Consensus Review 2026 - Features, Pricing & Deals

Last Updated
Feb 14, 2026

Consensus is an AI-powered academic search engine that helps users find and understand scientific research. It searches through over 220 million peer-reviewed papers to provide evidence-based answers to research questions.

The platform's standout feature is its Consensus Meter, which shows how much agreement exists among scientists on specific topics. Users can ask yes/no questions and quickly see where the research community stands. The tool also includes Pro Analysis for content creation, Deep Search for comprehensive literature reviews, and advanced search filters to narrow down results by factors like study design and sample size.

Students, researchers, and professionals can access the platform through different subscription tiers. The free plan offers limited searches and analyses, while paid plans unlock unlimited features. Student discounts are available with verified academic email addresses.

When using Consensus, you'll get paper summaries, citation tools, and quality indicators for each study. The platform updates its database monthly and maintains accuracy by only pulling from peer-reviewed sources.

Who is Consensus for?

Consensus is for anyone who needs fast, reliable access to scientific research without getting lost in academic jargon. This AI-powered search engine saves hours of research time by quickly summarizing findings from millions of peer-reviewed papers and showing you exactly where scientists agree or disagree.

  • Researchers and academics who need to quickly validate hypotheses or find supporting evidence across a massive database of scientific literature
  • Students working on research papers or theses who want to ensure their arguments are backed by credible, peer-reviewed sources
  • Healthcare professionals seeking evidence-based information to stay current with medical research or support clinical decisions
  • Content creators and journalists who need to fact-check scientific claims and provide accurate, research-backed information
  • Business professionals and knowledge workers who require reliable scientific data to inform product development, market research, or policy decisions
  • Educators who can create research alerts and integrate current scientific findings into teaching materials
  • Anyone who wants trustworthy answers to scientific questions without having to read dozens of complex research papers

Consensus is used across scientific, academic, healthcare, and media organizations where access to reliable, evidence-based information is crucial.

Online Reviews (Last 6 Months Summarised)

Users praise the Consensus Meter for visualizing yes/no/possibly consensus from literature with clear visual bars. The Deep Search feature simplifies literature reviews, providing analysis based on 50 papers. Researchers appreciate that it's trained specifically on academic texts from Semantic Scholar, making it more useful for academic work than general AI tools like ChatGPT, with automatic insight extraction and summaries from publications.

No deep linking feature. You have to read full PDFs to verify citations rather than jumping to specific passages. The app can be laggy for certain tasks and demands high CPU usage from browsers, which slows down workflow when doing extensive research.

Features

  • Consensus Meter: Gauge scientific consensus on research questions by revealing the degree of agreement or disagreement across peer-reviewed studies, showing the percentage of papers answering yes, no, possibly, or mixed.
  • Deep Search: Break complex questions into subtopics with structured, cited answers from up to 50 papers, creating a mini literature review.
  • Pro Analysis: Generate evidence-based content using AI that draws directly from scientific research, enabling you to draft summaries, lists, and insights with direct paper citations.
  • Advanced Search Filters: Refine research searches with options like study design, sample size, methodology, study duration, country, population, and journal prestige to find the most relevant and high-quality academic sources.
  • Study Snapshot: Access detailed research paper summaries with quick overviews of study aspects, quality indicators, and key findings to speed up your academic research process.
  • Smart Citation Tools: Generate citations in APA, MLA, and other formats directly from research papers to support academic writing.
  • Research Alerts: Get notifications when new research on your followed topics is released, keeping you up to date on the latest developments in your field.
  • Extensive Research Databases: Search through over 220 million research papers across multiple disciplines, with monthly updates.

Pricing

  • Free version offers 10 GPT-4 powered Pro Analyses per month, 10 Study Snapshots, 10 Ask Paper messages, 10 bookmarks, 1 custom list, unlimited searches across 220M+ research papers, and research quality indicators.
  • Pro plan costs $15 per month or $120 annually (equivalent to $10/month), providing 15 Deep Searches per month, unlimited Pro Analyses, unlimited Study Snapshots, unlimited Ask Paper messages, unlimited bookmarks, unlimited custom lists, and unlimited searches with research quality indicators.
  • Deep plan costs $65 per month or $540 annually (equivalent to $45/month), offering 200 Deep Searches per month plus all unlimited features from the Pro plan.
  • Teams Plan offers custom pricing with all Pro features plus 50 Deep Searches per month per user, discounts for up to 200 seats, centralized billing, and individual logins.
  • Enterprise Plan is tailored for large organizations, universities, and institutes with 200+ users, offering custom pricing by contacting pricing@consensus.app. Students can receive a 40% discount with verified academic email.

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the difference between Consensus Free and Pro plans?

The Free plan gives you 10 GPT-4 powered Pro Analyses, 10 Study Snapshots, and 10 Ask Paper messages per month. You'll also get unlimited searches across the 220M+ research papers database. Pro removes most of these limits and adds 15 Deep Searches per month - you get unlimited Pro Analyses, Study Snapshots, and Ask Paper messages, plus unlimited bookmarks and custom lists. If you're a student, you can get 40% off Pro with a verified .edu or .ac email.

How accurate is Consensus compared to doing my own research?

Consensus pulls from peer-reviewed scientific papers, so it's as accurate as the research it cites. Unlike doing Google searches where you might find mixed information, Consensus only uses verified academic sources. The key difference is speed - what might take you hours of reading papers can be done in seconds. Each finding links back to its source, so you can always check the original research if you need to verify anything.

Can I use Consensus for my research paper or thesis?

Yes! Many students and researchers use Consensus to speed up literature reviews and find relevant papers. The tool helps you identify key studies in your field and shows you where there's agreement or disagreement on a topic. The citation tools make it easy to properly cite sources in your work. Just remember that Consensus is a starting point - you should still read the full papers for critical analysis in academic work.

What's the difference between Quick, Pro, and Deep Search?

Quick Search analyzes 10 papers, Pro Search looks at 20 papers, and Deep Search examines up to 50 papers. Deep Search goes further by breaking complex questions into subtopics and providing structured, cited answers that work like a mini literature review. It's helpful when you need thorough analysis on a topic. Deep Searches are limited based on your plan - the Pro plan includes 15 per month, while the Deep plan gives you 200 per month.

How often is the Consensus database updated?

The database is updated monthly with new research papers. Currently, Consensus includes over 220 million papers across many scientific fields. The team works to add new papers as they become available, but there's always a slight delay between when research is published and when it appears in the database. You can set up research alerts to get notified when new papers on your followed topics are added.

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