We have spoken quite a bit about earning money from your writing here on Moneycheck, if you are a good writer it’s perfectly possible to earn a great income online by writing articles for online publications, publishing your own blog or even creating books for sale on Amazon.
Today we are going to look at a tool which aims to improve your writing and make you more efficient.
Grammarly is one of the most popular tools there is for writers, but it can help just about anyone to be a better communicator. Let’s face it, we are writing a lot, and most people send more than a few emails every day.
The digital revolution has made a big impact on how we communicate. Now, services like Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger are taking the place of traditional phone calls, or letters. Some people leave voice messages, but the vast majority of people are glued to their smartphones with thumbs ready to type.
Business communication is also nearly 100% digital. Unless it is a legal document or a piece of physical advertising, the simple fact is that a piece of written communication probably originated in a computer. Sometimes we make mistakes when we write, and the digital age has made it a lot easier to make sure that writing is checked for errors.
Grammarly is featured in our Complete Guide to becoming a Freelance Writer.
Grammarly helps anyone who uses it be a better writer, and the basic version is 100% free.
The platform also has a reasonably priced version for professionals and can help writing pros deliver the best product possible. There is no downside to Grammarly, and it can be used on almost every device in your digital life.
Grammarly Offers a Unique Tool Kit
Grammarly has a few different products that work on just about every popular OS. The free version can be used on Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS.
Here is a short breakdown of the tools that Grammarly offers, and what platforms can use them:
- Grammarly Online Editor – Just like the name says, you can use this either for free or subscribe to do all the fun stuff listed below in the features section. The free version is totally free, but it makes sense to download it if you plan to use it often.
- Grammarly Free Web Browser Extension – Grammarly offers a free extension for Safari, Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, and will help you spot any potential errors you could be making in your email, online forms, and anywhere else you might be writing online. Totally worth the download.
- Grammarly Add-in for Microsoft Office – This free add-on will give you Grammarly in Microsoft Office and Outlook, as long as you are using them on a Windows machine.
- Native App Built for macOS and Windows – If you choose to install this, you will be able to access Grammarly directly from the desktop of your computer with just one click. Super convenient if you are a frequent user.
- The Grammarly Keyboard for Android and iOS – If you want to make sure that just about everything you type on your mobile device is as clean and correct as possible, The Grammarly Keyboard will help you to express yourself in the best way possible.
- Grammarly Handbook – If you are looking for an easy-to-use online resource for writing and language, the Grammarly Handbook is a good thing to dig a little deeper into.
No matter where you go in the digital world, Grammarly probably has a way to help your written communication to be as good as possible. It is amazing that the company offers so much for free, and given how easy to use the service is, it isn’t hard to see why it is the go-to grammar checker for most writers.
What Can Grammarly do for Me?
Due to the sheer amount of services that Grammarly offers, this review will focus on the core of the platform. The Grammarly Handbook is an amazing resource for writers, but the free platform is probably far more widely used in the digital world.
Grammarly is basically a service that will check written content in near-real-time for spelling, grammar and a few other things depending on if you want to pay for it.
As long as your computer or mobile device is connected to the internet, the platform will give you easy to follow suggestions on how it thinks your writing could be improved. The way that Grammarly will give you suggestions will vary based on the plan you choose, and the device you are using.
Grammarly For Free
The free version of Grammarly does a lot to help your writing. As long as you are on a supported platform (for example Firefox or Microsoft Office on WindowsOS) it will check over your work for spelling and grammatical errors. It isn’t perfect, and it may try to ‘shoehorn’ your writing into what it thinks is correct.
That said, Grammarly is an invaluable tool for spotting silly errors, as well as simple mistakes like extra words or misplaced commas. It isn’t a perfect tool that you should trust 100% to be correct, but it will save your written communication from misspellings and grammar flubs.
There aren’t many options, so the ‘set-up’ for Grammarly is dead simple. Just install it on whatever machine you are using, and make sure that the program recognizes it. If you have any questions about whether or not it will work on your OS or program, there is loads of official and community support for the platform.
