Is Grammarly Premium worth it

Is Grammarly Premium worth it – If you are into writing online, there is a good chance you’ve come across this app – Grammarly. I started using Grammarly (The free version) over two years ago, and I’ve been using it ever since.

In this review, I have elaborated on all parts of the premium subscription with pictures. By the end of this post, you’ll find out everything you need to know – if Grammarly Premium is worth it for you.

This is going to be a long read. If you’re in for quick answers, help yourself with this table of content.

Table of Content

1. What is Grammarly used for?
2. Do we need Grammarly?
3. Why not?
4. Why do I recommend Grammarly?
5. Grammarly free Vs premium
6. Can I get Grammarly for free?
7. How to use it?
8. Is it worth it?
9. Pricing Details
10. Grammarly Vs Prowriting Aid
11. Emails: Grammarly Insights
12. Grammarly and creative writing
13. FAQs

Note: All the screenshots provided in this post can differ a little from the Grammarly version you install. The app is constantly updated.

What is Grammarly used for?

Grammarly is an application that makes your writing easy to read, engaging, and, most importantly, mistake-free. When you type your document, it detects the grammar and punctuation mistakes, spelling mistakes, and word choice errors.

All in all, it is a proofreader. While it can’t completely replace a proofreader in person, it is by far the best proofreading application out there for online writers. If you are a student, freelance writer, content marketer, blogger, or writer at a reputed professional company, this helps you with loads of work. Or even for these purposes:

Say you want to make a good impression with your resume. You use it to write an official letter so that the other person takes an interest it.

Do we need it?

I like to consider myself a writer. And I’m serious when it comes to errors in writing. Because in the end, no matter how informative and engaging your content is, grammar plays a vital role. There is always a large gap between a high-quality article and an equally informative article with bad grammar.

As a blogger, writing clearly with engaging content and making it error-free, no doubt, plays a vital role. Some people I know come to me to get their works to get it checked. But I have to say, even with all that, I make mistakes when I write posts on this blog – Madman’s Journey.

Just small mistakes, but they count. When one usually types over 70 words per minute, they are bound to make a couple of errors here and there. It does seem funny to me when I look at those errors, but it is my writing. So to take care of these teeny-tiny mistakes, I would recommend using Grammarly.

If not the premium paid version of it, at least the free version of Grammarly they offer.

Why not use Grammarly?

Whatever you are writing on, it has a message. It is all about delivering that message to your audience and nothing. The clearer your message is, the better writer you are. If people have trouble understanding what you tried conveying, it is a nuisance for people to take time and follow you.

Speaking of which, your message – be it on Twitter, LinkedIn, Medium, or even a blog post – all of it defines you on the Internet. Like it or not, also, if you’re smart and a professional, you can be considered negative and turned down only because of a lack of effort on the editing part of your works.

It’s a simple tool to help you overcome these small yet essential details of your writing. Why not make use of it?

After all, you have nothing to lose. What’s a loss for improving your writing with a little bit of help from Grammarly? If you have the opportunity to convey, then convey it in the right away and increase the impact of everything.

The real question is “Is it worth it?” While you can already use its free version for however long you want, consider Grammarly Premium for lifting your writing even further. Though it can’t replace a proofreader in person and it isn’t perfect, let’s talk about why it’s worth considering it.

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Here’s why I recommend using Grammarly

The best reason why I would recommend using Grammarly – is because I use it myself. I have been using it since the time I first began writing blog posts. I wrote my travel blogs for Travelista Club back then, and that’s where I got to know about Grammarly.

Though I was reasonably good with my grammar already, Grammarly helped with the smaller things. The little things like where I should use my commas and where not to. And also to stick with a particular English writing. With the majority of my readers from the US, I set my option to ‘American- English,’ which helped further. Where I first wrote ‘labour,’ it turned it to ‘labor’ and turned ‘centre’ to ‘center’.

I wouldn’t necessarily say this part helped improve my writing in this case, but it assisted in focusing for my specific audience – and in my line of work (blogging), that’s what I wanted!

