Consensus
Elicit
| Feature | Consensus | Elicit |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free / from $8.99/mo | Free / from $10/mo |
| Free Plan | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4.4 / 5 | 4.5 / 5 |
| Best For | researchers, students, healthcare-professionals, science-communicators | researchers, academics, phd-students, scientists, analysts |
| Founded | 2021 | 2021 |
| Ai Search | ✓ | ✗ |
| Consensus Meter | ✓ | ✗ |
| Copilot Summaries | ✓ | ✗ |
| Paper Snapshots | ✓ | ✗ |
| Study Finder | ✓ | ✗ |
| Citation Export | ✓ | ✓ |
| Paper Search | ✗ | ✓ |
| Summarization | ✗ | ✓ |
| Data Extraction | ✗ | ✓ |
| Synthesis | ✗ | ✓ |
| Saved Searches | ✗ | ✓ |
| Tables | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ Consensus Pros
- Answers backed by peer-reviewed research
- Consensus meter shows scientific agreement
- Copilot summarizes findings
- Free tier available
✗ Consensus Cons
- Limited to published academic papers
- Cannot access all paywalled journals
- Less useful for non-scientific queries
✓ Elicit Pros
- Searches 125M+ academic papers
- Extracts structured data from papers
- Summarizes findings across multiple studies
- Saves hours of literature review
✗ Elicit Cons
- Limited to academic/scientific papers
- Free tier has usage limits
- Can miss nuanced findings
The Verdict
Consensus is built for researchers and students, with a focus on ai-search and consensus-meter. Elicit targets researchers and academics and leads with paper-search and summarization.
Pricing is close: Consensus starts at $8.99/mo versus $10/mo for Elicit — not a deciding factor on its own.
Both offer free plans, so you can test each with your real workflow before committing to a subscription.
Feature-wise, Elicit offers broader built-in capabilities (7 features vs 6), while Consensus takes a more focused approach — which can mean a simpler, faster onboarding experience.
Both tools are a solid fit for researchers — in those cases, the decision often comes down to workflow style and how your team prefers to organize work.
This is a genuinely close comparison. If you can, sign up for both free trials (where available) and run a one-week test with your actual team tasks before deciding.