The Premium Plan
If you are a professional writer or editor, the Premium Grammarly plan could be worth a look. There is only one option (keeping in line with the simplicity of the platform) that will cost you $29.95 on a monthly basis, but you can pony up $139.95 once a year and save some serious cash on a subscription.
By paying for the service, the power of the tools you have access to grows substantially.
In addition to basic stuff like spelling, the premium plan will help you avoid using ‘passive voice’ which isn’t hot right now. Basically, there is a style of tone or ‘voice’ that is preferable at the moment, and the fine folks at Grammarly will help you write in lock-step with the rest of the internet.
From a legal and SEO perspective the plagiarism tool that is included with the premium plan is super useful and will help editors to avoid publishing content that could get their site bumped down the Google rankings, or worse, sued.
Grammarly Free vs Premium Accounts
Features | Free | Premium |
Critical grammar and spelling checks | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Conciseness | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Readability | ❌ | ✔️ |
Vocabulary enhancement suggestions | ❌ | ✔️ |
Genre-specific writing style checks | ❌ | ✔️ |
Plagiarism detector that checks more than 16 billion web pages | ❌ | ✔️ |
Other Features:
- Check your writing across the web
- Access your personal editor via Grammarly.com
- Access your documents on multiple devices
- Integrate with Microsoft® Office (Windows only)
- Use native desktop apps (Windows and macOS)
- See definitions and synonyms via double clicks
- Catch contextual spelling and grammar mistakes
- Add words to your personal dictionary
- See explanations of grammar rules
- Get performance stats via email
Grammarly Works for Just About Anyone
There is a good chance that if you need to write, you should be using the free (or even Premium) version of Grammarly. Just about anyone can use help with writing, especially if they are doing it on a daily basis. The cost to get in the door is nonexistent, and the upsides to clean, effective writing are numerous.
Students
It doesn’t matter if you are a native English speaker, or you are learning English as a second language. Grammarly can help anyone to deliver great quality writing, and learn more about how to be a good writer. Many students are just looking to get through a semester, but unlike many things that are taught in formal education, writing skills have huge real-world applicability.
The benefits for Grammarly’s free platform for English as a Second Language (ESL) students should be quite clear. Simple English is easy to speak, but incredibly difficult to write correctly. Add to that the sometimes mystical English grammatical structure and Grammarly comes away looking like one of the best learning tools out there.
Bloggers
Grammarly is probably the most important tool that any blogger or online writer has, besides a computer and word processing program. Even the free versions will boost the quality of written work, and help bloggers to deliver consistently clean products to the web.
Editors
Professional writing editors, no matter what medium, can also use some extra help from Grammarly. It will spot small errors that might be overlooked otherwise. For online publishing, the plagiarism tool that the premium version of Grammarly includes will help SEO rankings, or even better, prevent your site from getting sued!
Professionals
The phrase “You won’t have a second chance to make a first impression” was probably created in a time when most first-time meetings were done in person.
Now, that same first contact could take the form of a Linked-in profile, and an email. The words that you write to a professional connection say a lot about who you are, and Grammarly will help you to put your best out there for the world to see.
Grammarly also works with emails, messages from your mobile, and any documents you might be working on. There is really no reason why a professional wouldn’t use the free version of Grammarly, and make sure their writing is as clean as it can be.
Grammarly Competitors
It might come as a surprise, but there are a number of other writing aids that can help you to put your best work out there. If you want to explore some of the alternatives to Grammarly, these platforms could be worth a look.
ProWritingAid
ProWritingAid is a very similar tool to Grammarly, and also has both a free and subscription option. The free option from ProWritingAid does a lot, and will help you with spelling, grammar, and other common errors that writers make. ProWritingAid will work with numerous platforms, such a Facebook, Gmail, WordPress, MS Office, Twitter, and Google Docs.
The ease of using ProWritingAid is on par with Grammarly, and most programs will have a small box that appears over a highlighted word or phrase when ProWritingAid thinks you need to make a change.
ProWritingAid has one major advantage over Grammarly, as it offers a lifetime subscription to the Pro platform for just $210 USD. It can also be purchased annually for $60 USD, which is far lower than the cost of a Grammarly subscription.
