Explainpaper
Explainpaper is a browser-based AI reading tool for research papers. Highlight any confusing passage and it returns a plain-language explanation in context, at the level you choose. You can also ask the paper questions directly.
What is Explainpaper?
Explainpaper is a browser-based reading assistant for academic literature. You upload a research paper, highlight the passage that loses you, and the tool returns a plain-language explanation that takes the rest of the document into account. The homepage puts it bluntly: Highlight confusing text and get instant, simple explanations. No more drowning in jargon. The site organizes the product around three blocks. In-Context Explanations reads the full paper before answering, lets you set the complexity from beginner to expert level, and claims support for more than 50 languages. Chat with Your Paper answers questions from the paper's actual content rather than general knowledge, cites the section an answer comes from and suggests follow-ups. Auto-Generated Insights produces outlines, key findings, main arguments and relationships between concepts. The free plan covers unlimited highlight explanations, follow-up questions, Zotero library import and what the site calls basic AI models. Pro adds advanced models, whole-paper summaries, saved highlights and Math Explain for formulas and figures. An account is required. There is no mobile app, no browser extension and no API, and no AI provider or model is ever named.
What it does
- Explain a highlighted passage of a research paper, in the context of the whole document
- Adjust the complexity of the explanation, from beginner to expert level
- Return explanations in the reader's own language, with 50+ languages claimed
- Chat with the paper, answering from its actual content rather than general knowledge
- Cite the relevant section and point the reader straight back to it, with follow-up questions
- Summarize a whole paper and auto-generate outlines, key points and links between concepts
- Explain mathematical formulas and figures through Math Explain, on the Pro plan
When to use Explainpaper / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Explainpaper is the right fit.
When to use Explainpaper
- Researchers and PhD students reading literature outside their own specialism
- Students opening a scientific paper for the first time and hitting the jargon wall
- AI and machine learning practitioners, the community every homepage testimonial comes from
- Non-native English readers, since explanations can be returned in the reader's own language
- Zotero users, who can pull an existing library into the reader on the free plan
When not to use Explainpaper
- Developers looking for an API: there is none, and no developer documentation anywhere on the site
- Anyone who needs a mobile app, as Explainpaper is browser-only with no iOS or Android release
- Teams in regulated environments or under legal review, since no terms of service and no privacy policy are published
- Organizations that require a GDPR statement, a DPA or hosting commitments before approving a vendor
- Writers and authors: this is a reading tool, not a drafting or bibliography manager beyond the Zotero import
How to use Explainpaper
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Create an account: the 'Try Free' and 'Upload Your First Paper' buttons both lead to the sign-up page, and no credit card is required
- Upload a research paper as a PDF
- Or import an existing Zotero library instead of uploading files one at a time
- Set the explanation level to match how comfortable you are with the subject, from beginner to expert
- Choose the language you want your explanations in
- Highlight the passage in the paper that you do not understand
- Read the explanation, generated in the context of the whole document
- Ask the paper follow-up questions and keep the thread going until the point is clear
- Check the auto-generated outline and key points to get the overall structure
- Upgrade to Pro for whole-paper summaries, Math Explain and saved highlights, with a 7-day trial that requires a card on file
Pros & Cons
Pros
- A permanently free plan with no card required, including unlimited highlight explanations
- Low paid entry point: 12 USD per month billed annually, 16 USD per month billed monthly
- A 7-day Pro trial, plus a 14-day money-back guarantee on Pro subscriptions
- Nothing to install, since it runs in the browser and sign-up reportedly 'Takes 30 seconds'
- The adjustable explanation level lets the same tool serve a first-year student and a specialist
- Answers are anchored in the paper's own content and refer back to the relevant sections
- An established product: domain live since October 2022, with 400,000+ users claimed
Cons
- No privacy policy and no terms of service are published, with /privacy, /terms and their variants all returning a 404, even though the service takes in uploaded documents
- No GDPR statement, no DPA, and nothing on where data is hosted or whether uploads train the models
- No legal entity is named, no postal address is published, and the only contact route is the generic founders@ email address
- The Fulfillment Policy, the one contractual document online, refers to the service under a different name, 'EP Vibes'
- No API, no mobile app and no browser extension: web access only
- The Teams plan carries no public price, and the Pro trial requires a card on file
- No AI model or provider is ever named, only 'basic' and 'advanced AI models', and the site itself is very thin, with four internal links and no about, contact or documentation pages
Pricing & Plans
A free plan is available on a permanent basis, described by the publisher as 'Free for everyone, forever.' and billed at 0 USD per month. The lowest paid entry point is the Pro plan at 12.00 USD per month when billed annually, the pricing page indicating a 25% saving against the monthly rate of 16.00 USD per month. The Teams plan is quoted on request only, with no public price. Payments are processed through Stripe, and Pro may be tested through a 7-day trial that requires a card on file.
