If you’re a content marketer, blogger, or editor, then you know that impeccable grammar is critical to work that is professional and well-received by your audience. Not only that but writing in your client’s brand voice isn’t always easy. But with the demands of deadlines on multiple projects, it can be challenging to find the time to correct all your grammar mistakes yourself.
Grammarly is here to help you with that.
Powered by an advanced system that combines rules, patterns, and AI techniques like ML, deep learning, and NLP, Grammarly can help you improve your writing substantially. Whether you’re a student writing papers or a copywriter, Grammarly can help you become more accurate and efficient with your work.
As a result, AI tools are becoming more accepted and in demand in the professional writing world. Still, that demand doesn’t come without scrutiny, so this Grammarly review will discuss why Grammarly should be your next AI writing tool.
Is Grammarly Premium Worth It: The Free Version vs The Premium Version
The main difference between Grammarly’s free and premium versions is that the premium version provides more recommendations, vocabulary improvements, writing style suggestions, and plagiarism checks than the free version.
Pros
- Supports all major online internet browsers.
- The Grammarly Chrome extension embeds the service anywhere you work.
- The service suits anyone who needs it.
- Grammarly is customizable and can be adjusted based on the content.
- It’s one of the most intuitive grammar tools available today.
Cons
- Grammarly doesn’t have an AI detection tool, meaning it can’t detect AI-generated content.
- The Google Docs integration isn’t entirely reliable.
- There’s no offline mode.
- The plagiarism detector isn’t as reliable as Copyscape or similar tools.
Overall, we believe Grammarly is an excellent editing tool and deserves the top spot for the best editing and proofreading tools on the market.
Still, let’s address the elephant in the room: most writing tools coming out now should have an AI-checking tool. But AI checking tools can lead to false positives and cause trouble for writers where there usually wouldn’t be a problem. It’s a conundrum, but the trends are clear, AI content and grammar checkers are more in demand, and writers must learn to adapt.
Grammarly Review: What is Grammarly?
Grammarly is an AI-driven writing assistant that can help you improve your grammar and correct spelling mistakes and punctuation. It also offers suggestions for a better choice of words and tone. Grammarly works on your documents, Gmail, social media posts, and Google Docs. The free version of Grammarly corrects basic grammar, spelling, punctuation, and writing mistakes and can be used on any device, including your mobile phone.
The premium and business versions are where the real power of Grammarly lies. These versions offer more advanced features and can be used to help you with your writing style, vocabulary choices, and grammar guidelines. Grammarly came out in 2009; for those of us in college, having an innovative app like that, which could help with writing essays and papers, was a huge plus.
Since then, Grammarly has become a full-fledged writing suite, with the free version now being limited to basic grammar, spelling corrections, and word choice suggestions. It’s still an excellent tool for writing for school or blog posts; honestly, the free version is all most people need. The free versions can take care of emails to ensure you don’t sound like an idiot and help you better get your point across.
The paid versions give you access to much more and are ideal if you want more features like tone control or plagiarism checks. Whether you choose the free or paid version of Grammarly, it’s worth noting that the service is beneficial and can improve your writing considerably.
Ok, enough of that; let’s get down to the nuts and bolts of this AI-driven tool. Does it truly deserve the hype? How has Grammarly been transforming the writing world since 2009?
Grammarly Review: How Has Grammarly Changed Writing?
One thing that separates Grammarly from your average spell checker is its ability to understand the context. Sure, Microsoft Word will tell you if a word is spelled wrong, but Grammarly will go the extra mile and suggest more appropriate alternatives for what you’re trying to say. Beyond that, Grammarly also explains why the new suggestion is better. This is great for writers who want a deeper understanding of their writing skills.
While a deeper understanding of our writing is a good idea, people will eventually gain an understanding of words and use synonyms by reading books, articles, and other sources of information. Grammarly is more than just a contextual understanding tool; it also provides feedback on grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure. It will point out run-on sentences or comma splices that throw off the flow of your work.
