Grammarly review: Can this app really improve your grammar and style?

Whether you're writing an academic paper, blog post for your website or even an email newsletter, quality is crucial. No matter who you're writing for, effective communication can make or break the success of your content. 

This is where Grammarly comes in. While it does have generative AI features (more on that later!), this tool focuses on improving your writing skills by:

• Checking spelling and grammar in real-time.
• Offering suggestions for punctuation mistakes and improvements.
• Helping make your writing more concise.
• Detecting the tone used in your content.
• Checking for plagiarism and AI-generated content.

In this in-depth Grammarly review, we'll be doing a deep dive into what Grammarly has to offer, the pros and cons, what you get and pricing options.

What is Grammarly?

Often referred to as a cloud-based writing assistant, Grammarly is much more than a simple proofreader.

Although Grammarly offers a bunch of different features, its main focus is correcting grammar mistakes and spelling errors. Along the way, Grammarly can also assist with punctuation mistakes, clarity, tone and much more.

There's no denying that Grammarly is a valuable tool — and for an affordable price ($30/month). And yes, there's even a free version of Grammarly available.

Grammarly pros and cons

Before getting stuck in, let's take a quick glance at the pros and cons of Grammarly.

Pros

• Reliable for spell checking and grammar checking in real-time.
• Adjustable formality levels.
• Integrates well with other tools, such as Google Docs and Microsoft Word.
• Premium version has a plagiarism checker.
• Even the free version offers a personal dictionary, which you can customize while writing.
• Mobile and desktop app make it easy to use however you choose to write.

Cons

• Website editor only allows up to 4MB documents and 100,000 characters.
• Free version only checks for spelling errors and grammar errors, not style or context.
• Plagiarism checker can't find offline sources.
• Generative AI tool doesn't produce human-like prose.
• Only supports English.
• It's easy to get irritated with pushy advertising on the free version of Grammarly.

How much does Grammarly cost?

If you don't have the budget to pay for the premium version of Grammarly, you'll be pleased to hear there is a free version available.

The free Grammarly tool still includes plenty of features, including its grammar checker and spell check, as well as a free web browser extension.

We've covered the costs of each below and what you can expect from Grammarly's free and Pro plans.

• Free version
• Pro: $30/month
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing

The ultimate Grammarly walkthrough: What Grammarly can do

Now that we've covered some of the main features of Grammarly and how much you can expect to pay, we're going to take a closer look at what does and doesn't work well.

Let's dive into Grammarly's features some more.

Set writing goals

With the ability to set goals when you start a new document, the Grammarly editor is a great tool for writing and receiving suggestions as you go.

These goals include options to set the intent of your writing, the audience, formality and domain. This will help Grammarly's writing assistant give you the best possible writing suggestions.

The Grammarly online editor makes it easy to structure your writing, with formatting options such as H1 and H2 headings, bullet points and links.

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Spelling and grammar checks

One of Grammarly's greatest features is its ability to check spelling and grammar in real-time. As you write, Grammarly will assist with live suggestions.

When using Grammarly, it's clear its spelling and grammar checker is highly accurate. It can also help you with comma placement throughout.

Writing suggestions

When Grammarly detects an issue with your writing, whether a spelling and grammar error or structure issue, it will flag them as you go with colored underlines — as shown above.

Each underline is different:

• Red for spelling, punctuation and grammar
• Blue for clarity and conciseness issues
• Green for suggestions to improve content
• Purple to change formality and friendliness

Whether you're writing content in a Google doc, an email, or even social media posts, you'll be able to see these suggestions as you write. In the online editor, you can quickly see an explanation of each suggested change.

Plagiarism checker

Although only available on Grammarly premium, the Grammarly plagiarism checker will cross-check your writing at lightning speed — checking over 16 billion websites.

If you're an academic writer or even want to check your content hasn't been stolen, this is an incredibly helpful feature to have. As a student, this feature can be invaluable for helping you add citations to your text.

Grammarly cards

Grammarly always offers an explanation when it flags your text, helping you improve your writing skills. Grammarly cards show how an issue has been detected while explaining the fix and tips for avoiding similar mistakes again.

Whether it's grammar mistakes or you frequently forget commas in your sentence structure, Grammarly gives a gentle nudge for correcting these issues.

