Rayyan vs Covidence: Features, Pricing & Best Choice (2026)

Rayyan vs Covidence: Which is Better for Systematic Reviews?

For a student or independent researcher, it’s easier to start with Rayyan, since you can do a full review for free. If you are still planning your project, start with our guide on how to write a systematic review and meta-analysis. Covidence is better if you are working as part of a funded team, or your university has a license. That is because Covidence guides all reviewers through the same, fixed steps.

It is true that Rayyan used to only do screening. That was a few years ago. Now, Rayyan does full-text screening and data extraction, as well as risk of bias assessment. So, the real differences between the two products is smaller than what most old blog posts will say. Ultimately, the difference between the two products comes down to price and how much structure you need.

I’ve listed the differences between the two products below.

Rayyan vs Covidence: Quick Comparison Table

Both tools have most of these features. Where they differ is in how the feature works and which plan unlocks it.

Factor	Rayyan	Covidence
Primary use	Review management, mainly screening	Stage-by-stage evidence synthesis
Free access	Free plan, no expiry (3 active reviews, 2 free reviewer invites)	500-record trial only
Pricing	From $4.99 per seat a month, billed yearly	$339 a year per review; $907 a year for three
Title and abstract screening	Include, maybe, exclude, plus labels and notes	Yes, no, maybe votes from two reviewers
Full-text screening	Yes (plan access varies)	Yes, exclusion reason required
Blinded dual screening	Blind mode, switched on by the review owner	On by default
Duplicate management	Detection on all plans, auto-removal on paid plans	Flagged at import, you confirm
Conflict resolution	Unblind and compare decisions	Separate conflicts list
Data extraction	Yes; AI PICO extraction on Advanced	Custom extraction forms
Risk of bias	Yes (newer, plan access varies)	Built into the workflow
PRISMA reporting	PRISMA 2020 diagram on paid plans	Diagram generated from screening counts
Best for	Students, solo researchers, tight budgets	Funded teams, institutional users

What is Rayyan? Features, Benefits, and Limitations

Rayyan is a web app for systematic reviews, built around screening. Say your PubMed and Embase searches your PubMed and Embase searches return 2,400 records. You upload both files, Rayyan flags the overlap, and you start marking each title and abstract as include, maybe, or exclude. You can do the same thing on your phone with the mobile app.

Key Rayyan features

Blind mode hides your co-reviewer’s decisions from you (and yours from them) until the review owner turns it off. As you screen, Rayyan gives each remaining record a relevance rating based on your earlier choices, so after a few hundred decisions you can sort the likely includes to the top. You can also add labels, notes, and exclusion reasons. In the last couple of years Rayyan has added full-text screening, data extraction, and risk-of-bias assessment.

Who should use Rayyan?

A medical student writing a first review. A resident with no research budget. Small groups that would rather set up their own process than follow someone else’s.

Rayyan limitations

The free plan allows 3 active reviews and 2 free reviewer invites. If you want Rayyan to remove duplicates for you, or to draw your PRISMA diagram, you’ll need at least the Essential plan. Plan access for the newer extraction and risk-of-bias features isn’t spelled out clearly on the pricing page, so confirm it with Rayyan before you rely on them.

What Is Covidence? Features, Benefits, and Limitations

Covidence is run by the Future Evidence Foundation, a non-profit. It takes your review through fixed stages: import, title and abstract screening, full-text review, quality assessment, and extraction. You can’t skip ahead, and that’s deliberate. Many universities and hospitals pay for a site license, so check before you buy one yourself.

Key Covidence features

Covidence takes references from EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley, RefWorks, and RevMan, or straight from RIS, CSV, and PubMed XML files. Duplicates are flagged at import. Two reviewers vote on each study without seeing the other’s vote. When they disagree, the study goes to a conflicts list and stays there until someone resolves it. Later stages have custom extraction forms and quality assessment, and you can export the results.

