Models
A mixture of models, cross-checked.
Every frontier model (Claude, GPT, Gemini, Mistral, Grok) alongside our own, routed per sub-task and made to check each other. No single-model bias.
Explore Science vs Reviewer3
Reviewer3 returns reviewer-style technical feedback in under ten minutes for $9. Explore Science takes up to two hours and returns a scored assessment you can revise against.
The short answer
Choose Explore Science when the question is how strong the paper is and whether the revision improved it: up to two hours of cross-checked analysis, a Calibre score out of 100 across eight categories, every reference checked against live databases for whether it resolves and whether it supports the claim attached to it, and dimension-level movement between drafts. Reviewer3 is the leaner buy if you only need a same-day scan for obvious breakage, and at $9 a review it is hard to beat on price. If the paper is going somewhere you care about, the deeper read is the one that changes the outcome.
Compared July 2026 · from Reviewer3's own published materials
Choose Explore Science when
- Goes deep: up to two hours of cross-checked analysis behind a Calibre score out of 100 across eight categories, where Reviewer3 publishes agreement benchmarks rather than a score for your paper.
- Names the models behind the review (Claude, GPT, Gemini, Mistral, Grok and our in-house Explorer One) and has them check each other; Reviewer3 describes a multi-agent system but does not name the models running it.
- Checks each reference for two things, that it resolves and that it supports the claim attached to it, and flags the failures where they sit in your manuscript.
- Scores every version and shows which dimensions moved draft to draft, in a shared workspace your co-authors can join.
- Assesses novelty, which Reviewer3 states it deliberately does not do, and adds Rosa, a chat briefed on your paper, its review and your wider body of work.
Choose Reviewer3 when
- Faster: feedback in under ten minutes against our two hours, the right trade the night before a deadline.
- Cheaper: $9 for a single review, $19 a month for unlimited re-reviews.
- Sends straight from bioRxiv: preprint authors can submit to Reviewer3 from the bioRxiv Author Area.
- SOC 2 Type II certified, with reviews shareable by password-protected link.
- AI-generated-text detection is a named, built-in integrity check, where Explore Science runs AI-detection and plagiarism as plug-ins.
Side by side
| Capability |  | Reviewer3 |
|---|---|---|
| What it reviews | Manuscripts, protocols and grant proposals, editorial passes, and a standalone novelty assessment | Papers and grants: integrity checks plus a review of validity, sufficiency and transparency; states it does not assess novelty or significance |
| Turnaround | Up to 2 hours, emailed when it lands so you are not waiting at the screen | Under 10 minutes |
| Review engine | Named mixture: Claude, GPT, Gemini, Mistral and Grok alongside our in-house Explorer One, cross-checking each other | Multi-agent screening with an editorial meta-review; Gemini named inside the reference checker, the review models not named |
| Quality score | Calibre: a single score out of 100 across eight published categories | No score for your paper; publishes human-agreement benchmarks instead |
| Reference checking | Every reference checked for resolution and for claim support; failures flagged in place in your manuscript | Reference checker over OpenAlex and CrossRef; 98.5% accuracy on a published 476-citation benchmark |
| AI-text detection | Available as a plug-in | Named, built-in integrity check |
| Published benchmarks | Rubric and per-criterion scores published; no third-party benchmark | ReviewBench (145,000+ review comments) and a reference-checker benchmark, both public |
| Revisions | Each version scored, with dimension-level movement shown draft to draft | Unlimited re-reviews on the monthly plan; no version comparison described publicly |
| Paper-grounded chat | Rosa, briefed on the manuscript, its review and your published record | Not described in Reviewer3's public materials |
| Pricing | Free to start; $49 for a single one-time review, or monthly plans from $99 with a usage allowance | $9 one-time; $19/mo unlimited; Teams by contact sales |
90% rate a review on par with or better than the human peer review they have had.
Two in three rate it better. From 304 head-to-head ratings by researchers who had received peer review on the same paper. These are our own users, self-reported, which is worth knowing when you weigh them.
