Plagiarism

Copyscape Plagiarism Checker Review: Is It Any Good?

Looking for a reliable plagiarism checker? Read our review of Copyscape to see how it scores in ease of use, features, price, and performance. Is it worth it?

Plagiarism detection has never been more important.

With more and more content being published online, the chances of plagiarism continue to grow.

Not to mention the fact that generative AI pulls together information from several locations online, which significantly increases the chances of plagiarism occurring. 

(We’ll leave the whole “generative AI is just plagiarism” discussion for another day!)

Here, we look at one of the most popular plagiarism checkers for digital marketers, Copyscape, and how it compares to other, more modern options, including Originality.ai. Copyscape has been around for 20 years and has been a popular choice for digital marketers, writers, and editors. 

Key Takeaways (TL;DR)

  • Originality.ai outperforms Copyscape in detecting global plagiarism.
    • At the 5% threshold (Originality.ai 88% vs. Copyscape 68.5%).
  • Originality.ai is significantly better at detecting PatchWork plagiarism
    • At the 15% threshold (Originality.ai 43.5% vs. Copyscape 8.5%).
    • At the 5% threshold (Originality.ai 65% vs. Copyscape 30%).
  • Originality.ai shows a strong performance in identifying paraphrase plagiarism
    • At the 15% threshold (Originality.ai 27.62% vs. Copyscape 10.5%).
    • At the 5% threshold (Originality.ai 34.7% vs. Copyscape 35%).

Copyscape Quick Review

  • Ease of use - 7/10
  • Features - 6/10
  • Customer Support - 7/10
  • Price - 8/10
  • Speed - 8/10
  • Performance - 8/10
  • Summary - 8/10

Overall, the Copyscape tool is very solid and provides great insights into why your content is flagged as plagiarized, which is expected given its popularity for many years now.

However, the platform does have some very noticeable issues, most specifically the user interface.

What Is Copyscape?

For many years, Copyscape has been one of the go-to options for plagiarism detection. With its pay-per-use system and detailed results, Copyscape has become a go-to for anyone who wants to detect forms of plagiarism, especially for those in the world of web publishing.

Why are people interested in Copyscape’s plagiarism checker?

Interest in plagiarism checkers has only increased as our world becomes more and more digital-focused. While most people spend hours crafting detailed and unique content, others may take information from other articles, sometimes even trying to claim it as their own.

Tools like Copyscape are designed for just such occasions, preventing people from getting away with passing off other people’s work as their own.

Learn more about different types of plagiarism and examples of plagiarism.

History of Copyscape

Copyscape started in 2004 as an easy-to-use Plagiarism Checker. 

Little has changed in the tool since then. Below is a screenshot of Copyscape every 5 years…

2005:

2010:

2015:

2020:

Today:

These screenshots show the changes at Copyscape over 20 years.

Who Is Copyscape Best for?

Copyscape has been around for so long that it became a go-to tool for the following users:

Content marketers

Marketers can use it to ensure their work is original, and freelancers can even use it to prove it is their own upon submission.

Freelancers

Freelancers can also benefit from using a tool like Copyscape, as it is a great way to show their clients that the work they have produced is their own, rather than that of another creator.

How to Use Copyscape Effectively

To get the most out of Copyscape, you’ll need to purchase a Copyscape Premium account. Then, all you need to do is copy your text, paste it into the tool, and wait for the score to appear.

Here’s a quick example of what your output would look like if there is no plagiarism, using this article as the example: 

As you can see, the result is clear, but the user interface is a little tricky to navigate, mainly due to the small text bar.

However, another nice touch that Copyscape has is that if the text is very long, you’ll need to specifically confirm you are happy for the test to run to ensure you are okay with the cost.

What does it look like when Copyscape flags plagiarism? For this test, we input a section from one of our published blogs to see if Copyscape would catch it.

Here’s what it will look like if you get a plagiarism flag:

From there, you can click the “Compare Text” button to see exactly where your content crosses over, like this:

As you can see, Copyscape highlights the duplicate content, whilst also showing you what percentage of the overall text is affected at the top of the page.

How Much Does It Cost?

Copyscape does offer users a free version of its tool, but these checks are often very basic and will only detect the most obvious examples of plagiarism.

