Written and maintained by CASRAI Editorial Board
Last updated
Searching “iThenticate pricing” usually means one thing: you have a manuscript, you are not affiliated with an institution that already runs iThenticate through Crossref Similarity Check, and you want to know what a single similarity report actually costs. The short answer is that iThenticate is one of the few names in this space that does sell to individuals — but it prices per document, not as a subscription, and there is no published price list on the homepage. Here is exactly what it costs, who it is sold to, and when a cheaper self-serve alternative is the honest answer instead.
Tip: try code CASRAI at checkout for 15% off, if the offer is currently active for this program — codes vary by vendor and aren’t guaranteed.
How much does iThenticate cost for an individual author?
As of August 2026, iThenticate’s own pricing page (ithenticate.com/pricing) lists two individual packages, both one-time purchases rather than subscriptions:
- Single — $125. Covers submission of one manuscript up to 25,000 words.
- Multiple — $300. Covers up to 3 manuscripts, or one manuscript up to 75,000 words.
Both packages include 5 free revisions and credits that stay valid for 12 months from purchase — so a report you buy today can still be used for a revised draft next spring. One thing both packages explicitly exclude: AI writing detection is not available on the individual tiers. You are buying a similarity/originality report only, not an AI-generated-text flag. iThenticate markets this individual route specifically to “researchers, scholars, and graduate students” — organizations are routed to a sales conversation instead, which is the quote-based side of this product covered further down.
Can I buy iThenticate without an institution?
Yes — and this is the detail that a lot of searchers assume isn’t true, because it isn’t true of iThenticate’s much better-known sibling product. Turnitin itself sells no individual licence at any price: its similarity and grading products are licensed to institutions only, full stop. iThenticate is a separate purchase path, owned by the same company (Turnitin), built specifically for the case Turnitin’s institutional model doesn’t cover: a single author, PI, or small journal that needs one report and has no license to borrow.
So the practical answer is: go to ithenticate.com directly, pick Single or Multiple, and pay by card — no university email, no administrator approval, no waiting on a library helpdesk. That is a materially different buying experience from Turnitin, and it’s worth saying plainly since the two names get confused constantly in search results.
Compare a self-serve alternative →
iThenticate price per document, in practice
Because both packages are flat-rate rather than metered, your effective per-document cost depends entirely on how many manuscripts you actually run through it:
| Scenario | Package | Cost | Effective cost per document |
|---|---|---|---|
| One manuscript, ≤25,000 words | Single | $125 | $125 |
| One long manuscript, 25,001–75,000 words | Multiple | $300 | $300 (one document, priced by length) |
| Three separate manuscripts, each ≤25,000 words | Multiple | $300 | $100 per manuscript |
| A fourth manuscript within the same 12 months | New Single or Multiple package | +$125 or +$300 | Credits don’t roll over between packages — a new purchase is a new package |
There’s no per-page or per-word metering below the word ceilings, and no discount for buying Single twice instead of Multiple once — if you have more than one document, Multiple is close to always the better value unless you’re certain you’ll only ever need the one report.
iThenticate’s quote-based institutional pricing, explained
The Single/Multiple packages above are the individual, self-serve side of iThenticate. The other side — the one most of what’s written about iThenticate online actually describes — is sold differently: institutions, publishers, and journals that want iThenticate at volume go through a sales conversation and a custom quote, not a checkout page. That’s a genuinely different commercial product: ongoing seats, integration into an existing manuscript-submission or editorial workflow, and (for publishers specifically) Crossref Similarity Check, which layers iThenticate’s engine with full-text access to other Crossref member publishers’ content — coverage an individual Single/Multiple purchase does not include.
If you’re an individual researcher, this institutional side isn’t the thing to pursue — it isn’t priced or packaged for a one-off need, and sales teams for enterprise/institutional software are (reasonably) not set up to quote a single-manuscript request quickly. The Single/Multiple packages exist precisely so you don’t have to go through that process.
iThenticate vs. Originality.ai for a pre-submission check
If your situation is a personal pre-submission check or screening a small team’s drafts before they go anywhere formal, it’s worth comparing iThenticate’s per-document pricing against a subscription tool built for that exact use case: Originality.ai.
| Dimension | iThenticate (individual) | Originality.ai (Pro) |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per-document: $125 (Single) or $300 (Multiple), credits valid 12 months | Subscription: $14.95/month, or $12.95/month billed annually ($155.40/year); pay-as-you-go credits also sold |
| What you get for that price | 1 or up to 3 similarity reports, 5 free revisions each | 2,000 credits/month (1 credit = 100 words, ~200,000 words/month) across AI Checker, Plagiarism Checker, Readability Checker, Grammar & Spelling Checker |
| AI-generated-text detection | Not available on individual tiers | Included (AI Checker) |
| Reference database | Web/archival content plus, for institutional Crossref Similarity Check, other publishers’ full text | Web and published-web index — no Turnitin private student-paper repository, no Crossref publisher full text |
| Best fit | A single manuscript that needs the actual iThenticate/CrossCheck report a journal or funder will accept | A personal pre-submission check, or repeated small-team screening, where no specific report format is mandated |
The honest tradeoff, stated plainly: if you’re submitting to a journal, publisher, or funder that specifically requires an iThenticate or Crossref Similarity Check similarity report as part of the submission workflow, Originality.ai’s output is not an accepted substitute for that report — don’t send an Originality.ai result in where a specific iThenticate/CrossCheck document is asked for. Originality.ai is the right call for a pre-submission personal check or small-team screening before you formally submit anywhere, not as a stand-in for a mandated institutional report. This is the same position CASRAI’s own Originality.ai review takes: it’s a strong, transparently-priced tool, but it is “not built specifically for academic integrity workflows the way iThenticate or Turnitin are.”
Try Originality.ai for a pre-submission check →
Frequently asked questions
Does iThenticate have a free trial?
No published free trial for the individual Single/Multiple packages as of August 2026 — both are paid, one-time purchases. The 5 free revisions included with each package are the closest thing to a trial: they let you re-check a revised version of the same manuscript without buying a new credit.
Is iThenticate the same as Turnitin?
They’re both owned by Turnitin, but they’re different products with different buying paths. Turnitin itself sells no individual licence — access comes only through an institution. iThenticate is the individually-purchasable sibling product built for authors, researchers, and small journals without an institutional license.
Does iThenticate’s individual package check for AI-generated text?
No. Both the Single and Multiple individual packages explicitly exclude AI writing detection as of August 2026 — they check for text similarity/originality only. AI detection is bundled into Turnitin’s institutional offering, not the individual iThenticate purchase.
What if I need the report for a journal that requires Crossref Similarity Check specifically?
Then iThenticate (or your publisher’s Crossref Similarity Check access) is the only tool that produces the report they’re actually asking for — an Originality.ai or other third-party report is not an accepted substitute in that case, even though it may be a perfectly good personal check otherwise.
How does iThenticate pricing compare to a monthly plagiarism-checker subscription?
For a single one-off manuscript, iThenticate’s $125 flat fee is usually cheaper than committing to a monthly subscription you’d cancel immediately after. For ongoing, repeated checking across multiple documents over time, a subscription tool like Originality.ai’s Pro plan ($14.95/month or $12.95/month billed annually) can work out cheaper per document — see the comparison table above for the fuller tradeoff, including what each tool does and doesn’t check.
Related reading: how Turnitin, iThenticate, and Crossref Similarity Check work, the iThenticate dictionary entry, and what an originality report actually contains.
