Citation Generator
Commercial use OK
380+ models
No watermark
No sign-up needed
Model:
+ GPT-5, Claude, Gemini
Generate citations in 9 styles (APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago / Turabian 17, Harvard, IEEE, AMA, Vancouver, ASA, ACS) across 12 source types (book, journal article, website, news, magazine, conference paper, thesis, government report, video, podcast, social media, interview, dataset). Outputs both the reference-list entry and a matching in-text citation, plus a hanging-indent BibTeX export and a copyable Zotero JSON snippet for power users.
Citation
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Result
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Generate citations with free AI. APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard formats.
How to Use Citation Generator
1
Enter your input
Type text, upload a file, or describe what you want. No account needed.
2
Click generate
Our AI processes your request in seconds using the best open-source models.
3
Download & share
Download, copy, or share your result. Free for personal and commercial use.
Use this tool via API
Automate this tool from your own code. OpenAI-compatible REST endpoint, Bearer-token auth, no extra SDK required. Token costs match the web interface.
curl -X POST https://api.free.ai/v1/chat/ \
-H "Authorization: Bearer sk-free-..." \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"model": "qwen7b", "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Explain quantum entanglement for a 5-year-old."}]}'Citation Generator — FAQ
Generates correctly formatted citations in 9 styles (APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 17, Harvard, IEEE, AMA 11, Vancouver, ASA 6, ACS) across 14 source types (book, book chapter, journal article, website, news, magazine, conference paper, thesis, government report, video / film / YouTube, podcast, social media post, interview, dataset / software). Outputs the reference-list entry, in-text citation examples (parenthetical + first-mention + subsequent), plus optional BibTeX entry and Zotero CSL-JSON for power users.
Citation Machine and EasyBib (both Chegg-owned) are free with ads + paid Plus tiers ($9.95/mo each). Zotero is free open-source but requires the desktop app. Mendeley (Elsevier) is free with paid storage. MyBib is free with ads. All produce citations once you have the metadata. Free.ai's tool is 100% free, no ads, supports a Paste tab where you drop a copied citation in another style or raw source text and it reformats — saves manual field entry. Plus 9 styles and BibTeX / CSL-JSON exports.
Yes — Qwen 3 30B on our GPUs. A single APA 7 citation costs about 250 tokens. Free signup gets 10,000 tokens — ~40 citations. Batch mode (multiple sources at once) is more efficient per citation.
9 styles: APA 7 (psychology / social sciences), MLA 9 (humanities / English), Chicago 17 notes-bibliography (history / art history), Harvard (UK / Australia universities), IEEE (engineering / CS), AMA 11 (medicine / JAMA), Vancouver (biomedical / NLM), ASA 6 (sociology), ACS (chemistry). Each follows the official latest edition rules.
The model uses bracketed placeholders like [Year unknown] / [Author n.d.] / [Publisher missing] — never invents data. Fill in what you know, the placeholder shows what's still required. For websites without a publication date, APA 7 uses '(n.d.)' which is what you'll see.
Partially — paste a URL, DOI, or a copied citation in another style on the Paste tab and the model extracts the bibliographic fields it can identify. CRITICAL CAVEAT: the model cannot fetch URLs live (no internet access at inference time), so a bare URL with no other info will produce a placeholder-heavy entry. For best results, paste the source's title page or abstract block, not just a URL.
Yes — toggle "Also output BibTeX entry" on. You get a `@article{key, author={...}, title={...}, ...}` block ready to paste into your .bib file. Works for LaTeX / Overleaf / Zotero. Type-tag (@article / @book / @inproceedings / @misc) is auto-detected from source type.
Yes — toggle "Also output Zotero CSL-JSON" on. The CSL-JSON block can be pasted directly into Zotero (Add Item by Identifier > paste JSON) or any reference manager that supports CSL. Useful when you have one weird source that does not import cleanly from a database.
Yes — switch to Batch on the count selector + paste multiple sources separated by blank lines or numbered lists in the Paste tab. The model produces one fully-formed entry per source, sorted alphabetically (or numerically for IEEE / Vancouver). Useful for clearing out a Word doc full of half-formatted refs.
No — first session free. Sign up for 10K tokens, generation history, premium models. ~40 citations per signup grant.
Yes — paste source titles in their original language (German, Japanese, etc.). The reference entry preserves the original language for the title; in-text citation uses the romanized author name where applicable. Some style manuals mandate translations in [brackets] — the model includes these per style.
Yes — POST to /v1/chat/ with the citation system prompt (in template source). Useful for academic-tool plugins, LMS integrations, or research-management apps. Bearer auth, monthly limits. Docs at /api/.
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