Pilot Program
Pilot RefRunner at your organization.
Ninety days, free, for a research group, a department, a journal's editorial office, or a conference. Every manuscript's references verified against Crossref, OpenAlex, and the other public indexes; fabricated and retracted citations caught before a reviewer sees them. At the end you have real numbers and a decision to make — not a subscription that quietly renewed.
Request a pilot
What you get
A pack of seats, free for 90 days
Sized to your group, department, editorial office, or conference. Every seat checks up to 1,000 references a month; one seat in ten is unlimited, for the people who read everything before it goes out.
Your own citation style, built in
If your journal or department has a house style, we add it during the pilot so every list comes out the way you publish it.
A direct line
Pilots talk to the person who builds RefRunner. A reference we handle badly gets fixed, usually within days — several of this year's improvements started as a pilot's report.
Numbers at the end
How many manuscripts and references the group checked, what was found — fabricated citations, wrong DOIs, retracted work — and how long it took. Enough to decide, and enough for a note to whoever pays.
What we ask
- Someone to hand out the seats — usually a lab manager, managing editor, or program chair. Ten minutes.
- Real manuscripts. The pilot is only informative if people check the papers they are actually writing.
- One conversation near the end: what worked, what did not, what you would need to keep it.
How it goes
| Day 0 | You tell us the size of the group. We send the pack code the same day. |
|---|---|
| Week 1 | Seats are handed out. Anyone stuck gets help directly; the house style goes in if there is one. |
| Weeks 2–12 | People check papers as they finish them. Nothing to administer. |
| Week 12 | You get the numbers and we talk. Keep the pack, resize it, or stop — no card was ever taken. |
After the pilot, packs run from $150 — see the pricing table for research groups or journals and conferences.
Tell us who you are, roughly how many people, and what you publish. That is all we need to know to get you started.
Request a pilot