Bottom line
R Discovery is the reading app of the Researcher.Life suite, branded "by Editage" and run by Cactus Communications, which started in Mumbai in 2002 and operates from Singapore. It builds a personalised feed of papers from a user's stated interests, sends new research alerts, summarises papers, reads them aloud, translates them into more than 30 languages and chats over uploaded PDFs, on an index the company says draws on PubMed, PubMed Central, Crossref, Unpaywall and OpenAlex and on publishers including Wiley, Springer Nature and Taylor & Francis. It fits a clinician who follows a few subjects and reads on a phone, with reading lists synced to Zotero or Mendeley. It makes no clinical claim and has no published evaluation.
Literature search and reading app from the Editage group: a personalised paper feed built on PubMed, Crossref and OpenAlex, AI summaries, Chat PDF, audio papers and translation, with Zotero and Mendeley sync.
Pricing from from USD 5/mo.
What does R Discovery do?
The app builds a feed from the user's stated interests and claims 93 percent positive feedback on its recommended papers. Around the feed sit an AI Assistant and "Ask R Discovery", a literature review mode, "Chat PDF", "8M+ Summaries & Highlights", audio papers in what the vendor calls "human like voices", translation into "30+ languages", a citation generator, a Chrome extension and a "Use on ChatGPT" option. Reading lists can be shared with collaborators and synced automatically to Zotero or Mendeley. It runs on the web, iOS and Android, and its subject categories include "Medical" and "Health & Medical Sciences". The company claims "2.5M+ App Downloads" from "190+ countries" and rates the app "4.4/5" across "13,000+ Reviews" on the Editage page and "Rated 4.6+" on the pricing page.
The index figures vary between the company's own pages: 150 million journal articles, 78 million open-access papers, 10 million conference documents, 5 million preprints, 7.5 million patents and 64,000 journals on the home page, "250 M+" in that page's title, "300M+" in its body and "115M+" on the Editage page.
How much does R Discovery cost in 2026?
The free app caps the AI Assistant and Chat PDF at three uses a day with five uploads a month, limits audio and translation, gives standard recommendations and leaves out literature maps, content feeds, shared lists, multiple projects and reference-manager sync. Prime makes the AI Assistant, Chat PDF, literature review, audio and translation unlimited and adds personalised shorts and one-to-one support. As of November 2026 the Editage page prices Prime at $5 a month, $12 a quarter or $39 a year. The R Discovery pricing page marks yearly billing as 35 percent off and its FAQ allows weekly, monthly, quarterly or annual terms. Researcher.Life bills in local currencies, so the dollar figures may be regional. A Paperpal Prime bundle adds the writing assistant's limits, "75,000+" illustrations, AI image generation and "120+" courses, and the Editage Plus bundle is listed at $174 a year. "R Discovery for Libraries" has no public price.
Is there any evidence it works?
No peer-reviewed evaluation of R Discovery exists, and the vendor makes no clinical claim. The vendor states no security certification, and its privacy terms link to the group policy on cactusglobal.com.
The verdict
At $39 a year Prime serves a clinician who wants a feed of new papers in a few subjects with audio, translation and Zotero sync. Its evidence is the company's own claims and app-store ratings. Sourced answers to clinical questions and reproducible searches for a review are not what the vendor claims it does.
Editorial review last generated November 5, 2026. Synthesized from clinician sentiment, peer-reviewed coverage, and our editorial silo picks. Refined by hand where vendor facts change.
