10 Best Paid & Free Citation Generators (Features & Costs)

• Nov 05, 2024
• 6 min read

• Tags: Academic Writing, Citations and References

If you hate dealing with citations, we get you. They’re tedious, time-consuming and so, so boring. But this can get much easier if you use a free citation generator! All you need is a list of the ten best free citation generators in 2024.

These tools include MLA, Chicago, and APA citation generators. Looking for a specific citation format?  We’ve listed tools generating citations in 50,000+ style guides!

Here are the ten best citation generators in 2024:

1. Citation Machine
2. Zotero
3. SciSpace APA Citation Generator
4. BibMe
5. Cite This For Me
6. Opendemia
7. Citefast
8. Paperpile
9. EasyBib
10. Mendeley Cite

Wait! If you’re new to citation generators, here’s a very, very quick explanation of what they do! (Skip this section if you already know.) 

What is a citation generator? 

A citation generator is a tool that creates citations after you: 1) choose a style and 2) provide important details (author’s name, source name, date of publication, etc.) 

Unhappy with the citation generated? You can add/delete details and generate the citation once again. 

The best part? They have many benefits! (Skip the section below if you know all the benefits) 

Why use paid or free citation generators?  

Citations are important to make your research credible. They also establish you as an expert in the field. For this reason alone, your citations need to be perfect, no matter what style you follow. 

These user-friendly tools boost efficiency and save costs. Plus, they also help to avoid plagiarism! 

Convinced enough to try citation generators? Let’s see the features of the ten best citation generators in 2024:

1. Citation Machine

Citation Machine is extremely simple to use for those pursuing research, especially students. It has an impressive variety of citation styles, making it the most flexible citation tool. As an added bonus, it is also great for citing audio and films.

The tool has a paid version, but upgrading to it might prove useless if the only thing you’re looking for is citations. With the free version of this citation generator, you can: 

• Add your references (including bibliography) directly to your paper.
• Cite 57 different types of resources, including films and podcasts.
• Use the ‘auto-fill tool’ for resources by simply searching for the title of the resource.
• Create citations in Chicago, MLA, APA, and more than 7,000 other styles. 

Paid plan

Citation Machine’s paid version offers all the features in its free version. At $9.95 a month, however, you can:

• Check up to 30 papers for plagiarism every month.
• Work on unlimited papers every month.
• Get in-depth feedback from experts within 24 hours.

2. Zotero 

Zotero is an open-source tool, completely free to use.  It is available both as a browser extension and an add-on for Word. No more rifling through web pages to generate your citations! Aside from being a good citation generator, Zotero also senses research on the web that you can use.

Here are the benefits of using Zotero:

• Directly create citations in a Word or Google document
• Over 100,000 citation styles
• Tag your sources with keywords and create collections to organize your work
• Co-write a paper with ease
• Generate a bibliography with multiple people
• Make changes to the source code to suit your needs

Paid plan

Zotero is a free platform and there is no paid version that offers you extra features. However, if you’re a heavy researcher, you can purchase a storage capacity of more than 2GB for $20 per year.

With this, Zotero also offers one of the best bibliography generators for 10,000+ styles, including APA, MLA, and Chicago.

3. SciSpace APA Citation Generator 

SciSpace’s free APA Citation Generator is among its various tools designed to make writing easier for students and researchers. While it’s primarily designed for those in the scientific field, the tool supports a wide variety of citation styles.

This citation generator helps you:

• • • Cite in more than 9,000 citation styles with superior AI support.
    • Compile your bibliography as you create in-text citations and reference entries.
    • Export the APA- or MLA-formatted output directly as BibTex files (if you’re using LatTeX).

This tool greatly reduces the manual effort involved in generating citations online. The AI extracts all the relevant information required for your citations and ensures that there are no missing details. This makes it one of the best APA citation generators.

This tool has both free and paid versions. 

Paid plan

The paid plan costs $8 per month.

4. BibMe

BibMe is direct and to the point. It is one of the most functional citation generators, with features similar to Citation Machine. This citation generator helps you:

• • • Create citations in four styles: MLA, APA, Chicago, and Turabian.
    • Add citations and a bibliography directly to your paper.
    • Perform easy searches for your source, both print and digital, by author name, title, or ISBN.
    • Receive up to 20 suggestions on improving your essay. This includes style, punctuation, grammar, and sentence structure.

Between Citation Machine and BibMe, Chegg has two of the best free citation generators so far!

Paid plan

BibMe’s paid version comes at $9.95 per month, after a free trial of three days. However, the premium plan isn’t absolutely essential to anyone looking only for citations. It offers you:

• • • Checks for missing citations and plagiarism
    • Unlimited suggestions to help improve your paper

5. Cite This For Me

Another citation generation tool by Chegg, Cite This For Me has a simple and easy-to-use layout. It’s primarily an APA, MLA, and Chicago citation generator, but also supports many other citation styles. Its auto-cite feature also helps you search for your source material with ease.

This citation tool is a bit heavy on the ads, However, it features a blog and citation guides for the most prominent styles. Its free version helps you:

• • • Easily create citations using Harvard, MLA, and APA styles for over 30 types of resources.
    • Search for sources easily by title, author, or ISBN.
    • Download a finished bibliography and share it with your friends.