- unlimited highlight explanations
- follow-up questions
- Zotero library import and basic AI models
- Math Explain for formulas and figures
- advanced AI models
- whole-paper summaries
- saved highlights and explanations
- and questions about the paper
- with a 7-day trial
- everything in Pro
- plus team management
- priority support and volume discounts
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Explainpaper handles your data.
GDPR overview
There is no GDPR information of any kind on the Explainpaper website. Across the pages reviewed, in both visible text and archived HTML, the terms 'GDPR', 'DPA', 'data processing agreement', 'sub-processor', 'SOC 2', 'ISO 27001' and 'HIPAA' do not appear once. No privacy policy is published: /privacy and /privacy-policy both return a 404. No EU representative under Article 27 is named, no legal entity is identified and no postal address is given. The only contact route published anywhere on the site is the address founders@explainpaper.com. This is an absence of public documentation rather than proof of non-compliance: the publisher may well have internal practices, but none of them are stated publicly, so a European user has no document to rely on and no declared route for exercising their rights.
Hosting summary
The publisher documents nothing about data hosting. There is no privacy page, no security page and no trust page, with /privacy and /security both returning a 404, and no country, region or subprocessor is declared anywhere on the site. The only third party named across the whole site is Stripe, for payment collection: 'All payments are processed securely through Stripe. We do not store your credit card information on our servers.' That statement, on the Fulfillment Policy page, covers card details only and says nothing about the papers you upload or the conversations you have with them. A network lookup carried out on 13 August 2026 shows the domain resolving to 216.150.1.1, announced by AS16509 Amazon.com Inc. and geolocated in the United States, with the address flagged as an anycast node. That is a technical indication about the infrastructure serving the site, not a published commitment from the publisher about where user data is stored or processed. Anyone who needs a hosting location in writing will not find one here.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Explainpaper.
- No public document says what happens to the papers you upload, so an unpublished manuscript, an embargoed paper or a confidential report should not go through this tool
- Nothing states whether user content is used to train the models, and no opt-out is documented
- No jurisdiction or hosting country is announced, so there is no way to know which law your data falls under
- Cognitive dependence: reading the explanation instead of the paper can erode critical reading and the ability to decode a field's jargon
- A generated explanation can oversimplify or get a technical point wrong, and a non-specialist reader has no way of catching it
- Over-trusting an automatic summary when running a literature review or deciding what to cite
- The Pro trial requires a card on file, so it bills automatically if you forget to cancel, and with no legal or privacy contact, an erasure request has only a generic address to reach
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Getting started is as easy as it gets. Nothing to install: Explainpaper runs in the browser. You create a free account, with no card required and a homepage promising it 'Takes 30 seconds', then upload a PDF and start highlighting. There is no configuration, no API key and no settings to work through beforehand. The only slightly technical step is optional: importing an existing Zotero library. Anyone who can open a PDF will manage on the first attempt.
Deployment
Integrations
Supported languages
Behind Explainpaper
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Frequently asked questions
What does Explainpaper do?
Is there a free version?
How much does the paid plan cost?
Is there a trial, and can I get a refund?
What does Pro add over the free plan?
Does Explainpaper publish a privacy policy or terms of service?
Should you pick Explainpaper?
Explainpaper does one thing and does it end to end: making research papers readable. You upload a paper, highlight what confuses you, and get an explanation pitched at the level you choose. The barrier to entry is minimal, free forever, no card, nothing to install, and Pro at 12 to 16 USD per month is modest. The domain has been live since October 2022 and the site claims more than 400,000 users, so this is no weekend project. The counterweight is serious: no privacy policy, no terms of service, no named legal entity, no address and no GDPR statement anywhere, and the one contractual document online covers billing and refunds only, under a different name, 'EP Vibes'. Fine for individual reading of published papers; not something to point at confidential manuscripts, or at any institution that requires a DPA.
- Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.
- Opens in a new window.