Grammarly: What it does and pricing
What is Grammarly?
Grammarly is a writing assistant that checks your grammar, spelling, punctuation, and style in real time. Unlike basic spell checkers that just catch typos, Grammarly offers detailed suggestions to improve clarity, tone, and how engaging your writing is. It works pretty much everywhere—websites, email, documents, social media, you name it.
You can use Grammarly as a browser extension, desktop app, or right inside Microsoft Office and Google Docs. As you type, it underlines issues and tells you what's wrong and how to fix it. It's like having a professional editor looking over your shoulder while you write.
What does Grammarly help with?
Grammar and spelling: Catches mistakes that standard spell checkers miss, like confusing "affect" and "effect" or subject-verb agreement errors.
Clarity and conciseness: Flags wordy sentences and suggests simpler alternatives. For example, it might suggest changing "due to the fact that" to "because."
Tone detection: Tells you if your writing sounds formal, casual, confident, or uncertain. This helps you match your tone to your audience.
Plagiarism detection (premium): Checks your text against billions of web pages to identify unoriginal content.
Style suggestions (premium): Offers advanced feedback on sentence structure, word choice, and readability.
Grammarly free vs paid
Grammarly Free includes:
- Basic grammar and spelling checks
- Tone detection
- Limited clarity suggestions
- Works across all platforms
Grammarly Premium (2-30/month depending on billing cycle) adds:
- Advanced grammar and style suggestions
- Vocabulary enhancement
- Plagiarism detection
- Formality level adjustments
- Full-sentence rewrites
Grammarly Business (5/member/month for teams) includes everything in Premium plus team management, style guides, and analytics.
For most students and casual writers, Grammarly Free is sufficient. Upgrade to Premium if you write professionally, need plagiarism checks, or want more sophisticated style feedback.
How Grammarly compares to chatbots
Grammarly and chatbots like ChatGPT serve different purposes:
Grammarly excels at polishing existing text. It works in real time as you write and focuses on correctness and style.
Chatbots excel at generating new text. They help you brainstorm, draft from scratch, and rewrite entire sections.
Use Grammarly when: You have a draft and want to clean it up, catch errors, and improve readability.
Use a chatbot when: You need to generate ideas, create content from scratch, or get unstuck.
Many people use both: a chatbot for drafting and Grammarly for final polishing.
Getting started with Grammarly
- Visit Grammarly and sign up for a free account
- Install the browser extension for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge
- Start writing anywhere online and Grammarly will automatically check your text
- Click on underlined suggestions to see explanations and accept or reject them
You can also install the desktop app or add Grammarly to Microsoft Word and Google Docs.
Things to keep in mind
Grammarly isn't perfect: It sometimes flags correct sentences or misses context-specific errors. Always review its suggestions instead of blindly accepting them.
Privacy considerations: Grammarly processes your text on its servers. Avoid using it for highly sensitive information like passwords or confidential documents.
Free version limitations: The free version catches obvious mistakes but misses more nuanced style issues. For professional or academic work, consider upgrading or using a chatbot for style feedback.
Related resources
For general writing help, see Which chatbot should I use?. Looking for other writing tools? Check out Other writing assistants worth trying.