You can also sign up for a Copyscape Premium account, where you can pay per word as you go, giving you access to a much more in-depth plagiarism tool

Prices for this service are 3c per search for up to 200 words, plus 1c per extra 100 words.

Alternatives to Copyscape

Whilst Copyscape has had a pretty firm grip on the world of plagiarism detection for some time now, there are some very impressive alternatives to consider

For many, that might be Grammarly, but as you’ll see from the test below, the Originality.ai Plagiarism Checker is also an excellent alternative to the archaic layout of Copyscape.

Our Plagiarism Tool Test

But enough talking about what Copyscape can and can’t do. Let’s put it to the test against some of it’s modern competitors.

As with any tool test that we undertake, we ensure that our testing is rigorous, detailed, and fair. 

Our recent study evaluated the effectiveness of popular plagiarism detection tools — Copyscape and Grammarly — with Originality.ai, our unique offering. 

We explored their key features, results, user experience, pricing, and performance in plagiarism detection.

To ensure a fair comparison, we selected a standardized set of texts with varying degrees of originality, paraphrasing, and plagiarism. 

Dataset

  • Total 600 Text Samples:
    • Each sample of under 2500 words
    • 200 samples from each type of plagiarism mentioned below.
  • 3 Types of plagiarism in the selected dataset and its source:
    • Global Plagiarism: 

           PAN Plagiarism Corpus 2011 (PAN-PC-11) 

          Source: https://zenodo.org/records/3250095

  • Paraphrase Plagiarism:

          Identifying Machine-Paraphrased Plagiarism

          Source: https://zenodo.org/records/3608000

  • Patchwork Plagiarism:

          PAN14 Originality - Text Alignment

         Source: https://zenodo.org/records/3716022

Evaluation criteria

We tested each tool using the same evaluation criteria stated below:

  1. Sensitivity (True Positive Rate): The percentage of the time the detector identifies plagiarism correctly.
  2. Accuracy: The percentage of the detector’s predictions that were correct
  3. F1 Score: The harmonic mean of Specificity and Precision, often used as an agglomerating metric when ranking the performance of multiple detectors.

The threshold

We compared these tools at the threshold of 3%, 5%, and 15%.

Threshold: The predetermined percentage of content similarity at which a text will be flagged as plagiarised.

For example, a 15% threshold indicates that if a document has more than 15% matching content from other sources, it will be considered as potentially plagiarised.

At the 15% threshold, Originality performs robustly in Global detection with 86%. 

Then, Originality takes the lead in PatchWork detection (43.5%) compared to Copyscape, showcasing its capability in catching mixed plagiarism techniques. 

In Paraphrase detection, a notoriously difficult area, Originality’s 27.62% at the 15% threshold is a clear advantage over many tools.

Originality.ai vs. Copyscape

Here is a detailed comparison of the Originality.ai Plagiarism Checker compared specifically to Copyscape. 

It highlights comparative plagiarism detection performance across types of plagiarism, including global, paraphrase, and patchwork plagiarism.

As you can see, while Copyscape has long been the go-to tool for plagiarism, Originality.ai’s plagiarism checker has successfully taken plagiarism detection to the next level.

With advanced AI-driven algorithms, it excels at detecting paraphrased and patchwork plagiarism, making it more effective for catching subtle forms of plagiarism that Copyscape may miss.

Results overview

  • Global Plagiarism: Originality.ai outperforms Copyscape with 86% vs. 60.5% at the 15% threshold and 88% vs. 68.5% at the 5% threshold.
  • Paraphrase Plagiarism: Originality.ai detects 27.62% at the 15% threshold, better than Copyscape's 10.5%. At the 5% threshold, both are similar (34.7% vs. 35%).
  • PatchWork Plagiarism: Originality.ai is significantly better, with 43.5% vs. 8.5% at the 15% threshold and 65% vs. 30% at the 5% threshold.