Some of the other reasons why I’d recommend it are:

It works!

The way Grammarly seamlessly fits into your text editor box and functions is the best feature you can get. While there are many sites and apps that help you with this work, Grammarly is by far more reliable, far more user-friendly.

Most apps and sites that make pretty blunt mistakes while detecting for errors, or try to correct them – sending irrelevant suggestions. While Grammarly (I can’t deny) does make mistakes occasionally, it is negligibly rare. I write at least two five-hundred word pieces every day with the help of Grammarly, and I don’t see it making a mistake anywhere that often.

All you have to do is just visit their site and add their free extension plugin for your browser to try it out. And with no further setup, it begins to work! As long as you have a stable internet connection, you’re good to go. The best part of it is that you don’t even need to fill in those payment details when you begin using your free version.

Grammarly Free vs. Premium

I have to say Grammarly is one hell of a generous company. Most companies that offer the trial version of their products have minimal features available. Though Grammarly has restricted many of its advanced features, it is sufficient to help with the necessary spelling and grammar.

So what are these advanced features that they charge for?

While Grammarly free version assists you with the spelling and grammar, Grammarly Premium has several features along with it, including plagiarism checker, engagement score, delivery score, and synonyms for a given word when you double click it.

I use Grammarly Premium because it is useful to me.

Can I get Grammarly Premium for free?

I see a lot of people searching for this. Let me make this clear: You can use the free version of Grammarly if you want. But Grammarly Premium is not free. 

As I said earlier, I used the free version of Grammarly for two years, and now I upgraded to the premium version. While the free version is helpful enough, Grammarly Premium helps you out as you go further into your writing career. Or improve your writing further if you have the time and money for it.

With Grammarly Premium, where I had to earlier check my entire article once again for mistakes myself, I don’t need to do any of it now. All in all, the premium version has helped me save more time for more of my writings. But if you’re just starting as a beginner, then Grammarly free version is a pretty good tool to start with.

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How to use Grammarly?

There are various ways to use Grammarly. You do not necessarily need to copy your document to Grammarly’s web tool to get results.

Here are the options:

1. Grammarly browser extension
2. Microsoft Word and Outlook
3. For desktop
4. Web Tool
5. Mobile version

Grammarly browser extension

I would put this first as this is what I make the most use of from Grammarly. Also, this is the easiest way to use it. All you have to do is get the browser extension from Grammarly’s homepage to start using it right away.

It functions in most of the sites a person would typically use. If you’re writing a Facebook post or sending a mail to someone on Gmail, with this plugin – Grammarly will guide through with it. Not long ago, Grammarly became available even on Google docs with its Beta version, which looks something like this now: … it is pretty cool actually.

Downloadable for Microsoft Word and Outlook

For Word and Outlook, you can download the Grammarly add-in particular meant for Microsoft. It should be around 13.9 to 14 MB when you download it from their site.

After installing it on your PC, open Word or Outlook and click that Grammarly icon on the top toolbar to connect with your account, and you will be good to go.

Once in, you should be able to see it this way:

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Download for Desktop

Currently, Grammarly is available only on the two majorly used operating systems – Windows and Mac. About the size, while the add-in for Microsoft Word is less than 14 MB, Grammarly for desktop is around 45 MB.

Follow the instructions as per their installation and start using it in the same way as the online version.

Grammarly’s Web Tool

If you don’t want to use any of the downloadable version or the browser extension, another way to use it is with the web tool that Grammarly provides. Here you can copy and paste your document to their textbox, and Grammarly shall take care of the rest.

It takes a couple of seconds to thoroughly analyze your page, depending on your internet speed, but it is another reliable way for sure. Or to make the whole editing process faster, you can begin typing in their web tool right away where your writing is checked as you type.

Since I am a regular user, I prefer to have the extension ready at anytime I open the lid of my laptop. It’s left to you to use any of these ways to make use of Grammarly – free or premium – on your PC.

