Scholar Utility Belt Pro
Scholar Utility Belt is a free Chrome extension that adds journal rankings, author metrics and retraction warnings to Google Scholar. Pro is an optional tier on top of it for review, export and library work. It has a 14-day trial, and it costs $40 once, $3 a month or $20 a year. If you installed the extension before Pro existed, the Pro features that existed then are still free for you.
There is no checkout on this site. The trial and the purchase both start inside the extension, on its Options page.
What stays free
The reading and browsing aids are free for everyone, new installs included.
- Journal quality badges from the packaged ranking lists, and a venue list of your own that you upload as a CSV.
- The result action grid, citation velocity and the Emerging signal.
- Retraction and tortured-phrase warnings, related works and the query trend tracker.
- The saved-paper library with notes, tags, collections, and merging export and import.
- Author summary metrics (h-index, g-index and the others) and author filters.
What Pro adds
Pro covers workflow tools that take a power user real time: systematic reviews, citation mapping, benchmarking an author against peers, and moving a library into other tools. "Older" means the feature existed when Pro shipped in version 0.6.0; those are the ones early installs keep. Everything else in the table needs the trial, a purchase or App Pass.
| Feature | Tier | Early install |
|---|---|---|
| Venue quality badges | Free | Free |
| Your own venue list (CSV) | Free | Free |
| Result action grid, citation velocity, Emerging | Free | Free |
| Retraction and tortured-phrase warnings | Free | Free |
| Related works, query trend tracker | Free | Free |
| Saved-paper library, merging import and export | Free | Free |
| Author summary metrics (h-index, g-index and others) | Free | Free |
| Author compare | Pro | Free (older) |
| Extended bibliometrics: p-index, FWCI, RCR, influential citations | Pro | Free (older) |
| Narrative CV | Pro | Free (older) |
| Publish-or-Perish report | Pro | Free (older) |
| Citation lineage | Pro | Free (older) |
| Citation-graph overlay | Pro | Free (older) |
| Systematic-review workspace | Pro | Free (older) |
| Reference import, risk of bias, agreement report, evidence matrix, snapshots | Pro | Trial, purchase or App Pass |
| Claim-evidence chips, reproducibility signals, reading order | Pro | Trial, purchase or App Pass |
| Tenure packet | Pro | Trial, purchase or App Pass |
| Bibliography checker | Pro | Trial, purchase or App Pass |
| Zotero, Obsidian, LaTeX and Word exports | Pro | Trial, purchase or App Pass |
| Collection packets, similar papers, watch lists | Pro | Trial, purchase or App Pass |
| Triage card (optional, on-device AI) | Pro | Trial, purchase or App Pass |
| Ask my shortlist (optional, your own API key) | Pro | Trial, purchase or App Pass |
Trial, price and App Pass
- 14-day trial. New installs can start it from the Pro section of the extension's Options page. Everyone, including early installs, can use it for the newer Pro features.
- $40 once (lifetime), $3 a month or $20 a year. All three unlock the same features. Payment goes through ExtensionPay and Stripe, and ExtensionPay collects your email address.
- App Pass. If you already subscribe to App Pass, which covers many browser extensions with one subscription, you can turn it on in Options to unlock Pro. It is off by default, and nothing contacts joinapppass.com until you switch it on.
If you installed before Pro
The seven Pro features that existed when Pro shipped stay free on your install, permanently: author compare, citation lineage, the extended bibliometrics (p-index, FWCI, Relative Citation Ratio and influential citations), narrative CV, the systematic-review workspace, the citation-graph overlay and the Publish-or-Perish report.
That promise covers those seven and nothing added since. The newer Pro features need the trial, a purchase or App Pass for everyone, early installs included. Removing the extension and installing it again counts as a fresh install.
Limits worth knowing
- No institution has reviewed it. It is made by one person. No university, library or publisher has checked or endorsed it, and it is not part of any institutional license.
- Ranking lists are copies. The lists ship inside the extension as snapshots. For anything that goes into a tenure file or a funding application, check the venue against the publisher of the list.
- Signals from heuristics are hedged. Emerging, tortured-phrase warnings, claim-evidence chips and reproducibility signals are rules applied to titles and snippets. They can miss things and can flag harmless text. Read them as a prompt to look at the paper, not as a finding. The triage card and Ask my shortlist show a value only when it appears word for word in the saved text, which proves the words are there and not that they are the right ones.
- AI is optional. The triage card uses Chrome's built-in model on your device, when your Chrome version and hardware support it. Ask my shortlist uses your own API key, and the provider you choose receives the text you confirm. Neither runs unless you turn it on.
- Chrome only. It is installed from the Chrome Web Store.
What the extension sends, and to whom, is in the privacy policy. The extension has no Purplelink server and no analytics. The page you are reading is counted like any page on this site, with cookieless analytics.