More importantly, though, Grammarly forces writers to question their work and learn from their mistakes. With the app’s cutting-edge technology, writers from all walks of life can confidently express their ideas how they want. Grammarly gives everyone the tools to achieve their dreams, communicate better, and accomplish their goals. With how we’re describing it, you’d think we were talking about some miracle product, right?
Grammarly Review: What Does Grammarly Do For You?
Grammarly’s advanced system combines rules, patterns, and AI techniques like Machine Learning (ML), Deep Learning, and NLP to help you understand your writing better. With the premium and business versions of Grammarly, users can get more sophisticated feedback on their writing, like detecting complex grammar, contextual spelling errors, tone adjustments, plagiarism checks, and access to Grammarly’s newest features (we’ll discuss these later).
Grammarly forces writers, marketers, or anyone writing content to check their work before publishing it. As a result, you can expect higher-quality content from your team and fewer embarrassing grammar mistakes. If you haven’t had an awkward moment with grammar yet, don’t worry, your time is coming. Grammarly makes you question how you write, not in a bad way, but in the only way that leads to improvement. That’s the name of the game, isn’t it?
Grammarly is over a decade old and still strong, but what can it do for writers and creators?
Checks for Grammar Errors
At this point, everyone knows about, or should know, about Grammarly. Does anyone remember their old YouTube ads? It’s most famous for its spelling and grammar checks. Grammarly checks for more than 250 types of errors.
It even does a few extra things, like checking for:
- Active and Passive Voice Usage
- Misplaced Commas
- Sentence Fragments
- Homophones
- Homonyms
It also has many fancy features for people who write professionally. For example, it has suggestions for better words, checks for plagiarism, and even gives you an overall writing score. It’s like having your editor with you, although we should note that it won’t replace your human editor.
Speeds up the Editing Process
As good as human editors are, not everyone can afford them; that’s where Grammarly comes in with its free and premium versions. With the premium version, you can enjoy features like advanced checks for punctuation, sentence structure, and style consistency.
In the beginning, Grammarly had an editor where you could paste your document into the window and edit away. While copying and pasting into the app wasn’t as convenient, it was miles ahead of Word. Grammarly also allows users to upload content from their computers. It even offers an extension for Chrome so that you can check your writing right in your browser.
Generally, the SPAG checker works one of two ways:
- In-line Checking – Checking your writing as you type it and within the document you’re writing. When you use any app that Grammarly integrates with, you can create a document and check your writing by clicking an icon at the bottom of the window.
- New Document in Editor – If your workflow includes working in the Grammarly app, you can start a new document in the editor window. It will suggest corrections and give you a score for your writing.
Improves Sentence Structure
Grammarly’s sentence structure check is a big help for those who often miscommunicate their ideas or struggle to write clearly. These checks look at the syntax of your sentences and suggest more accurate ways of expressing yourself. This feature helps writers create precise corrections that are easier to read and understand. It’s great for business owners, marketers, and content creators who want to engage their readers.
Grammarly also has a tone detector that helps you understand your document. If you’re writing a persuasive essay or news article, this feature keeps your opinions from appearing too aggressive. Grammarly has approached the subject of writing from very different angles, teaching people how to write better by breaking it down into manageable chunks.
Creates a Consistent Content Flow
Grammarly’s premium version also offers a “Clarity” feature, facilitating smooth, cohesive sentences that flow well from one sentence to the next. Instead of having choppy or awkward sentences, this tool can make your content look more professional and polished. Grammarly does this by suggesting full-sentence rewrites or formatting changes where appropriate. If you reuse words, Grammarly will offer different word choices and variety in paid plans only.
Ensures a Consistent Brand Voice for Content
This goes back to the tone detection features in Grammarly. By understanding the tone of your document, your content will be consistent with your brand’s voice. If you’re writing a blog post for an established company, this feature can help you maintain the same tone across all posts for them. If you’ve used the Grammarly Premium features before and believe the tone-detecting features are lacking, consider the Business plan.