The upgraded version of ProWritingAid offers users a depth of tools.
You will be able to do more than 25 different kinds of tests with ProWritingAid’s premium package, including stylistic analysis, and also use a built-in Thesaurus to spice up your use of words. The one thing that isn’t included in the lifetime subscription of the annual upgrade package is the plagiarism checker, which can be added for an additional fee.
WhiteSmoke
WhiteSmoke is aimed at writing professionals, and as such, doesn’t offer any sort of free platform. There are two plans to choose from. The Essentials Plan costs $4.16 USD per month while the Premium plan will set you back $6.67 USD a month when an annual subscription is purchased.
As a pay-only platform, WhiteSmoke delivers loads of functionality, although the tools on the platform may be more than many writers need. WhiteSmoke can do translations into 55 different languages, as well as all the regular spelling, grammar, stylistic, and more obscure things like Tense, Incorrect Punctuation, and Fragments (among many others).
Like any of the platforms on this list, WhiteSmoke will work with all the major operating systems, including macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android. There is no denying the power that WhiteSmoke puts at your fingertips, but whether or not you need to pay for all the functionality it offers is another question.
Ginger
There are a few good free writing assistants out there, and Ginger is one of them. Much like Grammarly, there is both a free and Premium version of Ginger, but the Premium version of Ginger is substantially cheaper than Grammarly, coming in at just $7.49 USD per month.
Ginger has a range of tools for writers and offers a great translation engine that can handle just about any language that is commonly used globally. The free platform has the same kind of tools that any of the other writing assistants on this list offer, including grammar, spelling, and a host of other ones.
You can use Ginger on any of the major operating systems, like Windows, macOS, Android or iOS, and it has native support for Apple’s Safari, as well as WordPress. If you are looking for a writing assistant that isn’t Grammarly, Ginger is worth learning more about.
Is it Worth Paying for Premium?
As you can see, it is very easy to find a free writing assistant that will work on your favorite devices and programs. The real question that emerges is: Should you pop for the premium package, and unlock the host of features that subscribers can access?
Depending on your situation, the Premium version of Grammarly (or one of the other platforms listed above) could make a lot of sense.
If you are running a website, or have to edit copy on a regular basis, it makes sense to pay a small amount of money every month to have access to the premium tools that the subscription version of Grammarly has. You might be a brilliant editor at 9 am after your second cup of coffee, but if you are working long hours to get a project done, your skills will fade.
Unlike a human editor, Grammarly works just as well after it has been sitting at a computer for eight hours, even if your eyes feel like they want to fall out onto your keyboard. It also helps you spot both simple and subtle errors, which is a clear advantage.
It is Probably Time to Try it Out
The amount of help that Grammarly gives to any writer is amazing, especially when you consider that its free version can be used seemingly forever without any sort of payment.
In addition to helping you wire better sentences, Grammarly just added a new feature that shows you how your emails appear to be worded. Instead of just using a boring old word to describe your tone, Grammarly decided to use a happy little emoji window in the corner of your email’s text box.
When you are typing an email, Grammarly will look for errors, but it will also show you a little emoji that can help you to understand how the person on the other side of the communication will feel when they read your message.
It is a fun feature, and helpful for anyone who wants to tailor their message to the intent of the communication.
Grammarly is Easy to Use, Free, and Ready to Go
The team at Grammarly has done a great job at designing a writing assistant that works on almost any platform and is simple to use.
There are other tools out there that will do a similar job, and everyone will have to figure out what works best for them. If you are on the fence about using a writing assistant, just download one. Grammarly is great, but the other free writing assistants listed above are also viable options.
Once you start using a writing assistant every day, it will be hard to understand why you waited so long to get going. Your writing will improve, and all the little errors that used to slip past you will be long gone.
If you are earning a living online, the value proposition for using a writing assistant like Grammarly is unparalleled.
For no money, you will get a platform that will improve your writing, and make sure that everything you send from your computer is free from spelling errors, typos, or other flubs that could be embarrassing.
You can download and install Grammarly quickly, and if you want to learn more about the platform, just click right here.
Grammarly is one of the best free tools out there, and we just hope that it stays free.
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