Grammarly is the default for a reason: it catches mistakes everywhere you write, and the free plan is genuinely useful. But Pro costs about $12 a month on annual billing and around $30 if you pay month to month, and many people only use a fraction of what it does. Others need things Grammarly doesn’t do well, like checking text in several languages or getting deeper feedback on long documents.
The good news is that the best Grammarly alternatives are often cheaper, and some are free. This guide compares the ones worth knowing, explains what each does better than Grammarly, and is honest about when Grammarly is still the right choice.
When You Should Look for a Grammarly Alternative
- You write in more than one language. Grammarly works only in English. Some alternatives check 30 or more languages.
- You want a cheaper paid plan. Several tools cost half as much or less on annual billing.
- You write long documents. Writers and students often want detailed style reports, not just corrections.
- You mainly need rephrasing. If your sentences are correct but clumsy, a rewriting tool may help more than a grammar checker.
Prices below were checked on official pages and recent pricing reviews in October 2026. Writing tools change their plans often, and prices can differ by country, so confirm the price at checkout.
The Best Grammarly Alternatives
LanguageTool: Best for Writing in Several Languages
LanguageTool is the closest all-round alternative to Grammarly. It works in your browser, in Google Docs and in Microsoft Office, and it checks more than 30 languages, switching automatically when you change language mid-text. If you write emails in English and messages in German, Spanish or Portuguese, it covers both.
- Price: free for basic grammar and spelling checks, up to 2,000 characters at a time; Premium costs about $70 per year (under $6 a month), or about $25 month to month.
- Best for: anyone who writes in more than one language, and anyone who wants Grammarly-style checking for a much lower annual price.
ProWritingAid: Best for Long-Form Writing
ProWritingAid goes deeper than grammar. It produces more than 20 reports on your writing, such as repeated words, sentence length, pacing and overused phrases, which is why it’s popular with novelists, bloggers and students. It’s less useful for quick emails and more useful for documents you’ll revise.
- Price: free for checks up to 500 words at a time; Premium is about $120 per year ($10 a month on annual billing); a one-time lifetime license is also available.
- Best for: writers, students and anyone editing long documents.
QuillBot: Cheapest Paid Grammarly Alternative
QuillBot started as a paraphrasing tool and still does that best: it rewrites a sentence in different styles, such as more formal, simpler or shorter. It also includes a free grammar checker and a summarizer, which makes it a good budget all-in-one.
- Price: a free plan with limited paraphrasing; Premium is $8.33 per month billed annually, with monthly billing costing more. See QuillBot’s pricing.
- Best for: rephrasing and simplifying on a budget.
Wordtune: Best for Rewriting Sentences
Wordtune focuses on how a sentence sounds. Select any sentence and it offers several rewrites: more casual, more formal, shorter or longer. Grammar and spelling checks are free and unlimited; the AI rewrites are what you pay for.
- Price: free with 10 rewrites a day and unlimited grammar checks; paid plans add more rewrites, with prices that vary by billing period. Check Wordtune’s site for the current price.
- Best for: people who know what they want to say but want it to sound better.
Hemingway Editor: Best for Clear, Simple Writing
Hemingway Editor doesn’t try to catch every grammar mistake. Instead, it highlights long, hard-to-read sentences, passive voice and unnecessary words, and gives your text a readability grade. The free web version is enough for most people; a paid plan adds AI rewrites.
- Price: the web editor is free; paid AI features are an optional subscription.
- Best for: making reports, articles and emails shorter and easier to read.
The Best Free Grammarly Alternatives
If you don’t want to pay anything, these free options cover most needs:
- LanguageTool Free for everyday grammar and spelling, in many languages.
- DeepL Write for making a sentence sound natural. The free version handles up to 1,500 characters at a time, enough for most emails.
- Hemingway Editor for readability, free in the browser.
- ChatGPT for explanations. Paste a paragraph and ask it to fix the grammar and list the changes with a reason for each. It’s not a live checker, but it’s an excellent teacher.
- Grammarly Free. It’s worth saying: if you only need basic corrections in English, Grammarly’s own free plan is still one of the best free options.
Cheaper Grammarly Alternatives
If you want a paid plan but not Grammarly’s price, compare the annual cost. LanguageTool Premium costs about $70 a year and QuillBot Premium about $100, compared with roughly $144 for Grammarly Pro on annual billing. ProWritingAid is similar to Grammarly in price but offers a one-time lifetime license, which pays off if you plan to use it for years. Whichever you choose, annual billing is almost always much cheaper than paying monthly.
Quick Comparison
| Tool | Free plan | Paid from (annual) | Languages | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grammarly | Yes | About $12/mo | English | Catching mistakes everywhere |
| LanguageTool | Yes, 2,000 characters | About $6/mo | 30+ | Multilingual writing |
| ProWritingAid | Yes, 500 words | $10/mo | English | Long-form writing |
| QuillBot | Yes, limited | $8.33/mo | Several | Paraphrasing on a budget |
| Wordtune | Yes, 10 rewrites/day | Varies | English | Rewriting sentences |
| Hemingway Editor | Yes, web editor | Optional AI plan | English | Clear, simple writing |
| DeepL Write | Yes, 1,500 characters | Paid add-on | Several | Natural phrasing |
When Grammarly Is Still the Best Choice
An honest comparison has to say this: if you write mostly in English, across many apps, and want one tool that works everywhere without thinking about it, Grammarly is still hard to beat. Its browser and desktop integrations are the most polished, and its free plan alone covers most everyday mistakes. Switch when you have a specific reason: price, languages, long-form feedback or rewriting.
Our Pick
For most people, LanguageTool is the best Grammarly alternative: it works in the same places, checks many languages, and Premium costs about half as much as Grammarly Pro on annual billing. Choose ProWritingAid if you write long documents, QuillBot if you mainly rephrase, and Hemingway Editor plus DeepL Write if you want a completely free setup.
If English is your second language, our guide to AI writing tools for non-native English speakers shows how to combine these tools without losing your own voice.
The Tool Is the Smallest Part
Every one of these tools will make your writing cleaner. None of them will make it clearer than your thinking. Write the draft yourself, let the tool fix what it can, and keep the suggestions that sound like you.
Keep reading: the best speech to text apps for work · the best AI productivity tools for remote professionals
