovery, evidence-table extraction, and systematic-review support
- Choose it when
- Building structured evidence tables across many papers
- Early-stage systematic review screening and extraction workflows
- Skip it when
- You need a cheap casual search tool rather than a high-cost research workflow
- Your review data, uploaded PDFs, or unpublished documents cannot leave local infrastructure without a DPA
- Cost
- Basic free: limited Research Agent and Research Reports; unlimited search/summaries/chat · Academic pricing, per user and billed yearly: Plus $11/mo ($132/yr), Pro $39/mo ($468/yr), Scale $89/mo ($1,068/yr) · Industry…
- Privacy
- Elicit collects account, device/usage, and service-created research data.
What these labels mean
- Editorial fit
- 0–100 desk score for research-workflow fit. Not stars, not a benchmark.
- Evidence level
- How close the desk got: self-run, hands-on, synthesized, or vendor claim.
- Dossier depth
- Flagship, Solid, Lightweight, and Draft describe how finished the page is — not which tool is best.
- Verification date
- When pricing or privacy was last opened at the source. Not a re-score of the whole dossier.
- Benchmark status
- Pending means no relevant first-party test is published yet. It is not a negative score.
Open the glossary · Read the methodology
Elicit has a free Basic plan with unlimited search across more than 138 million papers, plus limited Research Agent and report usage. Paid plans add more usage and systematic-review tools. Academic pricing starts at $11 per person per month, billed yearly, for Plus. Pricing checked 13 October 2026.
Role: Paper discovery, evidence-table extraction, and systematic-review supportCategory: Research assistantSynthesized
Elicit at a glance, with the date each field was checked.| Field | Value |
|---|
| Editorial fit | 59 out of 100 |
|---|
| Dossier status | Flagship |
|---|
| Set | Research assistant |
|---|
| Role in a workflow | Paper discovery, evidence-table extraction, and systematic-review support |
|---|
| Pricing | Basic Free · Academic Plus $132/yr · Academic Pro $468/yr · Academic Scale $1,068/yr · Industry Pro $588/yr · Industry Scale $2,028/yr · Enterprise Custom |
|---|
| Training on your data | Elicit's privacy policy does not say whether content from the free Basic plan, paid Pro or team-focused Scale plan is used to train AI models, or explain a training-specific opt-out. Do not assume that paying switches training off. Elicit lists “No training on your data by default” for Enterprise. Its API terms say input data is not used to train AI models unless you separately opt in. For the web plans, ask [email protected] to confirm the rule before uploading confidential work. Sources: Elicit, Privacy; Pricing; API terms (linked in Sources) |
|---|
| Last verified | 2026-10-13 |
|---|
Editor's note
Elicit should be judged by whether it helps a researcher build a better evidence table, not by whether it writes a convincing paragraph. Its danger is the same as its appeal: it makes a messy literature review look organized before the hard verification is finished.
Public facts · vendor & repo
List prices and pay-as-you-go entry points we can cite without running our own bench. Each tile links to a source when possible.
Limits & product surface
Non-price vendor claims — multipliers, caps, and API scope. Detailed matrices live in subscription and SDK sections below.
How it works · agent loop
The public positioning for this product — the loop we score against on VerdictPal.
01Start with the wedge
Building structured evidence tables across many papers
Run the representative task
Extract PICO/design/outcome fields from 20 papers and compare against a hand-coded table.
Check the failure modes
Pricing jumps quickly from free to Pro/Scale
Compare before recommending
Compare against Consensus, Scite, Semantic Scholar before shipping advice.