The honest comparison.
Where ScriptGaps fits among your real options — including doing it yourself, and including the rows where something else wins.
For quick topic research, free AI tools are excellent — we use AI ourselves, every day. ScriptGaps exists for the step they do not do: auditing the exact sentences you are about to publish against what the evidence actually supports.
What it costs you
What it costs
- Doing it yourself
Free, plus your time.
- Asking an AI assistant
Free or a few dollars a month.
- Automated checkers
Roughly $10–30 a month.
- A freelance researcher
$200–800 for a script, depending on depth.
- ScriptGaps
$79–249 per script, by length.
How long it takes you
- Doing it yourself
Hours per script, and it is the least enjoyable part of the job.
- Asking an AI assistant
Minutes. Genuinely fast.
- Automated checkers
Seconds.
- A freelance researcher
Days, and you have to brief them.
- ScriptGaps
24 or 48 hours, and you write the brief in one line.
What it actually checks
Finds the original source
- Doing it yourself
If you have the patience, yes — this is what good researchers do.
- Asking an AI assistant
Sometimes. It may also produce a citation that does not exist.
- Automated checkers
Not the aim; these tools look at text, not provenance.
- A freelance researcher
Yes, if that is what you asked for.
- ScriptGaps
Always. It is the core of the method.
Counts source independence
- Doing it yourself
Only if you already know to look for it.
- Asking an AI assistant
No. It will happily list three syndicated copies as three sources.
- Automated checkers
No.
- A freelance researcher
Depends entirely on the researcher.
- ScriptGaps
Yes, and the report states the chain count in words.
Flags allegation stated as fact
- Doing it yourself
Possible, but it is exactly the thing that is hard to see in your own writing.
- Asking an AI assistant
Inconsistently, and not usually unprompted.
- Automated checkers
No.
- A freelance researcher
Sometimes.
- ScriptGaps
Yes, on every claim, with the safer wording written out.
Suggests wording you can use
- Doing it yourself
You are the writer, so yes.
- Asking an AI assistant
Yes, and often well — though it may not know what your sources support.
- Automated checkers
No.
- A freelance researcher
Usually notes rather than sentences.
- ScriptGaps
Yes, constrained to what the attached evidence shows.
Who is behind the answer
Human review on high-risk claims
- Doing it yourself
You are the human.
- Asking an AI assistant
No.
- Automated checkers
No.
- A freelance researcher
Yes.
- ScriptGaps
Yes, on every high-risk claim, always.
Built for video scripts
- Doing it yourself
—
- Asking an AI assistant
General purpose.
- Automated checkers
Built for plagiarism and AI detection, not for claims.
- A freelance researcher
Depends who you hire.
- ScriptGaps
Yes — spoken sentences, timecodes, tiers by runtime.
Most tools ask whether a claim appears true. We ask whether the exact sentence you’re about to publish says more than the evidence supports.