Scite Reviews 221

Absolute dreadful company, that does not offer refund and uses all the scammy tactics to keep you in even when you try to cancle.
No matter how much you dislike their product and even if you did not use it at all they will not refund your money.

Scite.ai is a scam. They charge you without warning, and if you try to get a refund, forget it, you’ll have to go through your bank just to get your money back through a chargeback. The tool itself is useless too, basically a badly tuned LLM in a messy interface. It doesn’t do anything better than regular LLMs, which are way more reliable. Seriously, just avoid this thing completely.

I found the scite.ai tool to be worthless, so I stopped using the trial after less than an hour on the same day. I then discovered that I had been charged a week later. I requested a refund, as the tool did not provide any value to me, but support refused, stating that they do not offer refunds and would be keeping my payment. Since the issue has not been resolved, I am now opening a chargeback through my bank. Absolutely avoid this company. it is run by scammers.

I cancelled my account hours after the 7 dsy period ended as i had not used the service. I was billed and when i emailed requesting a refund (within 24 hr the payment had been collected) i was told no refund can be processed. I asked the case to be escalated via customer support chat and i am waiting for a resolution. Its a shame they wont assist with a a refund the same day the trial period expired.

Not useful for academics. Poor results compared to Perplexity or the Deep Research tools from the big names.

While it can find relevant papers in general, based on keywords and search terms (so does Google Scholar for free), it is weak at finding supporting evidence, citations based on the contents of the papers and the criteria, sometimes resulting in false claims.

BibTex bibliography export is broken. Everything is an article (there is no concept of preprint, misc etc.), there are no page numbers included, there are "articles" without journal names.

The UX is unpolished and sloppy (text spanning in width 75-80% of the screen, it displays dates such as 8/0/2025). What is month 0??

Horrible quality references. Does not refund after being auto-charged despite not using the service that month. Way better platforms out there. Don't waste your time or money.

Watch out when using scite.ai. They charge recurring payments but do not offer a clear or accessible way to cancel your subscription.

The page makes managing your own subscription unnecessarily difficult, and if you are pressed for time, you may simply give up and later find yourself charged.

A very frustrating experience, and something potential users should be aware of.

unfortunately, sciteai provided me with false claims that it tried to tie to real papers

Testato per il periodo di prova (una settimana), avevo dato la mia carta di credito ma fortunatamente ho avuto il tempo di rimuovere il pagamento automatico dell'abbonamento perchè, semplicemente, non trova nulla. Chiedendo di fare ricerche su un argomento specifico, che riguarda la mia specializzazione di medico radioterapista oncologo, semplicemente non ritorna nulla, o nulla di utile. Google Gemini con l'opzione Deep Research fa molto ma molto meglio.

This company is a rip off. Recurrent charges auto billed and customer cancelled same day-billed for entire year and refuses to refund. Has to refuse charges through credit card company. Company gives no warning of billing date etc. Very rude customer service. They are just after your money not considering importance about service.

The amount of delusional and completely innacurate academic references is astonishing. I tried this for a day after reading good reviews about it, but I suspect all its users don't review the output Scite generates, as its completely innacurate.

Underwhelming overall -after it coming highly rated because it shows results with extracts from the papers which was a strength - but I didn't find it particularly accurate and the search engine not particularly sophisticated. I had to resort back to the usual databases like CINAHL.

I was charged 114€ for a years plan without any notice and now they are refusing a refund, scam type of business avoid, use alternatives that are free/ dont charge you without notice.

I've used Scite_ AI to write 2 research papers, and while 1st time it was a passable experience (the topic was more general i guess), a year ago, currently I bought another sub and was utterly disappointed. The amount of "hallucinations" that manifested as fabricated quotes, and nonexistent sources (complete with DOI links!), was OVERWHELMING. Sometimes the only quotes and links you get in a whole summary are just hallucinations. Really upsetting. I had to manually re-check all of 500+ quotations and links in my 1st paper bc of readers complains after it was published, a crying shame. So.. I didn't find any way to refund my lost money but please dont sub to this, its too raw to work with. You can use Chat GPT and Gemini for research as I do now. A lot of useful features here, great potential - but not yet, not yet.

Not useful at all for academic research. You are better off just using Google Scholar or for a paid version Elicit. Asked for a refund. Refused to consider even a partial on a yearly subscription.

I had an issue, about my payment. And it was resolved with in minutes.
100% rating.

An absolute waste of money. Tool comes up with imaginary statements that are completely unrelated. ChatGPT could have done a better job. STAY AWAY.

I wasn't notified that my subscription was being renewed for another year, so I was charged $160 out of nowhere. Most subscription services will let you know when you are approaching your renewal date.
I asked if I can cancel my subscribtion now but still have access to my plan for the rest of the year because I've paid for it and their support said no. This is incredibly unfair; why would I not get something I've already paid for.
There is also no clear wording on the website or my dashboard about billing, canceling, or renewal notifications, which feels dodgey. I shouldn't have to search hard for that information or contact support.
Giving 1 star above the minimum because their online live chat responded quickly, and I've used the ai service a couple of times and it has been alright (I wouldn't say great). All in all not worth the price.

It can usually find reference material and string together a few sentences, but it's often more buzzwords than insight, and it occasionally goes way off topic. I'm often able to find better reference material on Scholar, but without all the verbose baggage that ultimately misses the point.

I got all the literature for my paper. Also gave me great ideas to finish the write up.