(Credit: Zooey Liao/PCMag/QuillBot/Scribbr/ProWritingAid)
Even great writers make mistakes, especially minor ones related to grammar or spelling. A tool like Grammarly can be a great way to catch such issues, and it works well for a lot of people. But as a longtime user of its free version, I've grown tired of how often it tries to sell me its premium version.
Most of its premium features—like tone suggestions, full-sentence rewrites, and inclusive language recommendations—don't really appeal to me. I was also uncomfortable with its former Expert Review feature, which used AI to imitate the styles of academics, authors, and journalists. Although that feature has since been removed, the fact that it existed at all felt like it diminished the effort real people put into developing their voices.
In the end, I don't see why basic grammar and spell-checking should require a monthly subscription. That's why I went looking for the best free alternatives to help me produce polished, high-quality writing.
QuillBot: Grammar Help Without the Upsell
QuillBot is the closest competitor to Grammarly. It has apps and extensions you can install on your desktop, mobile device, or web browser, so you can get grammar and spelling help wherever you go. That by itself makes it far more useful than the tools in Google Docs and Microsoft Word. And importantly, QuillBot is far less intrusive than Grammarly, avoiding copious underlining that pushes premium suggestions. I love the service's simplicity and straightforward presentation: Its free version focuses on correcting grammar and spelling, finding synonyms, and little else.
Of course, if you want more features, QuillBot has them. For free, you can use it to detect AI-generated text, paraphrase, translate, and more. If you choose to sign up for QuillBot’s premium plan ($8.33 per month, billed annually), you get access to advanced writing suggestions, tone insights, unlimited paraphrasing, and more. While paying for a grammar and spelling checker isn’t for everyone, QuillBot is cheaper than Grammarly, which costs $12 per month for its Pro version.
ProWritingAid and Scribbr: Simple, No-Signup Grammar Checks
If you don't mind using a dedicated site (instead of an app) to check your writing occasionally for mistakes, ProWritingAid and Scribbr are both great options. You can input thousands of words of text into their grammar checkers for free and also get spelling and style fixes in the process. You don’t have to create an account to use either service, unlike with Grammarly.
Many other sites work similarly, but I prefer the options above, thanks to their generous word count limits. If you don’t need to check thousands of words (something some sites restrict to a premium subscription_ you can likely use just about any online checker and get similar results.
An Unconventional Option: Use an AI Chatbot
Even if you don’t care for AI-focused features in an online writing tool, you can use an AI chatbot exclusively for grammar and spelling checking. Simply send your AI chatbot of choice whatever writing you want to check, ask them to evaluate it for grammar and spelling (or simply fix any grammar or spelling issues), and the AI will do what you ask in seconds. Alternatively, you can ask an AI chatbot to help with phrasing, style, translation, or pretty much anything else. In most cases, you don’t need a premium plan with a chatbot service to do this, either.
Although you can do this with longer documents, I recommend using AI chatbots only with shorter ones because you don’t get the convenient in-document underlining of a dedicated grammar and spell checker service. Instead, an AI chatbot can either fix the problems for you or list all the issues. The latter can be difficult to keep track of or parse when you’re working with a document that’s thousands of words long. And when you work with an AI chatbot, you need to pay close attention to everything it does to avoid hallucinations and mistakes.
The Best Tool Is the One You'll Actually Use
Ultimately, a writing tool exists to make your life easier, so it's totally fine to stick with Grammarly or simply go without any writing tool. Most of the core functionality is the same across writing tools, too, so if the above options don't click for you, a different service still might.
As for me? I'll be sticking with QuillBot for the foreseeable future.