Step-by-Step Guide

Help & Support — Citations Checker

New to Citations Checker? Follow each section in order — from creating an account to checking references, generating formatted citations, reviewing history, and managing your plan.

Live app screenshots Every step shown with real UI captures from the product.
Quick start path A guided sequence to get from signup to your first check.
Support contact Reach the team with the details they need to help fast.

Help & Support

Citations Checker · User guide & walkthrough

10 sections

Welcome to the Citations Checker help center. This guide walks you through every part of the app — from signing up to managing your subscription. Each section includes numbered steps and screenshots from the live product.

Quick start path Register → Overview → Check Citations or Generate citation → Completed History → Pricing Plans if you need more credits
1

Sign In & Sign Up

Create a free account to save checks, generate citations, and use the credits on your plan.

Create your account

  1. Open the registration page: https://app.citationschecker.com/register
  2. Enter your name, email address, password, and password confirmation.
  3. Click Create account.
  4. Or click Continue with Google to sign up with Gmail. Approve the Google prompt if your browser asks.

Verify your email

  1. After email signup, the app shows Verify your email and the address the link was sent to.
  2. Open the message and click the verification link. Check spam if it does not arrive within a few minutes.
  3. If you need another message, click Resend verification email. A short countdown appears between resends.
  4. Your account is ready once the link is confirmed. A green Verified badge then shows on your profile.

Log in

  1. Go to https://app.citationschecker.com/login
  2. Enter the same email and password, then click Sign In. Turn on Remember me if this is your own device.
  3. Or use Continue with Google if you registered with Gmail.
  4. You land on Overview after a successful sign-in.
  5. Forgot the password? Open Forgot password?, enter your email, and click Email reset link. Use the link in that message to choose a new password.
Registration form with name, email, password, and Google sign-up
Registration form — name, email, password, and Google sign-up
Login page with email, password, and Google sign-in
Login page — email, password, and Google sign-in
Forgot password page with email field and reset link button
Forgot password — request an email reset link
2

Overview

Overview is the home screen after login. It summarizes credits, spending, citation activity, and recent billing.

What you see on Overview

  1. Plan card — your name, remaining credits, current plan, and the date access runs until.
  2. Stats — total spent, citation checks, and verified citations, each compared with last month.
  3. Spending & usage — a year chart of payments and credits used.
  4. Breakdown — switch between Payments and Checks to see completed, failed, and other totals.
  5. Recent billing activity — latest invoices and payments, with shortcuts to Billing history and Subscription.

Recommended first-time workflow

  1. Check the credits badge in the top bar before a large batch.
  2. Open Check Citations to verify a reference, or Generate citation to format one from a DOI, ISBN, PMID, URL, or title.
  3. Open Completed History to reopen, export, or delete past work.
  4. Open Pricing plans when you need a larger monthly credit pool or document audit.
Overview dashboard with credits, spending chart, and recent billing
Overview — credits, usage, and recent billing
3

Check Citations

Verify one reference, a batch, or the bibliography inside a document. Open Check Citations in the sidebar. Each citation reserves one credit. Credits are used when a citation finishes as verified, found with issues, needs review, or could not verify. Failed and cancelled checks refund unused credits.

Single citation

  1. Stay on the Single Citation tab.
  2. Paste one complete reference — author, year, title, and source — or a DOI / PMID. Open What to paste if you want examples.
  3. Names alone, or a short topic with no bibliographic details, are not accepted.
  4. Click Check Citation. Use Clear to empty the box.
  5. The result appears under the form. The same check is saved in Completed History.
Single citation form with example reference and Check Citation button
Single citation — paste one reference or a DOI / PMID

Bulk citations

  1. Open the Bulk Citations tab.
  2. Paste Citation with {} second bracket — wrap every complete reference in curly braces. Only text from { to } counts as one citation.
  3. Use single add more options — type one reference per row, then use Add more for extra rows. Remove empty rows before you submit.
  4. The button shows how many citations were detected. Click Check Citation to run the batch.
Bulk citations brace paste mode
Bulk citations — paste each reference inside curly braces
Bulk citations one-field-per-reference mode
Bulk citations — add one reference per field