Reporting

It doesn't matter whether you're a writing newbie or a professional writer, we all make mistakes. But what's more important here is the ability to learn from them.

Grammarly's reporting feature gives you a detailed report on your accuracy in spelling and grammar, plagiarism and vocabulary. Over time you'll become familiar with any recurring mistakes and be more aware when writing your content.

Inside your overall score, you'll see how Grammarly has rated your content. There are also other scoring elements, such as:

• Readability (word and sentence length)
• Vocabulary (unique and rare words)

Language preferences

If you frequently switch between British and American English, it can be easy to slip up with spelling and grammar rules. Thankfully, Grammarly makes it easy to change your language preferences so you can write freely in the following dialects:

• American
• British
• Canadian
• Australian
• Indian

Brand tones

Now, this is a pretty cool feature of Grammarly and is especially important for businesses with a solid, recognizable brand. If you don't have a brand voice just yet, it can also help you decide how you'd like to distinguish yourself.

Grammarly will take you through the steps to get started, giving you different sentences to choose from to help you determine the type of language your brand tone will use.

What are the different ways to use Grammarly?

There are essentially five different ways to use Grammarly to improve your writing skills and correct grammar or spelling mistakes:

1. Browser extension
2. Online Editor
3. Microsoft Office
4. Desktop app
5. Mobile app

Before you decide the best way to use Grammarly for your writing, let's break down each of these options.

Browser extension

Available across Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Microsoft Edge, the Grammarly extension is easy to use and pretty damn accurate. It doesn't matter what you're writing on, whether Facebook, Google Docs or an email - Grammarly will automatically check your writing.

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Online editor

This is easily one of the smartest features of Grammarly since it gives you the freedom to write and access your content on any computer connected to the internet.

All you need to do is log into your account and you can easily store and access your documents. It's up to you if you choose to write directly into the Online Editor or upload your own document to check for spelling and grammatical errors.

Microsoft Office

If you prefer to write using Microsoft Office, no problem. Grammarly has a great add-on app available, making it straightforward to write and check your text in Microsoft Word.

Desktop app

If you log into your Grammarly account online and head to 'Apps', you'll see the different apps available to install. We went with Grammarly for Mac, which is super quick to install and set up.

Once logged in, you'll be met with an intro that shows suggestions and what they mean. You can choose to skip through this if you wish.

You're then able to give Grammarly a try on other apps on your computer, with Grammarly offering some options to try — including Gmail, Apple Notes and Apple Mail.

Mobile app

If you do a lot of writing on your phone or simply want to correct spelling mistakes and fix grammar issues on the go, you can download the Grammarly app on iOS or Android. There's also a Grammarly AI Writing Keyboard available across both platforms.

Whether you're typing in another writing app or simply adding notes to your phone, Grammarly works seamlessly with your existing keyboard to help you structure and write everything from emails to texts and social media content.

Third-party apps

Once you've installed the Grammarly app, it's ready to use a wide range of third-party tools, including:

On Mac

• Notes
• Messages
• Reminders
• TextEdit

On Mac and Windows

• Microsoft Word
• Outlook
• Slack
• Facebook Messenger

If you don't want to use Grammarly with a specific app, you can choose to turn it off for an hour, or 'forever' to avoid seeing Grammarly suggestions.

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What are the limitations of using Grammarly?

From the Grammarly desktop app to whether Grammarly premium is worth your hard-earned dollars, we've done our best to cover everything in this Grammarly review.

However, it's worth noting that there are a few limitations when using Grammarly, including:

Device limits

Your membership allows you to access Grammarly on up to five different devices. This should be plenty, but it's worth noting just in case.

Document limits

In any 30 days, you can check up to 300 documents or 150,000 words. Now, that sounds like a lot, but if you're a professional writer or editor, you could find yourself whizzing through that quite quickly. In any 24 hours, you can check up to 100 documents or 50,000 words.

This applies to both Grammarly's free and premium versions.

Page limits

If you're using the Grammarly editor via their website, you can check up to 100,000 characters (including spaces) at a time. You can enjoy no limitations when using the Grammarly Windows or Mac apps.

Upload limits

In the Grammarly editor, you can upload a document of up to 100,000 characters (including spaces). Your file size shouldn't exceed 4MB.

