You choose
If none of the options fits, PaperStack sends new ones instead of assigning work you did not choose.
Independent public review for preprints
Your preprint
publicly reviewed
is trusted and used sooner
The first weeks after posting matter most. Earlier trust gives your work more time to gain visibility and citations.
Free to join. We'll send the short overview and confirm availability in your field.
What you get
Independent feedback for the work you want others to trust.
A preprint can be available immediately, but availability is not the same as confidence. PaperStack helps authors earn useful feedback while their work is still new. Public reviews help readers, especially researchers outside your immediate niche, assess your work with greater confidence.
With PaperStack, you receive a review from another researcher in the community (not from the person you reviewed). You read it first and choose whether it stays private or is shared publicly where supported.
PaperStack is independent of publishers and free for authors, reviewers, and readers.
How it works
Contribute once. Request a review of your own work.
- 01
Choose what you could review
PaperStack sends five to seven conflict-checked options. Rank up to three you would genuinely be willing to review. You are never assigned a paper you did not choose, and you never review the person who reviews you.
- 02
Write one structured review
PaperStack checks it for relevance, specificity, usefulness, evidence, and professionalism. If something fixable is missing, you can revise it.
- 03
Request a review of your preprint
Once your review passes our quality check, you earn a credit to request one independent review of your own work.
Fair by design
More balanced than one-way review requests.
Conflicts are screened
PaperStack checks known conflicts, including recent co-authorship, before confirming an assignment.
Quality is checked
Every review is checked against the same standards before it earns a credit or reaches an author.
If PaperStack cannot place your requested review after its matching rounds, your unused credit is returned automatically.
Beyond your own preprint
Good reviews help research move faster.
When independent feedback is shared alongside a preprint, other researchers can see what a knowledgeable peer found convincing, uncertain, or worth checking further.
That gives readers more context before journal review is complete and helps useful research travel with more trust.
Designed for preprints shared on
Why it matters
Hi.
I’m building PaperStack because peer review is too important to be this slow, opaque, and weirdly dependent on unpaid goodwill. It is too precious to be shackled by the business interests of publishing houses.
Researchers already do the work: we make discoveries, test each other’s ideas, and move knowledge forward. We should have more say in how we communicate that work to one another—and that system should be free, fast, fair, and worth the time it asks of us.
Preprint servers have already given researchers a way to share new work directly. What is still missing is a strong, independent way to review it. Research quickly travels beyond its own field, shaping new discoveries, policy, diagnosis, and everyday life. It deserves a clearer basis for trust.
Building a trust layer for preprints is challenging, obviously. A system like this has to match expertise well, screen conflicts, create real incentives, and keep reviews useful without becoming another opaque gatekeeper. But preprints are now normal, research communities already discuss work in public, and LLMs can help make matching and quality checks possible at scale. I think the moment is finally here.
Welcome to PaperStack,
Rodrigo Rosas-Bertolini
FAQs
Common questions.
Write one useful, structured review and, once it passes the quality check, earn one credit to request one expert review of your own preprint. It is not a one-to-one swap: you do not review the person who reviews you.
Yes. PaperStack sends a shortlist of five to seven relevant, conflict-checked preprints. Rank up to three you would genuinely review; if none can be confirmed, we send new options rather than assign a paper you did not choose.
PaperStack checks expertise, capacity, and known conflicts, including recent co-authorship, before confirming an assignment. Every review is also checked for relevance, specificity, usefulness, evidence, and professionalism before it earns a credit or reaches the author.
You read the accepted review first and choose whether it stays private or is posted publicly where the preprint server allows it. The reviewer’s signed or anonymous sharing choice is respected either way.
We expect a review to take four to seven weeks after you submit a preprint and spend a credit. You can follow matching progress as it happens; if PaperStack cannot place the review after its matching rounds, the unused credit is returned automatically.
PaperStack is opening one field at a time so each review pool has enough expertise and activity. Preprint authors and researchers across the hard sciences can request an invitation as matching pools expand.
Yes. Review credits are earned by contributing useful peer review; they are not bought. PaperStack is free for authors, reviewers, and readers.
No. PaperStack is independent. It works with publicly available preprints and can share reviews where a preprint server supports public discussion.