Olto builds reproducibility in from the first line. Tell it your research goal and you'll have a publication-grade, rigor-scored protocol in about a minute. Then run it, log your evidence, and work through your statistics in one place. Every protocol comes with a public, citable Reproducibility Passport. $79 a month, not $3,000 a year.
A protocol in a Word doc. Stats in SPSS. Inventory in a spreadsheet. Papers in Zotero. Decisions in a chat thread. Nothing connects, so everything gets retyped and nothing is traceable. Reproducibility only gets checked when a reviewer (or a colleague three labs over) can't repeat your result. By then it's wasted reagents and lost weeks.
The whole research arc in one connected workspace. Each step feeds the next (linked, versioned, and auditable) so nothing gets retyped and nothing gets lost.
Tell Olto your goal in plain language.
A full, rigor-scored protocol in under a minute.
Edit it as a drag-and-drop step graph.
A guided session logs findings + evidence.
Real stats, computed in your browser.
Grounded literature, with AI you can check.
A signed PDF and a public Reproducibility Passport.
A record-keeper stores what you did. Olto helps you do it well, and prove it. These are the things you can't get from a chatbot or a notebook, and you can verify every one of them by clicking.
Every protocol is scored against 7 deterministic reproducibility signals (no AI, fully recomputable) and gets a public, citable passport anyone can check without logging in. You catch the gaps before you pipette, not in peer review.
Open a real passportThe Statistics Workbench runs real t-tests, ANOVA, correlation, and non-parametric tests entirely client-side, so your raw data never reaches our servers. The notebook runs Python in your browser: run the test, get the figure, sign and version it.
How privacy worksAn assistant that searches your own protocols, papers, and inventory and answers with citations. Literature Q&A grounded on the actual paper. Every output is a starting point that requires your sign-off, with an audit trail on every action.
See it generate oneExport a signed, versioned session-report PDF. Map your method to ISO, ASTM, USP, and ICH standards. Hand a reviewer a deterministic, citable passport they can verify with no login. The after-state isn't a draft. It's a method someone else can reproduce.
Browse published workEvery protocol is scored against the same 7 deterministic signals: no AI, fully recomputable, so anyone can reproduce the number. The passport gets a public URL and a citation string you can drop into a methods section or hand to a reviewer. No login to read it. Browse 104 published protocols in the open library, each with its own passport.
Open this protocol’s full passportYou can, and you'll get an ungrounded transcript you retype into your real tools, with no way to verify the rigor. What's different when the AI is built for the lab:
Every protocol carries a deterministic 7-signal rigor score anyone can recompute, not a confident paragraph you have to trust.
Generate, run, log evidence, and analyze in one connected place, instead of copy-pasting a chat into five other apps.
Statistics run in your browser; the notebook runs Python locally. Your raw data never has to leave your machine.
It searches your own protocols, papers, and inventory and answers with citations: grounded, not invented, with a full audit trail.
One connected platform for the whole of experimental research: design, run, analyze, document, and collaborate. Everything below is included; the only thing metered is AI.
Describe a goal, get a 12-section, publication-grade protocol in under a minute, scored on feasibility, controls, reproducibility, and clarity. Edit inline, export to PDF, fork to anyone.
A tool-using assistant that searches your own protocols, papers, and inventory, and can run a statistical test, answering grounded, with citations and an audit trail.
A block-based electronic lab notebook that runs Python in your browser. Run a t-test, get a matplotlib figure inline, then sign, version, and export the entry to PDF.
Run real t-tests, ANOVA, correlation, regression, and non-parametric tests entirely client-side, so your raw data never leaves your browser. Effect sizes, CIs, and plots included.
Execute any protocol as a step-by-step session. Per-step timers, pass/fail/deviation logging, findings and evidence captured as you go, then a session-report PDF.
A reference manager with collections, full-text search, Ask-AI Q&A grounded on a paper, multi-paper synthesis, and 13-style citation export.
Order lab tests, track results, auto-flag against reference ranges, release a Certificate of Analysis, and invoice. On Lab plans and up.
Deterministic computer vision in the browser: lane densitometry and cell counting. The numbers are yours; AI is used only for QC.
Map an experiment to the ISO, ASTM, USP, and ICH standards it should meet, and surface them right on the protocol.
Presence, live cursors, and inline comments. Co-edit protocols and projects with version history and approvals.
Track stocks, expirations, locations, suppliers, and lot numbers with a full transaction ledger. Get warned before you run out, not after.
Browse rigor-scored protocols other scientists published. Fork any one to start from something real, and put your name on yours.
We built Olto because we wanted to use it. The alternatives were either too expensive or too narrow. This comparison is made in good faith. If something looks wrong, tell us and we'll fix it.
Pricing reflects publicly listed seat-license rates as of 2026. Comparison made in good faith; we welcome corrections at support@oltodiscovery.com.
| Feature | Olto Discovery | Benchling | LabArchives | Spreadsheets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI-generated protocols | Supported: Yes, Olto AI | Not supported: Limited beta | Not supported: No | Not supported: No |
| Reproducibility score + public passport | Supported: Yes, deterministic | Not supported: No | Not supported: No | Not supported: No |
| AI research agent (searches your data) | Supported: Yes, with citations | Not supported: No | Not supported: No | Not supported: No |
| Statistics, run in your browser | Supported: Built-in, private | Not supported: Add-on | Not supported: Manual | Not supported: Manual |
| Guided test runs | Supported: Yes, with findings | Not supported: No | Not supported: No | Not supported: No |
| LIMS and Certificates of Analysis | Supported: Yes, on Lab+ | Not supported: Enterprise Add-on | Not supported: No | Not supported: No |
| Image and gel analysis | Supported: Built-in CV | Not supported: No | Not supported: No | Not supported: No |
| Electronic lab notebook | Supported: Yes | Supported: Yes | Supported: Yes | Not supported: No |
| Inventory tracking | Supported: Yes, with ledger | Supported: Yes | Not supported: Limited | Not supported: Manual |
| Real-time co-editing | Supported: Yes, live cursors | Not supported: Limited | Not supported: No | Supported: Yes |
| Public protocol library | Supported: Yes, forkable | Not supported: Private only | Not supported: No | Not supported: No |
| Pricing (per seat) | Supported: $79 - $499 / mo | Supported: $3-4k+ / year | Supported: $200+ / year | Supported: Free |
| Setup time | Supported: Minutes | Not supported: Weeks | Supported: Days | Supported: Hours |
| Data export | Supported: PDF, JSON, CSV | Not supported: Limited | Supported: Yes | Supported: Yes |
Independent researchers, students, and small teams who need the structure of a serious platform without the enterprise price, or the enterprise sales call.
Standardize how your lab designs protocols, onboard new students in days, and see every experiment your group has running, with a rigor score on each.
Get a defensible first draft of any protocol, run your stats without leaving the page, and publish work to the library with your name on it.
Run R&D from one tool. Skip the enterprise contract and the six-figure software bill, and keep an audit trail from day one.
The structure of a real platform at a price you can justify. Fork community protocols to start from something proven, not a blank page.
Your statistics and notebook Python run in your browser, so sensitive data can stay on your machine. Everything else is encrypted in transit (TLS 1.3) and at rest (AES-256), isolated per-tenant by Postgres row-level security, with a SHA-256 audit trail on every action.
See exactly what we do (and don't) claimStart free, no card. AI is metered; everything else is unlimited.
Generate a real, rigor-scored protocol right now. No account, no card, no demo call. Then keep it free.