# AutoCrit > Fiction manuscript analysis tool that benchmarks your writing against bestsellers in your genre — pacing, dialogue, word choice, and repetition. Source: https://selfpublishingdirectory.com/editing/autocrit Website: https://www.autocrit.com Category: Editing (https://selfpublishingdirectory.com/editing) Pricing: freemium — $0–$30/monthly AI-powered: yes Tags: fiction, manuscript-analysis, self-editing, pacing, dialogue, genre-comparison, ai-editing Last verified: 2026-07-01 Best For: Genre fiction authors doing self-editing passes who want to benchmark their prose pacing and style against published bestsellers in their category ($180/year). Editing Type: style Genres: fiction, romance, thriller, fantasy, mystery, horror, sci-fi Per Word Rate: Subscription-based Service Type: ai-tool Turnaround Days: 1 AutoCrit is a web-based platform built specifically for fiction writers, now positioned as an all-in-one workspace to plan, write, edit, and publish. Its defining feature remains its self-editing engine: it analyzes your manuscript against an algorithm trained on millions of published books and lets you compare your writing style against 100+ selected authors in your genre — an approach no general-purpose grammar checker offers. ## What You Get - **Fiction analysis engine:** Scans for pacing problems, overused words, dialogue tag issues, adverb density, passive voice, and repetition — all tuned for fiction rather than business writing. - **Genre comparison scoring:** Benchmark your dialogue ratio, sentence variety, and pacing against authors you choose from a list of bestselling fiction writers. See how your chapter pacing maps against your genre's typical arc. - **Story Analyzer+:** Plan and track characters, plot threads, structure, and foreshadowing within the platform before or during drafting; a Series Analyzer extends this across multi-book projects. - **AI Alpha & Beta Readers:** Generate reader-style feedback from custom reader profiles based on your target audience in minutes rather than waiting months for volunteer readers. - **Inspiration Studio:** Brainstorming and idea-generation tooling for working through writer's block during drafting. - **25+ interactive editing tools:** Each report is interactive — flag issues and address them inline, with explanations of why each element matters in fiction. - **Formatting & marketing extras:** Pro now bundles ePub/PDF formatting export and Market Fuel (market/keyword insight), rounding out the plan-to-publish workflow. ## Who It's For - **Fiction writers doing self-editing rounds:** AutoCrit catches the patterns that human eyes miss after reading your own manuscript a dozen times — repeated sentence openers, dialogue tags creeping in, overused filler words. - **Genre fiction authors:** The genre comparison feature is most useful for romance, thriller, mystery, and fantasy writers who want to calibrate their prose style against what's selling in their category. - **Writers before sending to an editor:** Using AutoCrit before submitting to a copy editor can reduce the editor's workload — and potentially the editing cost — by resolving surface-level issues in advance. **Pricing:** The free plan ("Free Forever") gives you the full writing workspace with unlimited word count plus a handful of editing tools (Adverbs, Word Choice, Readability). AutoCrit Pro costs $30/month or $180/year ($15/month equivalent on annual billing). A lifetime plan is occasionally offered as a special promotion. The Pro plan unlocks the Summary Report and AutoCrit Score, genre comparisons, Story Analyzer+, AI alpha/beta readers, formatting export, and access to a private member community with online workshops. ## Strengths - **Fiction-specific benchmarking:** The comparison scoring against published authors in your genre is a genuinely unique feature. It provides context that "you have 5% adverb density" lacks. - **Comprehensive fiction toolset:** Pacing analysis, dialogue evaluation, and repetition detection in one place replaces running multiple tools. - **Free tier available:** The free plan lets you evaluate the interface and some basic features before committing. ## Limitations - **Not a substitute for a developmental editor:** AutoCrit's automated *editing reports* work at the prose/style level. Story Analyzer+ and the AI beta readers add structural planning and simulated reader feedback, but they don't replace a human developmental editor judging whether your plot and character arcs actually land. - **No grammar depth of ProWritingAid:** For pure grammar and style correction, ProWritingAid or Grammarly offer more granular explanations. AutoCrit's strength is fiction-specific pattern analysis. - **Results require interpretation:** The algorithm flags issues but doesn't always explain whether they're problems in your specific context. A flagged "passive voice sentence" may be intentional. - **Subscription cost for full access:** At $30/month, the Pro plan is expensive if you only edit one manuscript per year. The annual plan at $15/month makes more sense for active writers. ## Alternatives ProWritingAid ($30/month, or $10/month billed annually at $120/year) covers more grammar and style categories and includes genre-benchmarking reports, though it's less fiction-focused. Fictionary addresses a different problem entirely — story structure rather than prose style — and is often used alongside AutoCrit for a complete self-editing workflow.