For Mobile Devices

I don’t use this, but I’ve tested it. Grammarly does have its keyboard for Android and Ios users – also very responsive. You can directly get Grammarly’s app from the Playstore or Appstore to use it.

Like the smart prediction usually built-in with most of the smartphone keyboard these days, Grammarly’s keyboard has this feature as well. It also helps in finding out the tiny mistakes you make while texting someone or writing an email to someone.

Now it all comes back to this:

Is Grammarly Premium Worth it?

Yes, Grammarly premium is worth it, especially if you are someone who spends a lot of time writing emails, blogs, articles, and other such works regularly online.

Without a person to proofread your works every time you write something, you should be able to manage fine with the help of Grammarly Premium.

It helps you maintain the quality of your writing all by yourself. If the pricing (which I’ve mentioned below) is over your budget, then it’s best to start with the free version and later upgrade when you can.  Grammarly Premium can detect far more grammatical issues than the free version.

The feature that helps more than anything in Grammarly Premium is the ‘Set Goals’ feature.

‘Set Goals’ Feature

Grammarly does say that it is Artificial Intelligence. And it is no wonder used in this feature. It gives you customized suggestions for your writing.

As an aspiring writer, the most important thing when it comes to improving is feedback. If you want to know how your article is, you need feedback. That’s that. But more importantly, the feedback should be knowledgeable about what you are exactly trying to convey and how you’re trying to send your message.

For example, if you dig deep into a specific expertise content where there is no option to simplify your work, then it’s obviously meant only for knowledgeable readers. Without the ‘Set Goals’ feature, Grammarly would never know the intent you have for your writing. But with this feature available, Grammarly can understand it.

Similarly, with this AI, you can specify exactly how you want your writing to sound to the reader. Be it Intent, Tone, Audience, or Formality – you can be specific about it.

If Grammarly’s doing anything to improvise, it is this: They are working to make it a more human with the AI editor. And it is absolutely great!

Apart from this feature, starting from simple suggestions to convert passive to active sentences to rephrase a sentence, Grammarly Premium helps with it all.

With that, let’s talk about its pricing.

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Grammarly Premium Pricing Details

Though Grammarly Premium is considered expensive compared to other writing tools, it can be used with great functionality in its free version as well.

But mainly talking about Grammarly Premium here, here is the current pricing list:

1. $11.66 per month for Annual Plan
2. $19.98 per month for Quarterly Plan
3. $29.95 per month for Monthly Plan

Grammarly Business Pricing

This is another plan that you could go for if you have a company where you want your staff to have Grammarly as well.

Grammarly Business has all the features of Grammarly Premium for its members (minimum three). It also has an additional element of an Admin Panel and Statistics for your team members.

Previously, the price per member was $15 a month when billed annually. However, now the price of Grammarly Business is $12.50 a month when billed annually. As you opt for a plan with more members, the discount gets greater:

(All of these discount plans apply when billed annually)

• 3 to 9 members – $12.50 per member a month
• 10 to 49 members – $12.08 per member a month
• 50 to 149 members – $11.67 per member a month

If you’re looking forward to the Grammarly Business plan for just one month, it is upfront $25 per member.

Grammarly Vs Prowriting Aid

Not long ago, I decided to dig deeper into the AI proofreading competitors. While Grammarly has outstanding performance, ProwritingAid isn’t very far behind in competing. ProwritingAid is also very reliable. It comes down to your choice -ProwritingAid or this one.

Here are some great differences I found between the two:

1. Appearance

Grammarly boasts a clean look where a new user can easily grasp on using it. It stresses more on providing a distraction-free environment. It doesn’t scare its users away at first sight.

ProwritingAid, when it comes to performance, it is equally helpful. However, I needed some time to figure out what all the buttons on its top dashboard do. Grammarly avoided placing that dashboard on the editing snippet.

2. Performance

Back to its reliability, Grammarly and ProwritingAid are close when it comes to speed. To test it, I installed Grammarly’s browser extension on Microsoft Edge and ProwritingAid’s plugin extension on Google Chrome. As soon as I popped open my WordPress text editor to edit an article, Grammarly and ProwritingAid began their scanning instantaneously almost at the same time.

