Introducing credits: a more flexible PaperCheck
Hey everyone, Yves here. We've reworked how PaperCheck is billed. The three plans you know (Basic, Plus, Ultimate) are still here, but the way you spend on them is now credit-based, transparent up front, and easier to size to your actual work.
What's new at a glance
- Credits, not papers. 1 credit = 100 words analysed.
- Two billing modes. One-time for a single submission, monthly while you iterate.
- A credit calculator. Tell us your word count and timeline, we recommend a plan.
- Cost preview on every check. You confirm the credit cost before any check runs.
- Auto-refund on failure. If something goes wrong, credits return to your balance.
- Same three tiers. Plus unlocks plagiarism. Ultimate adds the largest custom-checks budget.
Why we moved to credits
The old "one paper, one price" model didn't fit how PaperCheck is actually used. Some users upload a 6,000-word seminar paper once. Others iterate on a 50,000-word dissertation across three months and want plagiarism and defense practice on top. A single price for both never made sense.
Credits decouple the plan from the work. You buy a budget, and every action (a full review, a plagiarism scan, a defense session) draws from it at a known rate. No surprises mid-flow, and short chapters cost short-chapter amounts.
What a credit buys you
The unit is simple: 1 credit covers 100 words.
- Full feedback costs about 1 credit for every 100 words. A 12,300-word chapter is around 123 credits.
- Plagiarism check (Plus / Ultimate) debits the same rate against the body text it scans, on top of the analysis.
- Defense Studio voice practice (Plus / Ultimate) debits 1 credit per whole minute of live conversation.
- Custom checks share the analysis budget. No separate meter.
If a check fails, every credit it debited is reverted automatically. Nothing to claim, no support ticket.
Pick a plan the way you actually work
Three tiers, each available as a one-time purchase or a monthly subscription:
- Basic: 150 credits one-time or 50 / month. Full feedback. No plagiarism, no voice practice.
- Plus: 500 credits one-time or 250 / month. Adds plagiarism check, defense practice, and up to 18 custom checks.
- Ultimate: 1,000 credits one-time or 700 / month. Everything in Plus, plus up to 45 custom checks.
One-time is the right pick for a "deadline is tomorrow" submission. Monthly is built for the way researchers and PhD candidates actually work: chapter by chapter, across weeks. Monthly credits roll over for up to 12 months from each grant, so a quiet month isn't a wasted month.
Find your plan in seconds
Not sure which tier fits? We built a credit calculator. Tell it how long your paper is, when you plan to submit, and whether you want plagiarism or defense practice. It returns the cheapest plan that covers your usage, one-time or monthly.
See the cost before you spend
Before any analysis runs, you see the exact credit cost on a confirmation step: how many credits the full review will take, plus plagiarism if it's enabled, plus your selected checks. You can adjust the selection, you can cancel, and you only spend what you confirmed.
The same applies to plagiarism: the plagiarism page tells you the cost and whether the upload is already covered.
A simpler pricing page, smarter in-app pricing
The public pricing page stays high-level: three tiers, what each unlocks, the price. The per-check math lives where it matters: inside the app, at the moment you're about to spend. We don't want anyone calculating credits before they've even uploaded.
Expiry rules, in plain words
- One-time credits: 6 months from purchase. Plenty of time for one thesis, with a clear horizon so old balances don't pile up.
- Monthly credits: 12 months from each monthly grant. Cancellation immediately expires unused monthly credits, so the subscription model stays honest.
What this shifts for us at PaperCheck
To be transparent, this changes a lot on our end too:
- A model that grows with how people actually write. Researchers and PhD candidates work chapter by chapter across months. A one-shot purchase never matched that workflow. Credits do.
- Better-aligned incentives. Your spend now tracks the work we actually do for you. That keeps us honest about making every check worth its credits.
- Heavy features stay viable without silent caps. Plagiarism scans and bibliography verification cost real money to run. Pricing them per word means they can stay deep and accurate instead of being subsidised by lighter users.
- Room to grow beyond the final submission. A subscription model lets us treat PaperCheck as an ongoing companion for academic writing, not just a tool you visit once at the end.
We didn't move to credits because the old prices were wrong. We moved because the old unit, "one paper", stopped matching the way PaperCheck actually delivers value.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Do I still pay per paper? No. You buy credits and spend them on whatever combination of reviews, plagiarism scans, and defense sessions you need.
Q: How much does a typical thesis cost? A 15,000-word thesis runs ~150 credits for a full review. Adding plagiarism on Plus or Ultimate roughly doubles that. The calculator will give you a precise estimate.
Q: Do credits expire? One-time credits expire 6 months from purchase. Monthly credits expire 12 months from each grant, or immediately on subscription cancellation.
Q: Can I upgrade later? Yes. Basic upgrades to Plus or Ultimate, Plus upgrades to Ultimate, and you only pay the price difference. Upgrade prompts surface in-app when a feature you need lives in a higher tier.
Q: What happens if a check fails? Credits are refunded to your balance automatically. The plagiarism check works the same way: failed scans give the credits back.
Q: Does plagiarism cost extra? It draws from the same credit balance, at 1 credit per 100 words of body text. It's gated to Plus and Ultimate because the cost to run it scales with paper length.
Ready to try?
Estimate your usage with the calculator, then pick the plan that fits.
From Yves, 17th May 2026
