Are you looking into refining your skill as a writer and improving the quality of your articles? Then what you need is a proofreading tool like Grammarly. It is an online tool that checks and corrects various writing errors.
A quick look into the Grammarly pricing page reveals that they offer various membership plans, one of which is completely free.
What Is Included in the Free Plan?
Grammarly’s free plan covers three proofreading features: common grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and punctuation blunders. It will share with you some info on the more advanced errors you have committed in your article, but it won’t provide the suggested corrections for these issues unless you sign up for a Grammarly premium plan.
What Is Included in the Premium Plan?
Aside from the features included in the free plan, premium membership will also allow you to enjoy the following:
- Consistency Checks: This ensures that your spelling and punctuation are consistent.
- Sentence Rewrites: This feature rephrases long and confusing sentences to improve clarity and conciseness.
- Formatting: A paid plan can help improve any formatting issues, like bulleting and spacing.
- Tone Detection: Another interesting feature is tone detection. It can significantly improve the consistency and formality of your writing.
- Finally, we also appreciate that Grammarly has included a reliable plagiarism checker in their paid plan. In this way, you won’t have to use and pay for a separate tool just to make sure that your articles are unique and original.
There are definitely other features included in the paid membership option that we weren’t able to mention above. These are simply the ones we use more frequently.
How to Get the Premium Plan for Less
While signing up for a premium plan is certainly a worthwhile investment, we understand that not everyone has the budget to pay for it in full. Fortunately, there are ways to get the premium plan at a lower price.
- Avail of the Annual Discount: There are three payment methods to avail of the premium plan: monthly, quarterly, and annual. Availing the quarterly option will allow you to save up to 33% compared to the monthly payment option, while the annual plan will give you up to 61% off.
- Avail of the Student Discount: Students who have an official institutional email, such as name@university.edu, will enjoy Grammarly’s student discount.
- Keep an Eye Out for Seasonal Discounts: Grammarly holds sales every once in a while, so make sure you subscribe to their promotional emails.
- Share Your Account With a Friend: Finally, you can also find a friend willing to share the cost with you to pull the price down.
How to Get the Premium Plan for Free
Did you know that there are also a couple of ways to get a Grammarly premium account for free? Students of educational institutions that partnered with Grammarly can enjoy a free premium plan. They only need to obtain the access code from their school and use it when signing up. You can check out this post by Academia for more information.
The other option is to become a Grammarly affiliate marketer. Not only will you enjoy a premium account for free, but it will also allow you to earn extra income with each successful membership using your link.
Please note that they also offer a free seven-day trial. It’s not as long-term as the methods we have shared above, but it can still be useful if you only need the full features for a particular paper or project.
Grammarly Alternatives
Finally, you can also explore more affordable proofreading tools like:
ProWritingAid
Like Grammarly, this tool also edits your documents, detects plagiarism, and improves your writing style for better accuracy and consistency. While the free account may seem terribly limited compared to Grammarly’s free version (for instance, it only allows editing 500 words at a time), the premium plan’s cost is significantly cheaper.
WhiteSmoke
Another cheaper alternative is WhiteSmoke. The monthly cost of their premium plan is similar to ProWritingAid’s. They won’t require you to pay the annual fee upfront, though. This makes them ideal for those who don’t have the budget for an annual lump sum. Our only complaint with this tool is that they don’t offer a free plan or trial option.
Reverso
Finally, there’s Reverso, which is an online grammar checker and translation tool. Again, their free option may be severely limited compared to Grammarly’s (they only offer to check your first 2500 words for free). Still, their pay-as-you-go option is definitely useful for those who don’t use proofreading tools that often.
To Sum Up
Grammarly can be a handy tool for students, writers, or just active online users in general. However, you will be required to sign up for a paid plan if you want to enjoy all its features in full.
Fortunately, there are different ways to get a premium membership for free or at a significantly lower price. You can also explore more affordable alternatives like the ones we have shared above.