Among other neat features we’ll discuss later, the Business plan gives writers access to Brand tones. Brand tones create a custom “brand dictionary” or profile of words and phrases that reflect a company’s style. Many businesses turn to Grammarly Premium for its advanced plagiarism checking. This premium feature detects plagiarism across the web and in various documents, even if you’ve broken up the content into multiple parts. It also gives detailed feedback on each detected source so that you can properly cite them all.
But, with all of these business-related features, is Grammarly just meant for business owners? Of course not.
Who is the Grammar Checking Tool For?
Grammarly is recommended for everyone. It’s a practical proofreading and grammar checker application that enhances writing for non-native English speakers, professionals, or amateur writers. However, even those who aren’t professional writers can benefit from Grammarly’s free plan, as it provides a more advanced spelling and grammar-checking experience compared to Word’s or Google Docs’ built-in spell and grammar checker. In addition, this software is compatible with Outlook, Microsoft Office, and Gmail, ensuring your emails and writing look professional.
If you’re on the fence about whether Grammarly would work for you, consider this:
- It prevents embarrassing typos, misspellings, and grammar mistakes.
- It improves your writing by making it more transparent, engaging, and concise.
- It’s a tool to check your writing on any website automatically.
- It’s good for hiring ghostwriters or checking their work for plagiarism.
Whether you pay for a premium or free subscription depends on your needs. If you’re looking for a basic writing assistant to help you with spelling and grammar, the “Grammarly free” version should be more than enough. However, if you want a comprehensive writing assistant, then Grammarly Premium is worth considering.
That being said, let’s move on and discuss some package pricing and features for each plan.
How Much Does Grammarly Cost?
If you’ve seen content surrounding Grammarly in the past, you likely already know quite a bit about the app; what’s lesser known is the pricing. The free version of Grammarly offers basic features such as spelling and grammar checking, but it has no advanced features. On the other hand, the Premium and Business plans come with these advanced features and are priced differently depending on how you want to pay for them. Let’s explain.
Grammarly Free
The free version of Grammarly is ideal for basic writing tasks, but it also helps you catch common errors that your word processor’s native spell-checker may overlook. Because it’s free, this version has the most users and can be used on any device or browser. So if you’re writing casually, the free version of Grammarly is sufficient.
Grammarly Premium
Grammarly Premium is the upgraded version that provides access to a broader range of checks, such as clarity, concision, fluency, formality, and plagiarism detection. The Grammarly premium version also offers detailed explanations for each correction that you make so that you can learn from your mistakes. This is especially useful for non-native English speakers.
For those looking for a more comprehensive writing assistant, Grammarly Premium also offers an advanced AI-driven feature that can detect tone and help you improve your writing style. These features make the premium version attractive for freelance writers and professionals who need to produce high-quality content quickly.
Grammarly premium costs:
- Monthly – It’s $29.95 if you choose a monthly plan.
- Quarterly – This plan is $60 if you select this plan.
- Annual – It’s $12 a month when you sign up for a yearly plan.
Finally, there’s Grammarly Business for businesses and corporate clients who want advanced features or to run a team and keep communications and content consistent. Ultimately, the cost of Grammarly depends on how much you plan to use the app and what features you need. The free version is perfect for casual users, while the premium and business versions work best for those who need more advanced features or team collaboration support.
Grammarly Business
The Business version of Grammarly is meant for companies and professional clients who require advanced features or wish to manage a team while ensuring consistent communication and content quality. This version includes all the Premium plan features and additional benefits such as usage tracking and dashboard analytics, priority support, custom style guides, and snippets that can be used to enter reusable phrases and brand language. The cost of the Grammarly Business version depends on the number of users you have in your team, but it starts at $15 per user per month.
Is Grammarly Easy to Use?
