Scribbr AI

Scribbr is an academic writing platform that combines automated tools with human editing services. Its core products are a plagiarism checker that scans submitted text against a large database of web pages and published works, an AI detector that estimates whether writing is AI-generated, AI-refined, or written by a person, and a citation generator that formats references in styles like APA and MLA. Alongside these automated tools, Scribbr also sells paid proofreading and editing services performed by human editors. The platform is built for students and researchers working on papers, theses, and dissertations who need to check their writing before submission. It started in 2012 in Tilburg, the Netherlands, founded by students Bas Swaen and Koen Driessen as a small proofreading service with a single editor, and grew into a company with hundreds of language experts serving students internationally. Scribbr was acquired by Learneo in 2022 and now operates alongside QuillBot within the Learneo family of writing and study tools. One limitation is that Scribbr's paid editing and proofreading services add cost on top of the free checking tools, and detection tools like plagiarism and AI checkers are inherently probabilistic rather than certain: they flag likely matches or AI-generated patterns rather than proving authorship.