User experience

Originality.ai vs Copyscape Comparison
Originality.ai Copyscape
  • User-friendly interface, real-time feedback
  • Easy upload of content via multiple methods (URL, document upload, copy-paste)
  • Detailed plagiarism reports with shareable links
  • Paraphrasing detection for more nuanced forms of plagiarism
  • AI-generated content detection with high accuracy
  • Simple, no-frills interface
  • Straightforward web-based interface
  • Basic plagiarism detection
  • No advanced features
  • Pay-per-search model, which can become expensive for heavy users

Pricing

Originality.ai vs Copyscape Comparison
Originality.ai Copyscape
  • Pay As You Go: $60 one-time payment for 6,000 credits (2-year expiry)
  • Pro Plan: $14.95/month for 1,000 credits (monthly renewals)
  • Enterprise Plan: $136.58/month for 15,000 credits with API access
  • Free version limited to 10 scans and 500 words
  • $0.03 per search for up to 200 words, $0.01 per additional 100 words
  • Required to buy credits - no auto-rebill feature
  • Pay-per-search model, which can become expensive for heavy users

Key features

Originality.ai Copyscape
  • Detects complex plagiarism forms like patchwork and mosaic plagiarism
  • Very intuitive similarity score for user content compared to plagiarised sources
  • Identifies AI-generated content from various sources
  • Multilingual plagiarism detection
  • Detailed Scan History and Shareable Reports
  • Readability Checker & Fact Checker
  • Basic web-based detection
  • Batch search for premium users
  • API available
  • URL-based searches

Analysis

Scan Time

For scanning 1000-1500 words using API Endpoints:

  • Originality.ai: 20-30 seconds
  • Copyscape: 10-20 seconds

While Copyscape is reliable, Originality.ai stands out with advanced detection capabilities, especially for complex plagiarism like paraphrasing.

Originality.ai Copyscape
  • Strong for global plagiarism (86%) and patchwork detection (43.5%), with decent paraphrase detection (27.62%)
  • Ideal for content creators, educators, and publishers who need both plagiarism detection and AI content analysis
  • Strong capabilities in detecting both traditional and subtle plagiarism, making it ideal for academic and journalistic use
  • Provides real-time content quality assessment with readability and fact-checking tools
  • Its AI detector that has the ability to detect AI-generated content with 98% accuracy makes it stand out among competitors, especially for professional publishers concerned with content fraud
  • Lower global plagiarism accuracy (60.5%) and very poor paraphrase detection (10.5%) and patchwork detection (8.5%)
  • Best for low-cost, simple web content checks
  • Suited for basic needs only
  • Lacks advanced features

Pros

Originality.ai Copyscape
  • High accuracy in detecting both AI-generated content and plagiarism
  • User-friendly interface
  • Offers multiple features like readability check, fact check, and paraphrasing detection
  • Shareable and detailed plagiarism reports
  • Pay-as-you-go pricing option for flexibility
  • Flexible pricing – buy a subscription or credits
  • Saves time with automated plagiarism monitoring
  • Cost-effective
  • Simple and intuitive interface for smooth navigation
  • Direct Text Comparison
  • Free URL Search
  • API Availability
  • Multiple Language Support
  • Third-Party Integrations

Cons

Originality.ai Copyscape
  • API access is only available in the enterprise plan
  • The Pay-as-You-Go plan lacks features like team management, full site scans, and scan from URL
  • Can be inaccurate when checking human content (learn more about false positives)
  • Doesn’t offer a full free version to test all its capabilities
  • Lack of Source Confirmation
  • Unclear Source Specification
  • No Free Sign-ups
  • Limited Features Without Premium
  • Per-word Pricing
  • No Document Support
  • Customer Service Could Improve
  • Limited Premium Plan Variety
  • No Spell Check or Grammar Check
  • No Report Saving

Check out the Originality.ai Plagiarism Checker today!

Frequently Asked Questions About Copyscape

How does Copyscape work?

Copyscape conducts a scan of the web to identify any instances of duplicate copy, comparing your input with what’s already online.

Is Copyscape free?

Copyscape does have a free version of its tool, but it comes with quite a few limitations. The premium version of their platform offers more robust features.

What file formats can I check using Copyscape Premium?

Copyscape Premium lets you check content in an array of formats, including the most popular options, such as HTML, DOC, PDF, and DOCX.

Graeme

My name is Graeme, a passionate writer with a strong Content Marketing background. Over the last seven years, I have developed an extensive portfolio of SEO Content writing, helping various brands improve their organic traffic, customer experience, and, ultimately, profits!

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