Indeed, Grammarly is user-friendly and works almost anywhere anyone wants to write. According to our experience and other critics and reviewers, Grammarly is the most straightforward proofreading service available. However, it may not be everyone’s top choice. Grammarly’s creators knew that ordinary people would be using it, so they made it easy for all sorts of people.
Is Grammarly Worth Using?
Grammarly is a better option than traditional proofreading and grammar checkers as it identifies and corrects more writing errors. Furthermore, Grammarly explains the type of mistake made and suggests improvement. The free and premium versions are user-friendly, efficient, and accurate, making them a preferred tool for successful writers.
We’ve been using Grammarly since the beginning, and since then, nothing has come close to the level of accuracy and reliability that it provides. Grammarly is worth considering for anyone who needs help with their writing, whether you’re a novice or an experienced writer. It’s worth the investment. Whether you decide to use the free version or go for one of the premium plans, you should consider why you need it and what features you need the most.
If you’re still unsure whether Grammarly is for you, we will talk more about Grammarly’s integrations and some new features coming soon.
What Features Does Grammarly Have That Improve Workflow?
Grammarly helps writers produce high-quality content quickly; it integrates with many services, such as Gmail, WordPress, Medium, and Slack. Also, Grammarly offers Chrome and Firefox browser extensions that allow you to check your writing online without leaving the page.
Grammarly for Microsoft Word
If you’re a fan of old-school, reliable word processors like Microsoft Word, Grammarly has got you covered. Grammarly has an add-in for Microsoft Word that integrates directly into the program, allowing you to check your writing while writing. In addition, when you install Grammarly for Microsoft Word, you’ll get a simplified version of the Grammarly editor. This cleaner interface makes writing easier without distractions, and you’ll still be able to access all of Word’s essential writing functions.
Plagiarism checker
Plagiarism is generally treated the same way—it’s not good, whether accidental or on purpose. Grammarly understands this and has incorporated a complete plagiarism checker into its software. You can perform unlimited plagiarism checks on your text without any additional cost, allowing you to check your text as much as you want. Using a plagiarism checker is crucial, especially if you are an avid reader with a good memory.
Even if you believe an idea to be original, it might not be, and you could accidentally plagiarize. Therefore, avoiding copying and pasting research text into your document without proper labeling is essential, especially when interruptions can happen at any time. If you unintentionally use parts of someone else’s writing without appropriate credit, Grammarly has a feature that can help.
You can cite the text using MLA, APA, or the Chicago Manual of Style by selecting the convention of your choice. This will generate a citation for you and add it to your document.
Grammarly Chrome extension
One of the most popular Grammarly features is the Chrome Grammarly extension. The browser extension allows you to check your work in real time as you write, meaning it will detect errors and instantly suggest corrections. The feature can be turned on and off using the Grammarly icon, depending on where you use the browser extension.
The Grammarly browser extensions will automatically check your comments, blog posts, tweets, Facebook posts, and emails. The Chrome extension also helps increase productivity by allowing users to keep writing without stopping and checking for errors.
Grammarly desktop app
We’ve already touched on the browser extension and integration, but now let’s look at the Grammarly software desktop app. The Grammarly online editor offers users an easy-to-use editor for writing and proofreading their work. The desktop app uses Grammarly’s AI-powered technology to analyze your documents and suggest corrections as you write the copy to reduce the time you spend proofreading and editing.
Grammarly Keyboard for Mobile
Like many AI tools and Google, there’s a growing focus on the mobile market. The company developed the Grammarly mobile app to help you write error-free on your mobile devices to tap into this market. The Grammarly Keyboard for Android and iOS has a fully-featured grammar and spell checker and a predictive text engine to help you type faster. The Grammarly keyboard will also suggest corrections and alternative words to make your writing easier to read.
Is Grammarly Safe: Can You Trust It?