Depth
Why a thorough review takes the time it takes.
Most tools optimize for speed. Explore Science runs the engine we built to conduct original research autonomously, and points it at your manuscript: it reads recent literature in your field, checks every reference, and works through the paper the way a careful reviewer does.
The time is the method, not an overhead on it.
How a paper is scoredTime spent thinking about your paper
How long a review actually takes
Single-pass LLM
~2 min
Other AI reviewers
5 to 20 min
Human peer review
(active reading time)
~30 min
Explore Science
up to 2 hrs
Industry observation; self-reported vendor figures; Publons peer-review time survey, 2018.
The engine
What actually reads your paper.
Three pieces of the architecture do the work behind every review.
Agents
Scientific agents that reason like the field.
Dozens of specialised agents work each review in parallel, each tuned to one dimension of analysis, spawning more when a section needs them.
Infrastructure
An in-house science stack.
Memory that holds your paper in context for the whole review, live verification of every citation, and novelty assessment. Built over years of autonomous science.
Where the two reference checks diverge
Reviewer3 documents its reference work in unusual detail: a checker running over OpenAlex and CrossRef, benchmarked at 98.5% accuracy and 98.3% precision across 476 real and AI-fabricated citations, returning each entry as found or not found. On fabricated citations that is a well-evidenced tool, and the benchmark is open enough to argue with.
Explore Science asks the next question. A reference can exist, resolve cleanly and still not support the sentence it is hung on, and that mismatch is what a reviewer writes you up for. Every entry is checked both ways, existence and claim support, and the failures are flagged at the point in your paper where they are cited.
Reviewer3 stops where the judgment starts
Reviewer3 is explicit about its boundary: it complements human judgment, and it states it does not score novelty or significance, leaving contribution to human experts. That is a defensible line to draw, and it is also the line most authors need crossed before they submit, because what decides a desk reject is whether the work is new and whether it holds together as a whole.
Explore Science scores the whole paper across eight categories, runs a separate novelty assessment against the literature, and keeps the result attached to the manuscript so the next draft is measured against the last rather than read cold.
Common questions
What does Reviewer3 cost, and how does that compare?
Reviewer3 publishes $9 for a one-time review and $19 a month for unlimited reviews, with Teams pricing by contact sales. Explore Science is free to start; a single one-time review is $49, and monthly plans start at $99 with an allowance covering reviews and chat rather than per-review metering. For one scan of one paper Reviewer3 is cheaper; the $49 one-time review is the fairer comparison if you want the deep read without a subscription.
Can I use either one on a grant proposal?
Both accept grants. Reviewer3 runs the same technical checks on a grant as on a paper. Explore Science has a dedicated protocol and proposal pass that reads for design, feasibility and the evidence behind the claims the application rests on, and scores it the way a manuscript is scored, so a resubmission can be measured against the last attempt.
Do Reviewer3 or Explore Science train AI on my manuscript?
Neither. Reviewer3 states manuscripts are processed for review only, are never used for AI training, and are not sold or licensed, with deletion requests processed within 30 days, and it is SOC 2 Type II certified. Explore Science does not train models on your manuscript and lets you permanently delete any paper from your workspace.
Reviewer3 publishes benchmarks. Does Explore Science?
Reviewer3 does, and it is the strongest material on their site: ReviewBench compares 145,000+ human and AI review comments across three disciplines, and the reference checker is benchmarked on 476 citations. Explore Science publishes the rubric instead of an aggregate: the eight Calibre categories, the per-criterion scores behind the total, and the resolution status of every reference, so you audit the reasoning on your own paper rather than trust a headline number.
Claims about Reviewer3 reflect its own published materials; everything about Explore Science reflects what the platform does today. Sources: Reviewer3 pricing, Reviewer3 security, Reviewer3 reference checker benchmark, Reviewer3 and bioRxiv. Something out of date? and we will fix it.
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