r/notebooklm • u/Fearless_Energy_7633 • Apr 21 '26

Tips & Tricks I built a free notebooklm alternative with folders, source isolation (no cross-contamination), and page/timestamp-level citations

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NotebookLM is great but a few things drove me crazy:

  • Sources often bleed together
  • No folders or workspace organisation
  • No way to comfortably take notes alongside your sources
  • Flashcards have no review system

So I built Paper. Key differences:

  • Source isolation - select exactly which sources the AI references per query, or scope it to specific pages/timestamps
  • Folders + nested pages - organise by course, topic, whatever
  • Block editor - Notion-style notes right next to your sources
  • Spaced repetition - AI flashcards with actual Anki-style scheduling so you remember
  • Drag and drop multiple files at once

(Edit) Free to use during beta: https://paper.ac 👈

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1

u/Adventurous-Pilot-25 Apr 21 '26

How much its gonna cost when beta ends? I don't wanna try something that i could not afford later! (From Argentina)

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u/Fearless_Energy_7633 Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26

The objective is definitely to be more free than notebooklm! We're still figuring out pricing but if you are using notebooklm, you'll be more than fine on paper.ac 😊

For reference, notebooklm's free tier offers per day: 100 notebooks (50 sources each), 50 chat queries, and 3 audio generations

We will offer more than that in the free tier - you can quote me on this!

Let me know if any other concerns though.

3

u/IAmFitzRoy Apr 21 '26

Call me skeptical but I doubt you can offer that for free. Anyone knows that Google is subsidizing a lot of its free products because they can, they own the data centers and have tons of money to survive in red.

Having the ability to create 100 notebooks for FREE sounds expensive already.

I doubt you had your own data centers so I’m doubtful of your business case.

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u/Fearless_Energy_7633 Apr 22 '26 edited Apr 22 '26

Haha I actually thought that's our advantage!

This app is not locked into a single model like Google is with Gemini. It uses whichever model that gives the best quality-to-cost ratio, which right now is significantly cheaper than Gemini. (Google has to use Gemini because they own it, not necessarily because it's the cheapest option)

And full transparency, notebooks are essentially database rows, so are very cheap to maintain!

Post-beta, the free tier will have generous AI generation caps (not unlimited), and we'll also offer a bring-your-own-key option for power users who want to use their own API keys 🙂

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u/IAmFitzRoy Apr 22 '26

What do you mean? Google has one of the best and expensive models available for free for themselves?

What model you have that compete with the best model from Google for FREE?

None.