All Academia accounts have a profile attached and are required to have a profile. If you've ever downloaded a paper from Academia, you have a profile with your name attached to it. The name would be the name on the social network you signed up with, or the name you added yourself if you signed up with email. That means if you signed up with your Google account and your Google name is "Tom Sillyface," the name on your Academia account will be "Tom Sillyface." You can always change the name and other information on your profile by editing your profile.
Most of your profile is free! For example, your name, affiliations, contact information, social links, research interests, and paper sections are all free. We also show your social data, like following and followers, for free. Your suggested followers are also free!
What are Academia Premium features on the profile?
Mentions
The only way to get mentions to show on your profile is to upgrade to Academia Premium and select "This is Me" on the mentions we show you. If you return to a free Academia account, we will keep the number of Mentions you confirmed while you were an Academia Premium member, but you can't add or remove mentions unless you have an Academia Premium account.
Additional Paper Information
Most information about a paper, such as how many views it gets, is free. However, as part of your Academia Premium subscription, you'll see papers related to this paper on your profile, as well as the numbers of times it's mentioned and bookmarked.