Who should use Covidence?

It works well for teams of three or more, especially when a supervisor wants every decision recorded in one place and doesn’t want to spend time setting up a workflow.

Covidence limitations

At $339 per review per year, it’s expensive if you’re paying yourself, and there’s no student discount. The fixed stages also don’t make your methods sound on their own. A weak protocol is still weak inside Covidence.

Rayyan vs Covidence: Feature-by-Feature Comparison

Title and abstract screening

You check each record against the eligibility criteria in your protocol. Rayyan gives you more tools for this stage: labels, notes, a “maybe” pile, and filters by keyword or decision. Covidence has fewer options, which some first-timers actually find easier.

Full-text screening

This is the final eligibility decision, and PRISMA expects you to report why each excluded study was dropped. Covidence asks for that reason before it accepts the exclusion. Rayyan lets you tag a reason, but it’s up to you to be consistent.

Blinded dual screening

Two people screening independently catch each other’s mistakes. Covidence does this automatically. In Rayyan, the review owner has to switch blind mode on, so do it before anyone screens the first record.

Duplicate removal

There’s a difference between finding a duplicate and deleting it. Rayyan finds them on every plan, but the auto-resolver that clears them for you starts at the paid Essential plan. Covidence flags them at import and leaves the final decision to you.

Reviewer conflict resolution

Both tools show you the disagreements. Neither one decides who’s right. Name a tiebreaker in your protocol, usually a third reviewer, and keep a record of each decision.

Data extraction

Covidence’s extraction forms are a fixed stage of the review. Rayyan offers extraction too, and its Advanced plan adds AI that pulls out PICO elements. Check everything the AI extracts against the paper itself. It does get things wrong.

Risk of bias assessment

Both tools include risk-of-bias assessment. Which instrument you need depends on study design. RoB 2 is for randomized trials, and the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale is often used for cohort and case-control studies. Before you start, confirm your tool is supported.

PRISMA workflow

Covidence counts studies at every stage and generates the flow diagram from those counts. Rayyan does this on paid plans only. On the free plan, keep your counts in a spreadsheet as you go, because rebuilding them at the end is painful.

AI-assisted screening

Rayyan’s relevance ratings help you decide what to screen first. They don’t make inclusion decisions, and they shouldn’t. Every include and exclude still has to come from a human reviewer.

Rayyan vs Covidence Pricing: Is There a Free Option?

Rayyan has one. Covidence has a trial, which isn’t the same thing. These prices were checked on October 15, 2026.

Rayyan pricing

Plan	Price	What you get
Free	$0	3 active reviews, 2 free reviewer invites, duplicate detection, AI relevance ratings
Essential	$4.99 per seat a month, billed yearly	PRISMA diagrams, 5 free reviewer invites, auto-removal of duplicates
Advanced	$8.33 per seat a month, billed yearly	9 active reviews, 10 free reviewer invites, AI PICO extraction
Business / Academic	$41.67 per license a month, billed yearly, 5-license minimum	Team dashboard, 50 shared reviews, academic discounts

Quarterly billing costs more. Essential jumps to $8.33 a month that way. Invited reviewers don’t need their own paid seat, but they won’t get the premium features either.

Covidence pricing

You pay per review, and the team size doesn’t change the price. One review costs $339 a year. A three-review package costs $907. Both include unlimited collaborators. The trial caps you at 500 records, which is fine for learning the interface but too small for most real searches.

Covidence has no student discount. It does offer reduced pricing to teams based in low- and lower-middle-income countries, so if that’s your situation, email their support team before you pay full price.

Prices change often, so check the Rayyan pricing page and the Covidence pricing page before you buy.

Rayyan vs Covidence: Pros and Cons

Rayyan

Pros:

• A full review is possible without spending anything.
• Labels, notes, and filters give you a lot of control while screening.
• Relevance ratings help when you have thousands of records.
• Paid seats are inexpensive.