Paid plan

You can set up a premium account at $9.99 per month. Along with an ad-free experience, you get the following features:

• • • A plagiarism check on your essay or paper
    • Unlimited grammar checks for your writing
    • The option to save your work as you progress
    • The option to work on several bibliographies at once
    • The ability to export your citations to Word

We recommend working with the free version if you only need to create citations occasionally. You can use specialized grammar and plagiarism checking tools or approach a paper editing service for a superior review.

6. Opendemia

Opendemia is more than just a citation generator. It helps you create an automated Works Cited page as well as in-text citations. It also allows you to take notes on the spot and store them, so you can retrieve them later.

The best feature of Opendemia is that it allows you to store your citations throughout your entire research tenure. By the time your college or tenure ends, you get an entire library of handy resources!

Opendemia’s free version helps you:

• • • Upload images and cite them.
    • Store your notes and citations for individual projects.
    • Collaborate with ease on group projects
    • Add PDF versions of your sources and access them on any device
    • Highlight the exact location of an excerpt or quote from a cited source
    • Add comments with your sources
    • Flag the sources you’ve used so they automatically appear on your Works Cited page

Paid plan

The paid version for Opendemia costs $10 per semester. It helps you:

• • • Have an uninterrupted, ad-free experience.
    • Create more than one shared folder.
    • Cite more than 15 sources per project.

Opendemia’s incredibly organized layout is geared toward reducing students’ stress. It makes citations relaxing, and if that isn’t impressive, we don’t know what is!

7. Citefast 

Citefast is a completely free citation generator that’s basic but efficient. However, it’s a Chicago, APA, and MLA citation generator and does not support more styles. If you want to retain your citations for longer than four days, you’ll have to create a free account.

Citefast helps you:

• • • Generate citations in APA, MLA, and Chicago styles.
    • Find your sources quickly for automatic citations.
    • Cite 18 different types of source materials.
    • Learn from a comprehensive list of citation pointers for APA, MLA, and Chicago styles.
    • Export your citations easily.

Paid plan

There are no paid plans for this citation generator.

8. Paperpile 

Paperpile is a reference management platform for the web. It’s available in various formats, including versions for iOS, Android, and Word.

This free citation generator helps you:

• • • Collate your references using the web extension.
    • Cite using the Chicago, MLA, APA, and many more styles.
    • Organize all your material in Google Drive.
    • Access your PDF collection across devices.
    • Generate citations in Google Docs and Word.

Paid plan 

You need to pay $2.99/month for the Academic package or $9.99/month for the business package.

9. EasyBib

While EasyBib is a popular tool among students, it still ranks lower in our list of the best citation tools. This is because EasyBib is a free MLA citation generator and requires a paid subscription to cite using other styles. Its Chrome extension for Google Docs is slightly more accurate than the web version.

EasyBib’s free version helps you:

• • • Cite using the MLA style.
    • Use the auto-cite tool to search for sources using the title, ISBN, or author name.
    • Cite over 50 types of sources, both digital and print.
    • Save your citations.
    • Check your paper for up to five grammar mistakes.

Paid plans

EasyBib Plus is $9.95 per month after a free trial. With this plan, you can:

• • • Create citations using APA, Chicago, and over 7000 other styles.
    • Create in-text citations and footnotes.
    • Check your paper for unlimited grammar errors.
    • Check your paper for plagiarism.
    • Get expert help on up to 30 papers per month.

With an extra upgrade of $19.95 per month, you can also get:

• • • Expert help on unlimited papers
    • Textbook solutions and Q&A with a subject expert
    • Practice problems with video solutions for technical subjects
    • An instant math solver

Suffice it to say that this is an impressive list of services, making EasyBib one of the best citation creators. 

10. Mendeley Cite 

Primarily a Word plug-in, Mendeley Cite lets you easily create citations while you work. Mendeley’s Reference Manager and Web Importer in combination with their plug-in help you search, store, and create your citations seamlessly.

Their free plan provides users with 2GB of storage space. 

This citation generator helps you:

• • • Cite in more than 8,000 styles and manually edit your citations.
    • View your whole document as you search and cite your sources using the plug-in.
    • Store your sources and access them on multiple devices.
    • Highlight and note relevant sections from your sources.
    • Collaborate with others on a project.

Paid plans

At $55 per year, the paid plan offers higher storage of 5 GB.

They have two more premium plans. The Pro package includes 10 GB storage for $110 per year and the Max package includes unlimited storage for $165 per year.

How to evaluate these citation generators? 

The following are some parameters to evaluate these citation generators: 

Now that you know the best citation makers, you can choose the best one for your document. However, these tools also have limitations. 

To eliminate any errors, you can consider opting for PaperTrue’s services. Our trained editors cross-check and refine your references, ensuring they follow the required style guide. To further enhance your document, you can also use our academic editing services. 

Have you used any of the paid and free citation sites mentioned in this list? Share your thoughts in the comments section! 

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Tanvi

With a foundation in Life Sciences, Tanvi enjoys curating technical writing tips tailored for ESL students. When she's not translating complex concepts into bite-sized nuggets, she can be found playing with dogs or painting landscapes.