Document audit

  1. Open the Document Audit tab. This is a premium feature on plans that include Citation Document Audit.
  2. Drop a file, or browse. Accepted types are PDF, DOCX, TXT, BibTeX, and RIS. The file is stored privately.
  3. The audit reads a References, Bibliography, or Works Cited section, or BibTeX and RIS entries. Scans with no selectable text are skipped.
  4. Click Start Citation Audit.
  5. When it finishes, open the result from Completed History and choose View Document to review repairs.
Document audit upload area for PDF, DOCX, TXT, BibTeX, and RIS
Document audit — upload a paper or bibliography file
Tips

A good single citation looks like: Vaswani, A., Shazeer, N. (2017). Attention is all you need. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1706.03762

In brace mode, put that same reference inside { and }. Do not paste a list of author names with no year, title, or source.

4

Completed History

Every finished check and generation is listed here. The page has two tabs: Citation checked history and Generated citation history.

Find a past check

  1. Open Completed History from the sidebar.
  2. Stay on Citation checked history to see single, bulk, and document audits.
  3. Use the status and type filters, or search, to narrow the list.
  4. Open a row to see the full comparison. Status badges include Completed, Processing, Failed, and Cancelled.
Citation checked history list with status filters
Citation checked history — past single, bulk, and document checks

Read a check result

  1. The header shows type, status, citation counts, and how many were verified.
  2. Recheck runs the same input again. Back returns to the list.
  3. Export as CSV. JSON, BIB, and RIS are available on plans that include Export with Citation format.
  4. Each item shows the submitted text beside the verified publication: title, authors, year, journal, DOI, and a confidence bar.
  5. Open Field comparison and Source lookup when you need the field-by-field detail.
Single check result comparing submitted citation with the verified publication
Single check — submitted citation beside the verified publication
Bulk check result with several citation items
Bulk check — each reference listed with its verification status

Review a document

  1. On a completed document check, open View Document.
  2. The viewer shows the file name, citation count, duplicates, and how many items are repairable.
  3. Struck-through text is the old citation. Highlighted text is the proposed repair.
  4. Click Repair on one item, or Repair All, then Save to write the repaired file in the original format.
  5. Click Download repaired after a save, or Download original if nothing has been saved yet.
Document viewer with repair preview, Repair All, Save, and download
Document viewer — preview repairs, then Save and download
5

Generate Citation

Turn a DOI, ISBN, PMID, URL, or paper title into a formatted reference. One credit is used when a record is found. A search with no match is not charged.

Search and choose a style

  1. Open Generate citation from the sidebar.
  2. Paste a DOI, ISBN, PMID, URL, or paper title.
  3. Choose a style: APA 7th Edition, MLA 9th Edition, Chicago 17th Edition, Harvard, or IEEE.
  4. Click Generate citation.

Use the result

  1. Each match shows the title, authors, publication details, and the formatted reference.
  2. Use Copy Reference or Copy In-Text.
  3. Download .bib or .ris, or change the style dropdown to reformat the same record.
  4. Saved searches stay under Generated citation history. Open Open in generator to run the query again.
Generate citation search box and style picker
Generate citation — DOI, ISBN, PMID, URL, or title, plus a citation style
Generated citation history list
Generated citation history — past searches and their status
Generated citation result with copy and download actions
Generated result — formatted reference, copy, and BibTeX or RIS download
Tips

A DOI or PMID is more reliable than a short title. If nothing is found, try the identifier printed on the paper.

Delete a generation you no longer need from the result page. That does not restore a credit that was already used.

6

Pricing Plans

Plans set your monthly citation credits and which premium tools are included. Document audit, citation repair, and formatted export (JSON, BIB, RIS) depend on the plan.

