🧠 Introduction
Paperpal is best known as an academic writing assistant and plagiarism checker used by students, researchers, and publishers. The platform focuses on grammar correction, language clarity, citation support, and research-oriented writing tools.
Recently, Paperpal introduced an AI detector. As AI detection becomes more common in academic and professional environments, Paperpal has started positioning this tool more prominently, even beginning to rank organically for the keyword “AI detector.” This increase in visibility has driven significant traffic to the tool.
That raises an important question:
- Is Paperpal’s AI detector reliable?
- Can it accurately identify AI-generated text?
- Does it handle human or mixed writing correctly?
We tested Paperpal’s AI detector using AI-written text, human-written text, and mixed content to evaluate its real-world accuracy.
🧪 Testing Paperpal’s AI Detector
Paperpal’s AI detector presents results as a percentage score. The interface is clean and easy to use, but accuracy is what matters most.
Below are the results from our testing.
Accuracy Test Results
| Text Type | Paperpal Result |
|---|---|
| AI Text | 55% AI |
| Human Text | 88% AI |
| Mixed Text | 92% AI |
❗ Key Findings
1. Severe False Positives
Paperpal labeled clearly human-written text as 88 percent AI, which is a critical failure. This level of misclassification makes the detector unusable for academic or professional use.
2. Mixed Text Is Misclassified
Mixed content scored 92 percent AI, showing that the detector does not meaningfully distinguish between blended writing and fully AI-generated text.
3. Weak AI Detection Accuracy
Even fully AI-generated text only scored 55 percent AI, which is far below acceptable standards for a tool claiming to detect AI content.
⚠️ Reliability and Product Scope
Paperpal is not a dedicated AI detection platform. Its core products are academic writing assistance and plagiarism checking, with AI detection added as an auxiliary feature.
This shows in the results. The detector lacks the precision and consistency seen in tools built specifically for AI detection.
While adding an AI detector may make sense from a feature checklist perspective, releasing a detector with this level of inaccuracy ultimately damages trust in AI detection tools overall.
🎨 User Interface
Paperpal’s UI is clean and modern. The scanning process is straightforward, and results are displayed clearly.
However, a polished interface does not compensate for unreliable output. In this case, the product experience looks better than the underlying detection logic actually performs.
💰 Pricing
Paperpal allows 5 free AI detection scans.
After that, users must upgrade to Paperpal Prime, which costs:
- $25 per month
- Discounts available for longer billing cycles
This pricing might be reasonable for a full academic writing suite, but it is very expensive for an AI detector, especially one with such poor accuracy.
For detection alone, the cost is difficult to justify.
🧪 Overall Reliability
Issues Identified
- High false positives
- Poor AI text detection accuracy
- No meaningful mixed-text handling
- Expensive paywall after minimal free usage
- Not suitable for academic or professional use
Paperpal’s AI detector is highly unreliable compared to other major AI detection tools.
📊 Scorecard
| Category | Score | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Accuracy | ⭐☆☆☆☆ (1/5) | Flags human text as AI and misses AI content. |
| Reliability | ⭐☆☆☆☆ (1/5) | Inconsistent and misleading results. |
| Ease of Use | ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4/5) | Clean UI and simple workflow. |
| Value | ⭐⭐☆☆☆ (2/5) | $25/month is unjustified for this accuracy. |
Overall Rating: ⭐⭐☆☆☆ (2/5)
❌ Final Verdict
Paperpal’s AI detector is not reliable.
While Paperpal is a legitimate academic writing platform, its AI detector performs poorly in real testing. It produces severe false positives, fails to properly identify AI-generated text, and cannot distinguish mixed writing at all.
The tool’s recent increase in visibility does not reflect detection quality, and charging $25 per month for results of this accuracy is difficult to justify.
👉 To bypass Paperpal's AI detector, GPTZero, ZeroGPT, and Turnitin, use TwainGPT.
📌 FAQ
Is Paperpal’s AI detector accurate?
No, it produces false positives and weak AI detection scores.
Is Paperpal’s AI detector free?
Users get 5 free scans before being required to upgrade.
Should students rely on Paperpal for AI detection?
No, it incorrectly flags human writing and is unreliable for academic use.
Is Paperpal a legitimate company?
Yes, but its AI detector is highly unreliable.