Explainpaper

Explainpaper is an AI tool designed to make academic papers accessible to non-specialist readers, its core feature is the ability to highlight any passage in an uploaded PDF and receive an immediate plain-language explanation of what it means, including definitions of technical terms, simplification of mathematical notation, and context for specialized concepts. This lowers the barrier for understanding research outside your primary expertise: a product manager reading a machine learning paper can highlight a confusing methodology section and receive an explanation without a PhD-level background. Explainpaper supports multi-turn conversation about any section, ask for clarification, request more detail, or ask how a section connects to the paper's main argument. The tool maintains context about the full paper during the session, enabling questions that reference multiple sections.

Explainpaper's interface is minimalist and focused: PDF on the left, conversation on the right, no feature overhead beyond the core explanation function. The free tier provides a limited number of paper explanations per month. Premium plans at $12/month offer unlimited papers and priority processing. Explainpaper is most used by students, journalists, and curious professionals who want to engage meaningfully with academic research in fields adjacent to their expertise, where the explanation layer is the primary barrier between them and the research's value.