Compare plans

  1. Open Pricing plans from the sidebar.
  2. Switch Monthly, Yearly, or Lifetime. Yearly prices are shown as a monthly equivalent.
  3. Starter — single and bulk checks, completed history, and email support.
  4. Professional — marked Most popular. Adds document audit, repair, formatted export, and APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and IEEE.
  5. Team — a larger credit pool, document audit, formatted export, shared billing history, and priority support.

Subscribe

  1. Click Subscribe now on a monthly or yearly plan, or Purchase lifetime access on a lifetime card.
  2. Checkout uses Stripe. After payment, credits and premium features show on Subscription and in the top-bar credits badge.
  3. Credits follow the plan's monthly allowance. A new billing period refills that allowance according to the package.
Monthly pricing plans for Starter, Professional, and Team
Monthly plans — Starter, Professional, and Team
Yearly pricing tab with discounted monthly equivalents
Yearly plans — billed once a year, shown as a monthly equivalent
Lifetime pricing tab
Lifetime tab — one-time purchase where a lifetime price is published
7

Subscription

See the plan that is active, how many credits remain, and when the current period ends.

Manage the current plan

  1. Open Subscription from the sidebar.
  2. Active subscriptions lists the plan name, status, renewal, and credit balance.
  3. Click Cancel to stop renewal. Access continues until the period ends, and you are not charged again for that plan.
  4. If cancellation is already scheduled, click Resume before the period ends to keep the plan.
  5. Subscription history lists past cycles, amounts, and dates.
Subscription page with active plan, credits, and cancel action
Subscription — active plan, credits, and billing period
8

Billing History

A log of payments and invoices on your account.

Review payments and invoices

  1. Open Billing history from the sidebar, or from the shortcut on Overview.
  2. Search payments and invoices by name, amount, or reference.
  3. Each row shows the type, date, amount, note, and status — completed, pending, failed, or refunded.
  4. Use a transaction date and your account email if you need to ask about a charge.
Billing history table of invoices and payments
Billing history — invoices and payments with status
9

API Workspace

Issue an access token, copy request examples, and review recent API activity. Calls use REST v1 and JSON, authenticated with an X-Access-Token header.

Create a token

  1. Open API workspace from the sidebar.
  2. On the Guide tab, click Generate under API Access Token.
  3. Copy the token once and store it in a secret manager. Treat it like a password and rotate it if it is exposed.
  4. The quick start shows POST https://app.citationschecker.com/api/v1/requests with header Content-Type: application/json and X-Access-Token.
  5. The JSON body is a targets array. Each call accepts up to 25 targets. Completed and failed outcomes count toward usage. Deferred responses do not; retry after a short wait.

Requests and documentation

  1. Open the Requests tab to see recent API activity.
  2. Click API documentation for the full reference, including GET /api/v1/usage for remaining quota.
  3. Use the Copy buttons on the cURL and response examples.
API workspace guide with token, endpoint, and cURL example
API workspace — token, endpoint, and request example
API requests list
Requests tab — recent API activity
API documentation with endpoints and examples
API documentation — endpoints, headers, and example responses
10

Profile

Update your name, photo, email, and password. Open the account menu (your initials) and choose Profile, or go to https://app.citationschecker.com/profile.

Account settings

  1. The header card shows your name, verification status, email, and account ID.
  2. Under Profile, upload a JPG, PNG, or WebP photo up to 2 MB, then edit name or email and click Save.
  3. Changing the email may require you to verify the new address before it is fully active.
  4. Under Password, enter the current password, the new password, and the confirmation, then click Update.
  5. Delete account is permanent. The dialog asks for your password before the account is removed.
Profile page with photo, name, email, password, and delete account
Profile — photo, name, email, password, and account deletion

Still need help?

Include your account email and a screenshot of the page, including any error text. If the question is about a charge, also include the date from Billing history.

Email support

Write to support@citationschecker.com with your account email and screenshots.

Response time

We usually reply within one business day. Billing questions are prioritized.

Before contacting support, check the relevant section above — most questions about credits, billing, and document audits are answered directly in this guide.