shouldiuse.io

VERDICT

Should I use ReadCube?

Need literature management for your research driven company? ReadCube helps your company discover, organize, read, annotate, share and cite. - papersapp.com

Depends. Buy it if research literature is core to your company's output — Moderna and Boehringer Ingelheim case studies back that up. Skip it if you just need to store a few papers; free Zotero or Mendeley handles that fine.

Confidence

Medium. Based on 20+ public sources; pricing partly dated (2022 listing), and several review snippets were truncated.

Ratings

  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Feature depth
  • Support qualityNo support evidence found
  • Security posture

Pricing

From $3/mo

Individual

ModelNot disclosed
Monthly feesNot disclosed
HardwareNot disclosed
GroupNot publicly listed

Best for

  • Research-driven companies and R&D teams
  • Pharma, biotech and medical affairs groups
  • Labs sharing and annotating papers together
  • Individual scientists managing large PDF libraries

Not for

  • Casual readers with a handful of PDFs
  • Small teams without a real literature workflow — overkill
  • Anyone wanting a free tool; Zotero and Mendeley do the basics
  • Buyers needing pricing clarity — public tiers are vague

Gotchas - check before you buy

medium

The $3/mo entry price is a 2022 listing; current pricing may differ — verify before committing

medium

Group plan caps at 10 users per group

medium

Papers–ReadCube merger left users publicly questioning the product's roadmap

Pros and cons

Pros

  • Covers the full loop: discover, organize, read, annotate, share, cite
  • AI assistant helps summarize papers for faster reading
  • Literature monitoring surfaces new research automatically
  • Real enterprise case studies: Moderna, Boehringer Ingelheim, Medscape, Roivant
  • Published security statement; GDPR compliance since 2018

Cons

  • Users still ask what happened to the Papers app post-merger
  • Free open-source alternatives undercut it
  • Reddit debates whether it's even worth paying for

Sources & method

Analyzed 9/27/2026 - 10 sources - No known vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.

official x3review x6security x1

Key stats

  • Value for money: 3/5

    Rating

  • From $3/mo

    Starting price

  • 10

    Sources

  • Analyzed

  • Value for money: 3/5. Cheap entry price, but public pricing is sparse and dated
  • Ease of use: 4/5. G2 users consistently praise it
  • Feature depth: 4/5. Full workflow plus AI assistant and monitoring
  • Support quality. No support evidence found
  • Security posture: 4/5. Published security statement and GDPR compliance
  • $3/mo Starting price 360Quadrants listing, 2022
  • 174 G2 reviews reviews on G2
  • 2 Pricing plans per G2
  • 10 users Group plan cap max per group, official pricing

Pricing

Individual

From $3/mo

  • Discover, organize, read, annotate, cite

Group

Not publicly listed

  • Up to 10 users per group

Security

No known vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.

Companies that use it

  • Moderna⁶
  • Boehringer Ingelheim
  • Medscape
  • Roivant
Full analysis

Based on 20+ public sources; pricing partly dated (2022 listing), and several review snippets were truncated.

Legit, enterprise-tested literature manager for research-heavy orgs; overkill if you just save a few PDFs.

Methodology

Based on 20+ public sources; pricing partly dated (2022 listing), and several review snippets were truncated.

Sources

  1. ReadCube Reviews — G2g2.com
    review
  2. Anyone know what happened to Papers app? — Redditreddit.com
    review
  3. ReadCube Papers — worth it or no? — Redditreddit.com
    review
  4. ReadCube Pricingabout.readcube.com
    official
  5. ReadCube — Digital Science product pagedigital-science.com
    official
  6. Moderna Case Studyabout.readcube.com
    official
  7. ReadCube Security Statementabout.readcube.com
    security
  8. ReadCube Papers Pricing — 360Quadrants360quadrants.com
    review
  9. ReadCube Papers vs Zotero — TrustRadiustrustradius.com
    review
  10. Open Source ReadCube Alternatives — AlternativeToalternativeto.net
    review

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