Cons:

• Auto-removal of duplicates and PRISMA diagrams aren’t free.
• Two free reviewer invites won’t cover a larger team.
• With this much flexibility, keeping everyone consistent is your job.

Covidence

Pros:

• The order of stages is fixed, so nobody skips a step.
• Independent voting and the conflicts list come set up.
• You can invite as many collaborators as you want on any plan.
• Your institution may already pay for it.

Cons:

• $339 a year per review is a lot to pay yourself.
• There’s a trial, but no lasting free plan and no student pricing.
• Reviews that don’t follow the standard stages can feel boxed in.

Which Tool Should You Choose?

Your first review, with no funding

Use Rayyan’s free plan. If you later need the PRISMA diagram or more reviewers, upgrade then.

A medical student or IMG working with co-authors abroad

Ask your supervisor which tool they expect before you upload anything, since moving a review later is a hassle. If it’s Rayyan, keep in mind the free plan’s 2-reviewer invite limit, and turn on blind mode before anyone starts.

A team that wants one fixed workflow

Take 200 or so records and screen them in the Covidence trial and in Rayyan. A short trial like that tells you more than any feature list.

A university or hospital team

Check with your library. An existing license usually settles the question. Also check your institution’s data policy, since some only approve certain platforms.

A review heavy on extraction and appraisal

Compare the extraction forms, risk-of-bias tools, and export formats side by side, and confirm your plan includes each one.

If cost is your main concern, start with Rayyan. If you want a fixed structure and someone else is covering the cost, start with Covidence.

Can You Use Both Rayyan and Covidence in One Review?

You can, and some teams do: they screen in Rayyan and then move the included studies to Covidence for extraction. Just be careful with the handoff. Export as RIS, and make sure the number of studies after import matches the number you exported. Keep your own copy of every decision and exclusion reason, because not all of it transfers. Write down the date you switched and the reason.

Better still, choose one tool before screening begins. Switching tools halfway through a review is how you end up with two versions of your dataset that don’t match.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. Is Rayyan better than Covidence?

Neither one is better for everyone. Rayyan suits a free, flexible start. Covidence suits funded teams that want a fixed process.

Q2. Is Rayyan free for systematic reviews?

Yes. The free plan never expires and includes 3 active reviews and 2 free reviewer invites. PRISMA diagrams and automatic duplicate removal need a paid plan.

Q3. Does Covidence have a free plan?

No. It has a free trial limited to 500 records. After that you’ll need a paid plan or university access.

Q4. Can Rayyan be used for full-text screening?

Yes, in addition to title and abstract screening. Confirm your plan includes it.

Q5. Does Rayyan support data extraction and risk-of-bias assessment?

Yes, both were added recently. Ask Rayyan which plan covers them and whether your risk-of-bias tool is supported.

Q6. Can two reviewers screen independently in Rayyan or Covidence?

Yes. Rayyan needs blind mode switched on. Covidence does it by default.

Q7. Which tool generates a PRISMA flow diagram?

Both do. Covidence builds it from your screening counts. In Rayyan, it’s on the paid plans.

Q8. Can I use Rayyan and Covidence together?

Yes. Export as RIS, check that your study counts match, and keep your own record of every decision.

Final Verdict

If you have a small budget, Rayyan is the better option. If your funded team wants extraction and quality assessment along with screening in a single integrated system, check out Covidence. Figure out what your review needs and what your budget allows before making a decision.

Before you sign up for either, think about the review process and write it out, ask your library about existing licenses, and make a short list of the features you’ll actually use.

Disclaimer:

Articles published by American Academy of Research & Academics are prepared by our team using information from direct experience, publicly available resources, and educational references. AI tools may be used to assist with drafting, proofreading, and formatting; however, all content undergoes review and approval before publication.
The information provided is intended for educational purposes only. Requirements, policies, and processes may change over time. Readers should consult official sources for the most current information.