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Mendeley pricing, features, company info, and alternatives

A factual product page for Mendeley as a reference manager suite for research libraries and citations.

Last updated April 2026 ยท Pricing and features verified against official documentation

Categories Research & Knowledge
Starting price $4.99/month
Company Elsevier
Launched 2008
Verified Apr 15, 2026

Pricing

Current public pricing tiers on file for Mendeley, last verified Apr 15, 2026.

Free

$0

Includes 2GB storage and 5 Reading Assistant questions.

Plus

$4.99 / month

$55/year when billed yearly; yearly plans include one month free.

Pro

$9.99 / month

$110/year when billed yearly; yearly plans include one month free.

Max

$14.99 / month

$165/year when billed yearly; yearly plans include one month free.

What You Can Do With It

The main capabilities that shape how people use Mendeley today.

Build and sync a personal library across desktop and web with collections, tags, search, and automatic cloud backup.

Capture papers from the browser with Mendeley Web Importer and import PDFs or folders directly into the library.

Annotate PDFs, save highlights and notes into Mendeley Notebook, and collaborate through shared groups.

Insert citations and bibliographies in Microsoft Word with Mendeley Cite, while paid plans add Reading Assistant, Ask My Library, and Compare Experiments.

Best For

Who Mendeley is most clearly built for.

Researchers who want a synced reference library with browser capture and Word citation support.

People who annotate PDFs heavily and want highlights, notes, and group sharing kept together in one workflow.

Users who want AI-assisted reading tied to their own paper library rather than a standalone chat tool.

Company

Leadership and company context for Elsevier.

Founders

Paul Foeckler, Victor Henning, Jan Reichelt

Platforms

Where you can use Mendeley today.

Web

Windows

macOS

Linux

Chrome

Firefox

Microsoft Word

Integrations

Notable connected tools and ecosystem hooks for Mendeley.

Microsoft Word

Privacy Notes

Publicly stated data-handling notes that matter when evaluating Mendeley.

The terms say the services are provided by Mendeley Limited and that the site privacy policy is part of the terms of use.

Mendeley says synced library data is stored in the cloud and that it will not publish private or personally identifiable data unless you choose to share it.

The terms say Mendeley may extract metadata from uploaded content for indexing and improved searchability.

Compliance

Public compliance or enterprise-governance signals we found for Mendeley.

WCAG 2.1 AA (partial)

Section 508

Access

How to integrate or build around Mendeley.

Public API

Yes

Docs

Available

Alternatives

Other tools worth considering alongside Mendeley.

Zotero

Free, open-source reference manager for collecting, organizing, annotating, and citing research.

Paperpile

Web-first reference manager for collecting, organizing, citing, and annotating research papers.

EndNote

Reference manager for collecting, organizing, citing, and syncing research libraries across desktop, web, and iOS.

ResearchRabbit

AI literature review tool for discovering papers, tracing citation networks, and organizing collections.

Product Snapshot

Mendeley is a reference manager suite for collecting papers, organizing a library, annotating PDFs, and inserting citations in Microsoft Word.

What You Can Do With It

Why It Stands Out

It packages reference capture, synced storage, PDF annotation, Word citation tooling, and library-aware AI features into one workflow instead of splitting those jobs across separate products.

Tradeoffs To Know

Sources
  1. mendeley.com/pricing
  2. mendeley.com/reference-management/reference-manager
  3. elsevier.com/about
  4. blog.mendeley.com/2008/08/13/press-release-research-sharing-start-up-mendeley-launches-with-support-of-lastfm-chairman-and-skypes-former-founding-engineers
  5. mendeley.com/download-reference-manager/windows
  6. mendeley.com/reference-management/mendeley-cite
  7. static.mendeley.com/md-stitch/releases/live/web-importer-content.4c50e9be.html
  8. mendeley.com/reference-management/premium
  9. mendeley.com/download-reference-manager/macOS
  10. mendeley.com/download-reference-manager/linux
  11. static.mendeley.com/md-stitch/releases/live/terms-content.28b53a1f.html
  12. static.mendeley.com/md-stitch/releases/live/07-syncing.d470f3b7.html
  13. static.mendeley.com/md-stitch/releases/live/07-how-sync-works.0b6692e3.html
  14. mendeley.com/accessibility
  15. dev.mendeley.com/overview/how_to_use_the_api.html
  16. mendeley.com/guides