I further tested it by switching the extensions on Edge and Chrome as speeds could differ due to the browser speed – only to find out they both have great speed – no issues with that part.

Considering integrations, again both Grammarly and ProwritingAid are compatible with most platforms – Windows, Apple, Word, Google Docs, Medium. Where they separate is when it comes to Grammarly’s app that’s available for mobile devices (Grammarly Keyboard). ProwritingAid mainly supports desktop.

Small Details: ProwritingAid comes with amazing features, but I daresay Grammarly’s plagiarism checker is better. Also, Grammarly is better at detecting names. Period. I recently wrote a travel article on Bali where it could correct me in the popular place names that I spelled wrong. The very same article, when scanned with ProwritingAid detected it as an error.

It took a little longer to detect that the word was capitalized and it was a name.

3. Free Version

Without a doubt, Grammarly is more generous when it comes to providing its proofreading services for those who just wish to install its free plugin. ProwritingAid (the free version) only scans the first 500 words of your article. You’ll need to buy the premium version for the rest.

On the other hand, Grammarly’s free version can be enough if you’re beginning out your writing career on a tight budget – there is no word limit to its proofreading. The premium version of Grammarly assists you further with phrasing, understanding your writing’s behavior, intent, and so on.

4. Pricing

Here comes the hitch, ProwritingAid is more affordable compared to Grammarly.

While Grammarly’s Premium plan costs $139.92, ProwritingAid’s premium plan costs $59.3 yearly. Here is where it comes to you. But if you can afford it and really could use an editor, go for Grammarly. If you’re on a tighter budget, ProwritingAid is great to consider for an alternative.

I’m accustomed to the simple user interface of Grammarly and if you’ve already begun to use its free plugin extension, you might be too. Grammarly’s cost adds to its disadvantages.

Grammarly Insights: Emails (Update)

I’d previously forgotten to mention this; the cool analysis emails that I get from Grammarly. Sure, it’s business. Any online company website you deal with where you provide email id, they will send you emails. It’s inevitable, they try to push you to buy their products. And that’s what Grammarly does as well.

But that’s not what fascinates me: it’s the emails – analysis about how you’ve been writing. Here are some screenshots:

I used to get them when I had the free version, and I still get them now – and I absolutely love it. It does sound exaggerated when it says ‘you were more productive than 98% of Grammarly users‘ and ‘more accurate than 95%…‘ and so on. But the other details provide great value.

The insights help me plan on how much I can write for the next week and manage time. For those who write SEO based articles, they’ll know this. Generally, for this blog, I write around 2500 words per week. a few thousand words for Medium, and another few thousands words when I write short stories or guest posts for other sites.

The point is, it does its part in helping me manage time – and sometimes even pushing me back to my work!

Grammarly and Creative Writing

Apart from writing blog posts, I also write short stories and books (Novellas actually) from time to time. I decided to give it a try and use Grammarly for proofreading each chapter I had written of a book before handing it over to an editor.

It helped with all the basics – punctuation, spellings, and simple grammatical mistakes. And that was that. When I passed it to my editor, he pointed out the loose ends of some descriptions, some character interpretation mistakes, and so on. If you’re looking forward to publishing something formally – say a professional document or even a book, you just can’t replace a human editor here.

Grammarly has come a long way into making a better world for writers today, but a human editor for professional writing can’t be replaced. It is best used for commercial and casual writing.

So it wouldn’t be ideal to use Grammarly for language mastery. You learn new words, improving your vocabulary, and correct your writing style. It isn’t intended for the next level of professional writing.

Anyway, Grammarly and a real reader can’t be compared. They are not meant to be. There is no need to make a choice between them. They are both used for different purposes.

Read about it on: When Should You Not Use Grammarly?

TailPiece:

Is Grammarly Premium Worth it: To be sure you have everything covered in your writing, to give it your best, there is nothing wrong with giving Grammarly a chance to help you. If you are deep into writing, then it is completely worth it! 🙂

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