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Litmaps pricing varies by team size and features, ranging from $10 to $10 per user/month in 2026. Your actual cost depends on the tier you choose, contract length, and negotiated discounts.

Use the interactive pricing calculator to estimate your exact cost based on team size and requirements.

  • Free tier: Yes
  • Billing: Monthly and annual (save 15-20%)
  • Hidden costs: Add ~35% for implementation, support, and training

Litmaps offers 3 pricing tiers: Free, Pro, Team. Standard paid plans include Free at $0/user/month, Pro at $10/user/month. The Pro plan is active researchers needing unlimited citation maps, daily literature monitoring, zotero integration, and advanced search across multiple research projects.

Compared to other ai research tools software, Litmaps is positioned at the budget-friendly price point.

Litmaps is a citation-based research discovery tool that creates interactive visual maps showing how academic papers connect through citation relationships. Researchers add seed papers and Litmaps generates dynamic visualizations revealing the citation landscape -- connected literature, seminal foundational works, and recent citing papers. With literature monitoring alerts, Zotero integration, and advanced search capabilities, Litmaps helps researchers discover relevant papers, track new publications, and build comprehensive literature reviews visually.

Pricing ranges from free to $10/month, with a 75% educational discount available. The Free plan includes 1 Litmap with up to 100 articles, 20 search inputs, and monthly literature alerts. Pro costs $10/month and unlocks unlimited maps, articles, daily configurable alerts, Zotero sync, and advanced search. Students and academics with verified institutional emails pay just $2.50/month for Pro (75% discount). Team plans offer custom pricing for collaborative research groups.

A key consideration: Litmaps offers one of the best value propositions among AI research tools for students, with its 75% educational discount bringing Pro to just $2.50/month -- less than a third of Consensus Premium ($8.99/month) and a fraction of Iris.ai ($70/month). The trade-off is that Litmaps focuses specifically on citation-based discovery and monitoring rather than AI-powered evidence synthesis (Consensus) or data extraction (Elicit), so researchers may want to pair Litmaps with complementary tools for a complete workflow.

In this 2026 pricing guide, we break down Litmaps's three plans, calculate real-world costs with educational discounts, expose hidden limitations like the 100-article cap on free plans and collaboration restrictions, and compare Litmaps to alternatives like Research Rabbit, Consensus, Elicit, and Semantic Scholar to help you choose the right citation mapping tool.

All Litmaps Plans & Pricing

Plan Monthly Annual Best For
Free Litmaps: 1Articles per map: 100 Free Free 0 Students and occasional researchers needing basic citation mapping and monthly literature updates for a single research topic
Pro Litmaps: UnlimitedArticles per map: Unlimited $10 /user/month $10 /user/month Active researchers needing unlimited citation maps, daily literature monitoring, Zotero integration, and advanced search across multiple research projects
Team Litmaps: UnlimitedArticles per map: Unlimited Contact Contact Research labs, academic departments, and collaborative teams needing shared citation maps, team workspaces, and institutional licensing
View all features by plan

Free

  • Basic search with up to 20 inputs
  • 1 Litmap with up to 100 articles
  • Monthly literature alert summaries
  • Citation-based paper visualization
  • Basic discovery tools

Pro

  • Basic and advanced search with unlimited inputs
  • Unlimited Litmaps and articles per map
  • Daily or configurable literature alerts
  • Zotero library sync integration
  • Monitor feature for ongoing topic tracking
  • Unlimited workspaces and searches
  • Educational license: 75% discount with academic email

Team

  • Everything in Pro plan
  • Unlimited team-wide collaboration
  • Shared Litmaps and workspaces
  • Team management and administration
  • Institutional licensing options
  • Classroom use discounts available
  • Parity pricing for eligible countries

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Hidden Costs to Budget For

Watch for 6 hidden costs
  • Educational discount requires academic email verification: The 75% educational discount drops Pro from $10/month to $2.50/month but requires a verified academic email -- losing institutional affiliation or graduating reverts to full pricing immediately
  • Free plan severely limits research scope: Only 1 Litmap with 100 articles and 20 inputs makes the free plan unsuitable for any serious literature review -- even a focused thesis topic typically requires more than 100 papers to map comprehensively
  • Monthly alerts only on free plan miss critical publications: Free users receive monthly literature summary alerts vs daily/configurable alerts on Pro -- researchers in fast-moving fields like AI or biotech may miss important papers published between monthly updates
  • No collaboration on individual plans: Free and Pro plans have no collaboration features -- research teams wanting to share citation maps or work on joint literature reviews must negotiate custom Team pricing with no published rates
  • Zotero sync only on Pro: Researchers who manage their libraries in Zotero cannot sync collections to Litmaps on the free plan -- switching from Zotero-based workflows requires upgrading to Pro at $10/month to maintain library continuity
  • Parity pricing not available for all countries: While Litmaps offers lower pricing for researchers in lower-income countries, the discount amount and eligibility are only visible at checkout -- researchers cannot verify their discount before starting the purchase process
Tip