Is Grammarly accurate? Can you trust it with your data? Let’s clarify: Grammarly, being an AI-based tool, is just that, a tool, and your judgment as a content writer are still essential. You can rely on it to catch spelling and grammar errors; its suggestions are more accurate than other writing apps. It can fix passive voice, diction, writing style, and comma placement.
We should mention that Grammarly has some corrections that do not apply to more experienced authors or individuals in academic settings. However, with Grammarly’s Domains, you can change the use case for your editing needs, fundamentally changing what Grammarly checks in your document. With the domain function, you can change your audience, write formally or informally, and manage the goals for your specific content based on each project. Users can also adjust the intent and formality to restrict slang based on their needs.
The Grammarly Domains are:
- Academic – This domain requires adherence to all rules and conventions of formal writing. The editing system will also differentiate between experimental essays bent on a narrative purpose, reporting for analytical and factual-based discussions.
- General – This domain indicates that the rules and conventions are enforced with moderate strictness.
- Business – The domain applies most of the rules while allowing some informal expressions.
- Casual – The program follows most rules but permits some leeway in style and language.
- Creative – This setting permits some deliberate deviation from established rules and expectations.
- Email – The domain effectively applies nearly all the rules and conventions for writing emails.
Ultimately, it’s up to the writer to judge how much their content needs editing. Grammarly leaves everything up to you, the writer, and interprets your work in every way you want. So far, we haven’t found a document that Grammarly couldn’t edit well.
Why Is Grammarly So Popular?
If we had to think of one reason why Grammarly is so popular, it could be the tool’s reliability. Reliability is almost as important as accuracy in editing and proofreading tools. As we mentioned, many professional writers consider Grammarly the best editing tool because it has a track record of delivering reliable results.
Another reason for Grammarly’s popularity is its affordability. Many AI tools are expensive, but with Grammarly, the premium version is reasonably priced. Users get these features for pennies compared to the value that Grammarly delivers to its subscribers.
While there are likely many reasons why Grammarly is so popular, here are some others we consider relevant:
- Inclusive and Sensitive Language – Grammarly is designed to help you use sensitive and inclusive language, ensuring your writing appeals to readers from all walks of life.
- No Checking Limits – Whether using the free or the premium subscription, Grammarly has no limits on how much you can check and no extra fees.
- Vital Editing Feedback – Grammarly’s AI-powered editing system provides valuable feedback on your writing in real-time, allowing you to improve each sentence and make the most of your writing.
- Broad Compatibility – Grammarly is compatible with many industry staples, such as Gmail, Google Docs, Facebook, Twitter, and more. If you’re a fan of AI writing and SEO tools like Jasper.ai, ClosersCopy, SurferSEO, Copy.ai, and Writesonic, the Chrome extension allows you to check and edit wherever you write.
- Special Discounts – It’s also worth mentioning that Grammarly offers exceptional discounts for students, teachers, and non-profits.
- Your Own Personal Dictionary – Making the most of your content is essential to writing. With Grammarly, you can customize the experience to fit your needs using your personal dictionary.
Whether you’re a casual writer or a professional copywriter, the range of features of Grammarly makes it the most reliable of all the tools on the market. Yes, we have tested other tools, so we can say that with confidence.
Grammarly Review: Alternatives
As happy as we are with Grammarly and its progress over the years, it’s not for everyone. Grammarly isn’t perfect, it doesn’t catch everything, and it would be foolish to believe there will never be anything better. However, some potential competitors could give Grammarly a run for its money.
ProWritingAid
ProWritingAid is a suitable alternative to Grammarly, probably the best one. It provides extensive feedback on your writing style, offering over 20 writing reports, including one that identifies cliches. It may be a better option for fiction writers since it includes reports like pacing checks for your fiction story.
Despite that, ProWritingAid has limited checking capabilities in the free plan, approximately 500 words simultaneously, whereas Grammarly’s free version can check an entire document in seconds.
