Try Wonders for freeWho each tool is for
Paperguide describes itself as an AI-native platform for scientific research, literature reviews, systematic reviews and evidence synthesis. Its site lists industries such as medical devices, pharma, health economics consultancies and government next to academic research. It bundles AI search, a reference manager, a research agent, data extraction, a systematic review workflow and an AI writer.
Wonders is a guided workspace for the literature review itself. It walks you from topic to search strategy to reading to an organized board of sources, and it is built for students, thesis writers and researchers who want to see each step. It does not try to cover evidence synthesis for regulated industries.
Features and pricing
| Wonders | Paperguide | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | No. 14-day free trial that starts at checkout. Searching and the AI features need the trial or a paid plan | Yes. 2,000 AI credits per month, limited AI searches |
| Entry paid plan | Plus: $20/mo, or $12/mo billed yearly | Plus: $12 per seat/mo, billed annually |
| Student pricing | $10/mo, or $6/mo billed yearly, after verification | 30% academic discount with a university email |
| Higher plans | Organizations: custom | Pro $29, Evidence Teams $89 per seat/mo billed annually. Enterprise: custom |
| Usage limits on the entry paid plan | No credits and no cap on searches. Rate limits exist to stop abuse | 12,500 AI credits per month. Unlimited AI searches |
| Index | No index of its own. Searches Semantic Scholar and OpenAlex, plus Google Patents | 200M+ papers (PubMed, arXiv, OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar) |
| Boolean search builder | Yes | Not listed |
| Visual boards for organizing sources | Yes | Not listed |
| Reference manager | Library, bibliography in six styles, and exports. Saves to Zotero. Imports .ris, .bib and .nbib files. No Mendeley or EndNote connector | Yes, with Zotero and Mendeley import |
| Systematic review workflow | No | Yes. Up to 1,000 papers on Plus, 5,000 on Pro. PRISMA reporting |
| Data extraction tables | No | Yes. Up to 50 columns and 100 papers per table on paid plans |
| Plagiarism checker | No | Yes. 4,000 words/mo on Free, 20,000 on Plus |
| API or MCP | No | Yes. Search API and MCP |
| Generates essays or papers | No | Yes. AI Paper Writer |
"Not listed" means we did not find the feature on the Paperguide pages cited below. It may exist.
The integrity question
Paperguide’s AI Paper Writer page says the tool can "generate research papers, essays, and more" and produce full documents with structure and citations. Its free tools directory also lists an AI Essay Writer, a Paraphrasing Tool and an AI Detector. Paperguide states that AI-written passages are grounded in real literature and cited to it.
Wonders does not generate essays or papers, and it has no paraphrasing tool. The AI suggests keywords, summarizes papers and the sources you saved, and links each claim in a summary to the paper it came from. Before it shows a direct quote, it looks for the words in the paper’s text, and if it cannot find them it does not show them as a quote. You write the text. If your institution restricts generative writing tools, that difference matters more than any row in the table. Our guide to AI-assisted research ethics covers how to check your own rules, and Don’t cheat explains why we drew the line here.
One disclosure, so that this page and our privacy policy do not disagree silently: the policy lists a notebook writing assistant that can suggest edits (improve, expand, summarize or rephrase) to a passage you have selected. It is not in the notebook editor we ship today. If your course policy restricts rephrasing tools, ask us at support@readwonders.com before you rely on this page.
Choose Paperguide if
These two lists are Wonders’ opinion, not a neutral ranking.
- You are running a systematic review and need screening, PRISMA reporting and data extraction in one place.
- You want a free plan to start with.
- You need an API or MCP access.
- You want AI to draft text for you and your institution allows it.
Choose Wonders if
- You are writing a thesis or literature review and want guidance on search strategy, not only results. Start with how to start a literature review.
- You think visually and want to arrange sources and highlights on a board.
- You want flat pricing with no credits to track. See pricing.
- You want a tool that stays out of the writing, so there is no question about who wrote your paper.
What you can check in Wonders
These are things the product does today. You can test each one during the trial.
- When Wonders quotes a paper in a summary, it checks the quote against the paper’s text first. If it cannot find the words in the paper, it does not show them as a quote.
- Where the full text is available, citations in summaries carry the page number. Clicking one opens the PDF at that page with the passage highlighted.
- Search ranking takes journal quality into account, using SCImago quartiles for more than 28,000 journals, and you can filter by it.
- Wonders connects to your library’s access through OpenURL resolvers, EZproxy and OpenAthens proxies, KBART holdings and LibKey, so the full-text link goes through your subscription. Some of this is set up by your institution.
- Search, reading, a visual board and a writing editor sit in one workspace. You can take a plain question down to a full Boolean query, cite in six styles (APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE, Vancouver) and export to Word, LaTeX, PDF, BibTeX and RIS.
We have not tested how Paperguide handles these points, so this list says nothing about Paperguide.
What Wonders does not do
Wonders has no free plan, no systematic review screening or PRISMA workflow, no data extraction tables, no plagiarism checker, no public API and no index of its own. Its Zotero connection only saves out, and there is no Mendeley or EndNote connector. It is built for desktop screens. If any of those is central to your work, Paperguide covers more of it.