What is Papers?

Papers is a reference management platform that helps students, researchers, and corporate teams store, organize, and cite literature efficiently. It imports bibliographic data from desktops, databases, journals, and other managers, auto‑matching metadata and full‑text where available.

Users can sort and track sources with tags, custom fields, labels, ratings, smart collections, and watch folders, making library growth manageable. AI‑powered features supply article recommendations, uncover connections across documents, and enable chat‑based queries for quick comprehension of unfamiliar topics.

The tool supports inline annotations—highlights, notes, sticky comments—and synchronizes libraries, annotations, and shared folders across Mac, Windows, browser, iOS, and Android devices, enabling real‑time collaboration. Citation generation is streamlined through SmartCite, which offers more than 10,000 styles and supports Word, Google Docs, and Citekeys.

Papers on the web:

Papers details

Company: Digital Science
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts, USA
Built for: Individuals

Papers pricing

Freemium

Pro $0

Essentials $7 per user/mo

Pro $14 per user/mo

Essentials academics take 40% off buy now

Pro academics take 40% off buy now

Essentials 65 per user/year ($5.42/mo.)

Essentials buy now $65 per user/year ($5.42/mo.)

Pro 130 per user/year ($10.83/mo.)

Pro buy now $130 per user/year ($10.83/mo.)

Enterprise no limit on users unlimited shared libraries single sign-on & group management document delivery dedicated supporttraining & onboarding admin dashboard modular add-ons available

$7/mo is cheaper than most for Research median $15/mo

Most Research tools start between $9 and $49.75 a month.

Free trial: 30 days
Auto-renewal: Yes

Trial, refund and renewal terms as stated in Papers's own published documentation.

Verify on the official pricing page.

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Papers's key features

AI Assistant for research discovery
Metadata matching of imported articles
Dynamic annotations and notes
Real-time device sync and collaboration
SmartCite citation generation
Chat with PDF for contextual answers

Papers use cases

Build a comprehensive literature review for a grant proposal by auto‑importing PDFs, tagging topics, and pulling impact metrics—all synchronized across devices for seamless remote collaboration
Manage a university library’s reference database: automatically match citations, generate 10,000+ style citations, and enable inline annotations that sync across Mac, Windows, and mobile for faculty and students
Curate a custom reading list for a research seminar using AI article recommendations based on tagged themes, and annotate key passages collaboratively in real time