You can upload the following file types:

• Microsoft Word (.doc and .docx)
• OpenOffice (.odt)
• Txt and Rtf

How does Grammarly compare to other tools?

There's no denying that Grammarly is an intuitive, easy-to-use spelling and grammar-checking machine, but could other tools do it better?

Here's a quick summary of some alternatives:

ProWritingAid: Compared to ProWritingAid, Grammarly is much more user-friendly and accurate in correcting grammar and spelling mistakes. Plus, the free version of Grammarly can handle over 10,000 words at time, while ProWritingAid can only handle 500.

MS Word: Grammarly is far more accurate than MS Word, plus, both the free and premium versions have many more features, including the ability to improve sentence structure.

Ginger: A little cheaper than Grammarly, Ginger offers both text-to-speech and multi-language support, which could make it a great alternative to Grammarly. If you don't need multiple languages, Grammarly still shines in terms of features.

Whitesmoke: Grammarly certainly wins the race against Whitesmoke, with a much more user-friendly interface and easy-to-use style. Even the free version of Grammarly offers more features.

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Now that we've covered everything you need to know about Grammarly, how you choose to use this tool is entirely up to you. Whether you like to write on-the-go, or you frequently edit work for others — Grammarly has got you covered.

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It's super simple to sign up in a matter of minutes, and you won't pay a dime until you make your first sale. With Grammarly by your side, you'll master your content in no time.

Grammarly FAQs

Still wondering if Grammarly is for you? There's even more to this Grammarly review, with answers to common questions below.

Is Grammarly easy to use?

Yes! Grammarly is very easy to use. It has a very user-friendly interface, with guides on setting up your brand tone and tips on recognizing errors and suggestions.

Is Grammarly accurate?

Grammarly is impressively precise in picking up grammar rules, spelling and plagiarism. It can also be a great tool for helping you to create a brand voice for your business.

However, it doesn't necessarily always pick up on stylistic preferences. This means that errors it may flag might not always be suitable, so we'd highly advise you to check the tool's suggestions before accepting changes.

When should you override Grammarly's suggestions?

While Grammarly will flag any obvious spelling or grammar mistakes, you may want to double-check any style suggestions as you go. As a writer, you'll naturally have your own style — and that doesn't mean that Grammarly is always right.

As you use Grammarly more and more, you can add words to your personal dictionary and adjust your settings to stop Grammarly from doing certain things — such as checking text within quotation marks.

What is Grammarly's text score?

The text score shown ranges from 1 to 100 and is based on the different types of suggestions shown in your document. As well as this, Grammarly compares your writing to other texts with similar goals.

Put simply, the fewer suggestions given, the higher your score.

Is Grammarly free? Is Grammarly premium worth it?

Yes, there is a free version of Grammarly available. As we included in the table at the start, there are some limitations between Grammarly's free version and the premium version.

If you're writing an academic paper, you may benefit from premium features, including its plagiarism checker and citation fixes. While the free version is sufficient for most writing tasks, if you have a lot of writing to check or require a plagiarism checker, the premium Grammarly cost is worth it.

Can Grammarly replace human editing?

Definitely not. While Grammarly is incredibly helpful, we don't believe that any tool can completely replace human editing and proofreading.

As you can see from our Grammarly review, it can do a lot. But unlike a human editor, Grammarly can't always recognize the way certain words or phrases are used in context. This means that if you were to simply agree to every Grammarly suggestion, you may be changing 'errors' that aren't really errors at all.

Think of this grammar tool as an extra pair of eyes on your content, which can help you not only improve your writing but also keep tabs on slip-ups as you go.

What can I learn from Grammarly?

From inside your account, you'll see some great resources for maximizing Grammarly and improving your writing. If you decide to go Pro, you'll see explanations of Pro features and the option to try them, such as Snippets, Brand Tones and Style Guide.

The Grammarly Support Center can also help you look for any unanswered questions, whether it's issues with your account or tips and tutorials for getting started.

Is Microsoft Word's spell checker not enough?

We can't necessarily say that Microsoft Word's spell check isn't enough, as this depends on your needs. However, if you are doing a lot of writing, want to set your own brand voice and improve your writing skills — even the free Grammarly tool can help.