Paperpile vs ResearchRabbit

Paperpile and ResearchRabbit side by side: what each one is, what it costs to start, and whether you can try it free. Everything below comes from the vendors' own sites and other public sources, not from hands-on testing.

At a glance

Prices are in US dollars unless shown otherwise. Confirm the current price on the vendor's site before you buy.

Key differences

ResearchRabbit lists a free tier and Paperpile does not.

Paperpile has the lower starting price ($4.15/mo against $10/mo for ResearchRabbit). The cheapest plan rarely has the same limits or features, so compare plans before choosing on price.

Both are in our Research & Search category.

About each tool

P

Paperpile

Reference manager with Google Docs and Word plugins, a browser extension and mobile apps. No free plan after a 30 day trial; Regular is $4.15 a month billed annually.

Who it is for

Paperpile says more than 200,000 researchers use it, and it sells to individuals, teams, and companies, universities and research institutions. It suits people who write and cite in Google Docs, Word or LaTeX.

Strengths

• Paperpile lists a Google Docs plugin, a Microsoft Word plugin, and BibTeX and LaTeX support for citations and bibliographies.
• Its pricing page comparison table lists unlimited storage for research PDFs on the plans it compares.
• Paperpile lists a 30 day free trial with all features and no credit card required, per its subscription help page.
• Expert adds full-text search across PDFs, notes and PDF annotations, shared folders and libraries, any file type, and custom citation styles, per the pricing page.
• Enterprise and Institutions adds SAML single sign-on, advanced security and privacy settings, a custom MSA and SLA, vendor security reviews and HIPAA, per the pricing page.
• Paperpile says it signs in with your Google Account, never accesses or stores your password, and will not share your email address.

Limitations

• There is no permanent free plan; after the 30 day trial a subscription is required.
• All plans are billed annually and renew automatically until canceled; monthly billing and lifetime licenses are not offered, and multi-year terms are arranged through support.
• Regular leaves out full-text search, PDF annotations, shared folders and custom citation styles; these start at Expert, and a license cannot mix Regular and Expert.
• Enterprise and Institutions has no public price (custom quote), and enterprise features cannot be turned on in the app.
• The pricing page and the subscription pop-up show $4.15 and $5.75 a month without saying whether this includes the 50% academic discount, which another page describes as a separate option; the struck-through $8.30 and $11.50 are not labeled.
• Help pages did not state a refund policy, and the pricing FAQ does not address commercial use.

Paperpile profileVisit site ↗

R

ResearchRabbit

Literature discovery tool that maps papers related to your seed articles; Free allows 50 seeds. ResearchRabbit+ starts at $10 a month (annual plan label; $12.5 monthly label).

Who it is for

Researchers and students who run literature reviews or need to expand a reading list from a few known papers. The vendor also sells an Institution plan for libraries, with LibKey integration and management of thousands of users.

Strengths

• The pricing page lists a Free plan at $0 with unlimited searches, unlimited library and collections, and collaboration by sharing collections.
• The vendor's help page says the database is built from Crossref, Semantic Scholar, and OpenAlex and is updated weekly.
• The vendor says its core recommendation algorithms do not use large language models; they are based on citation, co-citation, and authorship links.
• The help center describes a Zotero importer (multiple Zotero accounts can be linked) and export to Zotero as BibTeX files; a ResearchRabbit guide also mentions export to EndNote and Word.
• The vendor's data page says it does not sell user articles or notes, does not expose them to third parties, and does not use them to train AI models.
• The pricing page lists ResearchRabbit+ with up to 300 seed articles, advanced search controls, multiple projects, Signals alerts, and faster support responses.

Limitations

• The Free plan allows up to 50 seed articles; ResearchRabbit+ allows up to 300.
• The vendor's help page says two-way Zotero sync is still in development with no release date; the current importer and BibTeX export are one-directional.
• The pricing page shows $10 and $12.5 a month labeled Annual plan and Monthly plan, but the layout does not clearly pair each price with its label; the FAQ gives USD $10 per month as the default price.
• Prices vary by country: the FAQ says more than 100 countries get discounts, so your price may differ from the USD figure. The pricing page does not address refunds; it says you can cancel anytime and keep access until the plan ends.

ResearchRabbit profileVisit site ↗

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