How do their growth rates compare?

Citely has a month-over-month growth rate of -6.1%; PDFgear has -3.4%.

How does pricing compare?

Citely: Freemium. Citely uses a credit-based model with four published tiers: a $9 one-time trial, $19/month billed monthly, $14/month billed yearly, and a $347 one-time three-year Believer plan. Higher tiers raise the credit allowance, extend the character limit for reference verification from 2,000 to 4,000 characters, and add citation export in APA, MLA, and Chicago. Enterprise and larger credit bundles are available on request. PDFgear: Free. Free. The desktop apps and online tools are offered at no cost, with no signup required for typical tasks. A related e-signing service is also available.

What are alternatives to Citely and PDFgear?

Other tools in related categories include Claude, Scribbr, Wondershare, PDNob PDF Editor, LightPDF.

Citely vs PDFgear — Traffic (62.27K vs 2.85M), Pricing & Verdict

Open AI Tools

Citely vs PDFgear — Traffic (62.27K vs 2.85M), Pricing & Verdict | Open AI Tools

Side-by-Side Traffic & Specification Matrix

Dimension / Metric	Citely	PDFgear
Official Domain	citely.ai	pdfgear.com
Pricing Model	Freemium	Free
Monthly Visits	62.27K (62,271)	2.85M (2,845,280)
MoM Traffic Delta	-4.06K (-6.1%)	-100.48K (-3.4%)
Primary Market & Share	🇺🇸 United States (25.9%)	🇺🇸 United States (23.3%)
Direct Visits / mo	9.64K	675.08K
User Rating	4.2	4.5
Supported Platforms	Website	Website

Citely

Verify every reference against real academic databases — and find the sources you're missing

AI Source Finder

Paste a claim or paragraph and Citely returns matching academic papers with verified metadata, ready to cite in APA, MLA, or Chicago style.

Citation & Reference Checker

Submit a reference list and Citely tests each entry against scholarly databases, marking entries that cannot be confirmed or that point to the wrong work.

AI Hallucination Detection

Citely targets the specific errors AI models make when inventing references, including chimera citations, invented DOIs, and citations that drift across years.

Multi-Database Verification

Checks run against CrossRef, PubMed, arXiv, and OpenAlex, so verification reflects real indexed scholarship rather than a single narrow database.

Strengths & Pros

+Verifies references against multiple real academic indexes instead of trusting a single source
+Directly targets AI-written citation hallucinations such as invented DOIs and chimera citations
+Doubles as a source finder when you have a claim but no reference for it
+Exports citations in standard academic styles