ProWritingAid integrates with Scrivener, but using Grammarly with Scrivener requires copying and pasting text into the Grammarly app. ProWritingAid may be a more cost-effective option for writers on a budget as it costs $70 per year with discounts for multi-year licenses, and an additional $10 per year can get you 50 plagiarism checks.
Ginger
If you write in anything other than English, you may find this online grammar checker a suitable option, as it can translate text to and from 60 different languages. Although its interface is not as user-friendly as Grammarly’s and provides fewer features, it is an affordable choice for budget-conscious writers, with a yearly subscription cost of $89.88. While this is a great price overall, if you sign up for an annual Grammarly Premium subscription, you could save as much as 60% on the cost.
WhiteSmoke
WhiteSmoke is a tool that can help improve the quality of your writing by correcting grammar, punctuation errors, spelling, and writing style mistakes. In addition, it highlights errors and suggests alternatives. The app is built with the same framework as Grammarly in mind and offers many of the same tools.
However, despite its intention to work similarly to Grammarly, it doesn’t have a free plan, and it doesn’t have an intuitive web editor. It has a dated appearance also, so it feels like you’re using Microsoft Word from the ’90s; for anyone getting Clippy flashbacks right now, please stay calm.
How Does Grammarly Use AI to Improve Your Writing Style?
We briefly discussed AI writing tools, which Grammarly uses to improve your writing. AI can help you write better using NLP machine learning. It analyzes your content and looks for patterns, grammar rules, punctuation mistakes, errors, etc. AI can even suggest words or synonyms that could improve your writing.
Grammarly also offers suggestions for better wording and can even provide context-sensitive help, like suggesting different words depending on the context of the paragraph. Finally, you could utilize the Business plan’s style guides and snippets if you’re running a writing team. Like all AI-based tools, Grammarly’s system was trained using a dataset of millions of documents curated by professionals in language and linguistics.
Grammarly is constantly learning and improving its AI capabilities, so much so that it’s finally crossing into the ChatGPT category with its newest product GrammarlyGO.
Grammarly’s New AI Feature: GrammarlyGO
In early March of this year, Grammarly announced the launch of GrammarlyGO— its on-demand, AI-powered assistant that uses a generative AI model to help you write better and faster.
GrammarlyGO enhances anyone’s writing skills while working within their preferred apps, such as drafting documents, responding to emails, and editing for tone, clarity, and length. In addition, the software customizes suggestions based on personal, organizational, and situational contexts. For almost 15 years, Grammarly has helped writers improve and realize their true potential worldwide. Now, the company has decided to buy a ticket on the “controversial train” that is ChatGPT.
If you’ve been paying attention, it shouldn’t be a surprise as many companies are scrambling to integrate chatbots into their apps; take Jasper.ai‘s recent addition of Jasper Chat. Grammarly has taken this one step further by introducing its AI-powered assistant. This new feature is similar to other ChatGPT services, and the best part is it’s free.
Currently, GrammarlyGO is not limited to paid subscribers; the free versions in specific markets can also access it. However, that could change in the future, so now is a great time to test out some ChatGPT-based tools if you haven’t had the chance to yet. GrammarlyGO just released, so there isn’t much to say yet, but if the company puts its own spin on the generative AI feature, then we’re looking at a lot of untapped potential.
Read Next: How Will ChatGPT Change Digital Marketing?
Grammarly Review Final Thoughts
After reading this detailed review of Grammarly, we hope you can draw your own conclusions about the software. The free version of Grammarly corrects typos and prevents embarrassing errors. The free version may suffice if you write for enjoyment and not professionally. However, investing in the premium version would be worthwhile if you are a serious writer.
While Grammarly is helpful, it’s not a substitute for professional proofreaders. Human proofreaders have the edge over Grammarly as they can identify contextual errors that the software may miss. However, if you can’t access a reliable human editor, then Grammarly will cover all the bases and allow you to create solid content.
Try Grammarly for free to test it out before upgrading to the premium version. We’re confident that once you see the value in what Grammarly premium offers, your subscription will follow shortly.