Ask your Litmaps sales rep about these costs upfront. Getting them in writing before signing can save you from surprise charges later.

Full hidden costs breakdown โ†’

Frequently Asked Questions

01 How much does Litmaps cost?

Litmaps costs $0-$10/month depending on the plan. The Free plan includes 1 Litmap with 100 articles and monthly alerts. Pro costs $10/month with unlimited maps, articles, daily alerts, and Zotero sync. Students and academics get 75% off Pro with a verified educational email, reducing Pro to $2.50/month. Team plans require custom pricing for collaborative workspaces. Parity pricing is available for researchers in eligible countries.

02 Is Litmaps free?

Yes, Litmaps offers a free plan with basic citation mapping. The free plan includes 1 Litmap with up to 100 articles, 20 search inputs, and monthly literature alert summaries. This is adequate for exploring Litmaps or mapping a small research topic. For serious literature reviews requiring unlimited maps, daily alerts, and Zotero integration, the Pro plan costs $10/month ($2.50/month with educational discount). The free plan's 100-article limit is the primary constraint for most researchers.

03 What is Litmaps?

Litmaps is a citation-based research discovery tool that creates interactive visual maps of how academic papers connect through citations. Users add seed papers and Litmaps generates a visualization showing citation relationships, helping researchers discover connected literature, identify seminal works, and track new publications in their field. It includes literature monitoring alerts, Zotero integration, and advanced search features. Litmaps is particularly useful for visual learners who want to understand the citation landscape of a research topic.

04 Litmaps vs Research Rabbit: which is better?

Litmaps and Research Rabbit both offer visual paper mapping but with different approaches. Litmaps ($0-$10/month) creates citation-based maps showing how papers reference each other, with daily monitoring alerts and Zotero integration. Research Rabbit ($0-$12.50/month) uses AI recommendations to discover related papers through network visualization. Choose Litmaps if you want citation-relationship mapping with literature monitoring and Zotero sync. Choose Research Rabbit if you prefer AI-powered recommendation discovery and broader paper network exploration.

05 Litmaps vs Elicit: which should I choose?

Litmaps ($0-$10/month) and Elicit ($0-$12/month) serve different research needs. Litmaps specializes in citation-based visual mapping and literature monitoring to discover and track connected papers. Elicit focuses on systematic review automation with structured data extraction and evidence tables. Choose Litmaps if you want to visually explore citation networks and monitor new publications in your field. Choose Elicit if you need to systematically extract data from papers and generate structured evidence reports.

06 Does Litmaps offer a student discount?

Yes, Litmaps offers a 75% educational discount for students and academics with a verified institutional email address. This reduces the Pro plan from $10/month to $2.50/month ($30/year) -- one of the most generous educational discounts among AI research tools. The discount applies to anyone affiliated with an educational institution, including professors and university staff. Losing institutional affiliation reverts pricing to the full $10/month rate.

07 What is the Litmaps Monitor feature?

Litmaps Monitor is a Pro-only feature that automatically tracks new papers published in your research areas and sends configurable alerts (daily, weekly, or custom frequency). It watches your saved Litmaps for new citations and related publications, ensuring you never miss relevant new research. Free users only receive monthly summary alerts. Monitor is particularly valuable for researchers in fast-moving fields who need to stay current with rapidly evolving literature.

08 What are the alternatives to Litmaps?

Alternatives to Litmaps include Research Rabbit (free for visual paper discovery), Consensus ($0-$12.99/month for AI evidence synthesis), Elicit ($0-$12/month for systematic review automation), Semantic Scholar (free with citation graphs and API), and Scite ($0-$20/month for Smart Citations). For free citation-based visualization, Research Rabbit is the closest alternative. For paid features with literature monitoring, Litmaps Pro at $10/month ($2.50/month with educational discount) offers strong value.