Free and legal access to research
Find out if you can read a research paper for free
Search once. We check every legal source and make sure the link really opens. If there's no free copy, we help you ask the author or your library.
Free to use. No account needed.
If it's free
You get the paper
A link we've checked opens to the full text, whether it's at the journal, PubMed Central, a university archive or a preprint server.
If it isn't
You're connected to the author
Authors are usually allowed to share their own work. We find their email and write a polite request for you to send. If the paper becomes free later, we tell you when.
Either way
Your library can help
Public libraries can get almost any article through interlibrary loan, often at no cost. We find yours and give you the details to hand them.
Why this exists
Much medical research is paid for by the public, yet many papers sit behind paywalls. When a free copy does exist, it could be in any of a dozen places, and listings that say "free" are often out of date.
Patients and caregivers shouldn't need a university login or an afternoon of searching to read the research about their own health.
- About half
- of 200 recent health papers we tested couldn't be read for free
- $30–50
- the usual price to buy a single paper
- 1 in 5
- papers listed as free elsewhere that we couldn't confirm actually open