Free to check. Free to go deeper. Pro when it's earned.
The scanner costs nothing and stores nothing. A free account raises every limit and unlocks the full breakdown. Paid plans arrive once they're worth paying for — and the free tier stays.
What each tier gets.
These are the limits actually enforced today, not marketing rounding.
| Anonymous | Free account | Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free — no card, 30-second signup | Coming soon |
| Characters per scan (≈ words) | 20,000 (~3,500 words) | 50,000 (~8,500 words) | Coming soon |
| Scans — fast pattern engine | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Deep analysis — language-model pass (the only metered scan) | Free account | 30 / hour · 300 / month | Coming soon |
| AI-leaning lines marked in your text | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| What's driving the score — patterns & fixes | — | ✓ full breakdown | ✓ |
| Mixed-document part scoring | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| File upload (.docx, .odt, .pdf, .txt, .md, .html) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| New accounts: a starter allowance (5 deep scans · 1 rewrite) until the email is verified — verification is free and instant. | |||
| Cleanup (strip machine formatting) — free & ungated, always | ✓ unlimited | ✓ unlimited + cleaned-file download & history | ✓ |
| Humanize & paraphrase (rewrite) | — | 15 runs / day · up to 1,500 words | 30,000 words / mo |
| Batch scan | — | 20 files or URLs at once | Coming soon |
| Check a live URL | 10 / hour | 40 / hour | Coming soon |
| History, compare & PDF reports | — | ✓ (kept 1 year) | ✓ |
| API access | — | ✓ personal key | Coming soon |
| Privacy | Nothing stored, ever | Stored only if you choose (per-scan toggle) | Same |
Beta limits — generous on purpose while we learn real usage; any tightening gets announced first. These are the limits we actually enforce in the backend — the real numbers, not marketing rounding.
Everything in the table, free while in beta — no card, 30-second signup.
Create the free account →Features, next to the big names.
The honest matrix — what we do, what they do, no accuracy theatre from anyone.
| ScanForAI | GPTZero | Originality.ai | Copyleaks | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free detector | ✓ full-featured | ✓ tight limits | — credit-based | ✓ small trial |
| AI lines marked in text | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Plain-English reasons per score | ✓ every scan | partial | — | — |
| Mixed-document part scoring | ✓ | ✓ | — | ✓ |
| Formatting cleanup tool | ✓ free | — | — | — |
| Rewrite help (honest humanize) | ✓ rolling out | — | — | — |
| Batch scanning | ✓ free account | paid | paid | paid |
| Scan a live URL | ✓ free | — | paid | paid |
| PDF evidence reports | ✓ free account | paid | paid | paid |
| API | ✓ free while in beta | paid | paid | paid |
| Anonymous scans stored? | Never | see policy | see policy | see policy |
| Plagiarism check | — (roadmap: citation check) | ✓ paid | ✓ | ✓ |
Competitor cells paraphrased from public pages, last reviewed July 2026; plans change — check gptzero.me, originality.ai and copyleaks.com for current terms. All trademarks belong to their owners; ScanForAI is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of them. We publish no accuracy percentages for anyone — here's why.
Pricing questions, answered straight.
How much text can I scan at once?
20,000 characters (about 3,500 words) with no account, 50,000 characters (about 8,500 words) on a free account — a full paper or long article in one scan, where many AI checkers cap you around 5,000 characters.
Is ScanForAI really free?
Yes. The scanner is free without an account, and a free account unlocks the full breakdown, deep analysis, batch, history and the API — no card, no trial clock. We're in beta and say so plainly.
What happens when paid plans launch?
The free tier stays — the scanner and a generous free account are permanent, not a beta trick. Paid adds volume and team features on top. Beta limits may get tuned as we learn real usage, and we'll announce changes before they happen.
What will Pro cost?
Not locked yet — comparable tools cluster around $10–25/month, and we intend to undercut on value rather than race on marketing claims. Creating a free account is the best way to hear when it lands.
What counts as a deep scan?
A scan that also runs our trained language model for the strongest read (the Deep toggle). Regular scans use the fast pattern engine and are unlimited on every plan — as is Cleanup. Only deep scans (the language-model pass) are metered, since they're the only ones with a real per-scan compute cost.
Do you offer team or education plans?
Planned after Pro. If you're a school or a content team with real volume today, write to us — beta capacity is negotiable.