Grammarly

Grammarly is an AI writing assistant that catches grammar, spelling, punctuation, and style issues in real time. The free tier covers basic error correction; the Pro plan ($12/month annually) adds a plagiarism and AI-text checker, advanced tone suggestions, and 2,000 AI prompts per month. Its strength is seamless integration — it works in your browser, Word, Google Docs, and a standalone desktop app.

In October 2025 Grammarly's parent company renamed itself Superhuman, folding Grammarly in alongside Coda (now Superhuman Docs), Superhuman Mail, and a new AI assistant called Superhuman Go. The Grammarly product, brand, and pricing are unchanged — it remains available standalone at grammarly.com, and existing subscribers were not automatically migrated.

What You Get#

• Real-time grammar and spelling: Inline corrections appear as you type, across any text field in your browser or within native Word and Google Docs plugins.
• Style and clarity suggestions: Flags passive voice, wordiness, and overly complex sentences. Setting a document's type to "Creative" in the Grammarly Editor's Goals panel relaxes some formality rules for fiction.
• Plagiarism and AI detection: Scans against 16 billion web pages plus ProQuest's academic databases, and flags AI-generated text. Both are paid-plan features — useful for non-fiction research or vetting ghostwritten copy.
• Tone detection: Labels the emotional register of your writing (confident, formal, friendly, uncertain) — practical for query letters, blurbs, and newsletters.
• AI prompts: 100 per month on Free; 2,000 per month on Pro for sentence rewrites, brainstorming, and draft assistance. Any prompt from a few words to several paragraphs counts as one.

Who It's For#

• Authors who want passive background correction: Grammarly runs silently as you write without requiring separate editing sessions.
• Writers preparing manuscripts for professional editors: Clearing surface errors before hiring a copy editor can reduce per-word editing time and potentially lower costs.
• Indie authors producing marketing copy: The business-oriented style suggestions suit blurbs, email newsletters, and social media posts more than fiction prose.

Pricing: Free plan with basic grammar and 100 AI prompts/month. Pro costs $30/month billed monthly, $60 per three months ($20/month), or $144/year ($12/month) — same features on every cadence, only the billing cycle differs. Pro covers teams up to 149 seats; larger organizations use a custom-priced Enterprise plan (no public rate). Grammarly Plus is a separate, cheaper region-specific plan sold in select countries via local payment methods, with the same core features as Pro. Separately, the Superhuman suite's Pro tier is the same $12/month annually and bundles Grammarly with Superhuman Docs and Go — Grammarly Pro subscribers can unlock it by signing in at superhuman.com.

Strengths#

• Wide integration footprint: Browser extension covers Gmail, social media, and most web-based writing tools. Word and Google Docs plugins require no copy-paste workflow.
• Mobile support: iOS ships a custom Grammarly Keyboard; on Android, Grammarly runs as a floating widget alongside whatever keyboard you already use (Gboard, SwiftKey). No other major editing tool matches this reach.
• Low friction: Zero setup required per session. Useful for indie authors managing writing, publishing, and marketing in one workflow.

Limitations#

• Biased toward business writing: Suggestions default to concise, formal prose. Grammarly regularly flags intentional fragments, unconventional punctuation, and stylistic choices that are standard in fiction. The "Creative" document type helps but doesn't resolve this — and Goals are only available in the web Grammarly Editor and on iPad, not in the Mac and Windows apps or on mobile, so most writing surfaces get the default rules.
• Document size caps block full manuscripts: The editor handles up to 100,000 characters (roughly 16,000 words) at a time, with account limits of 50,000 words per 24 hours and 150,000 words per 30 days. Novel-length work must be split into chunks, and Grammarly produces no style reports, repetition analysis, or pacing insights.
• Misses book publishing standards: Does not enforce Chicago Manual of Style conventions used in professional book editing. A human proofreader will catch what Grammarly misses.
• Not a substitute for human editing: Surface-level only. Developmental issues, consistency problems, and voice are outside its scope.

Alternatives#

ProWritingAid offers deeper style analysis for book-length manuscripts with 25+ specialized reports and Scrivener integration. AutoCrit is focused on fiction prose patterns specifically. Neither has Grammarly's integration breadth or mobile support.