Free. You pay only what third-party services cost us, at cost.
Our AI runs on Surge's own servers, and paper search uses free scholarly indexes, so writing, citing, PDF chat and checks cost you nothing. If you choose an optional paid service, you pay exactly what it costs us. No subscription, no markup.
Everything in CitedWriter
No card needed. Fair-use limits keep our shared AI server fast:
- ✓ 1,500 autocompletes per day
- ✓ 500 AI edits per day
- ✓ 300 PDF questions per day
- ✓ 500 citation searches per day
- ✓ 20 similarity + AI checks per month
- ✓ 100 PDFs in your library
- ✓ 2,000 literature-table cells per day
- ✓ 300 writing-assistant questions per day
- ✓ 20,000 words per similarity check
- ✓ All citation styles, exports, templates, AI-use log and review links
Optional, at cost
Only if you turn it on. You load credit; each use is charged at the provider's price and shown line by line in Settings.
| Service | You pay |
|---|---|
| Our AI, paper search, verification, similarity check | Nothing |
| Claude (Anthropic) when our AI server is busy, if you opt in | Not offered yet; when it is, Anthropic's price: $2 per million input tokens, $10 per million output tokens |
| Licensed web plagiarism database | Not offered yet; when it is, at the vendor's price |
Payment gateway fees on top-ups are on us. Unused credit doesn't expire and is refunded on request. Pay with UPI, cards or netbanking (Razorpay) in India, cards (Stripe) elsewhere.
Why free?
We run our own AI models, so most of what you use costs us little, and we would rather earn your trust first. Whatever happens later, you can export everything you write (Word, LaTeX, Markdown, BibTeX) at any time.
What others charge (October 2026)
From each company's public pricing page or listings; sources in our research notes. Check their sites for current prices.
| CitedWriter | Free; optional third-party services at cost |
| Jenni AI | Plus $12/mo, Pro $29/mo; free plan limited to 10 autocompletes a day. |
| Paperpal | Prime about $25/mo or $139/yr (third-party listings); free plan has tight edit and plagiarism word caps. |
| SciSpace | Premium $20/mo or $12/mo billed yearly; credit-based agent usage. |
| Elicit | Pro $49/mo ($588/yr); free search, limited agent use. |
| Yomu AI | Pro $10/mo and Ultra $17/mo billed yearly; higher monthly. |
| Grammarly | Pro $30/mo or $12/mo yearly; ₹1,000/mo in India. |
| Consensus | Pro $20/mo or $144/yr; Deep $65/mo. |
| Writefull | About $15/mo or $66/yr. |