There they are, invading your copy — misspelled words, rogue commas, and muddled sentences. Writers of all skill levels grapple with these issues, but the best grammar tools on the market can save the day. Supercharged by artificial intelligence, they sweep away mistakes, improve clarity, and make it easier for readers to consume your content.
Of course, you have to pick the right grammar checker for your needs, whether you’re focused on readability, tone, or AI-assisted inspiration. To whittle down the top candidates, we tested popular platforms for accuracy and helpfulness. You’ll find the results below, along with tips on using these tools to craft content that is both smooth and compelling.
Evolution of Grammar Tools
Grammar tools have come a long way since the 1980s, when they were built into word processors, such as WordPerfect and Microsoft Word. At the time, these rudimentary spell checkers were designed to detect simple errors that might have slipped through during manual proofreading.
As technology advanced, so did the capabilities of the tools. Those squiggly lines were there to catch missteps, such as run-on sentences and confusion between “its” and “it’s.” Eventually, grammar tools took on lives of their own, leaving the confines of word-processing programs behind and launching as powerful standalone tools.
From basic spell-check to AI-enhanced correctors
And now, the real game changer has arrived: artificial intelligence (AI). AI-enhanced correctors analyze vast amounts of text and learn from natural language patterns. They’re pushing grammar tools beyond simple mechanics, offering guidance for tone and voice, restructuring sentences to captivate readers, and generating ideas to help smash your writer’s block.
Best Grammar Tools
We took the best grammar checkers on a test drive, creating an error-riddled paragraph as a benchmark. We compared each tool’s accuracy in detecting mistakes and how well their AI features improved our writing sample.
Grammarly: Beyond basic grammar checking
One of the pioneer tools in grammar checking, Grammarly, has you covered for spelling, grammar, and clarity. A premium or business subscription unlocks advanced suggestions for nuanced word choice and tone to better engage your target audience. We also like the built-in AI writing tool. Simply highlight the text you’ve written and click “improve it.”
Key features of Grammarly
- Checks the correctness of copy, including spelling and grammar
- Highlights wordiness and clarity issues
- Provides generative AI to help with content creation
- Offers word suggestions to make copy more impactful
- Detects tone to help you better connect with your audience
- Checks for plagiarism
- Allows customized style guides
Accuracy and helpfulness
Grammarly performed well in detecting common errors. It was also one of the only tools that noticed both a numeral and a spelled-out number in the same sentence. Its word recommendations were consistently reliable.
The tool’s generative AI feature also did well with our test paragraph. It transformed awkward phrasing in a pet adoption scenario into a more concise and engaging narrative:
Our snippet: Bringing a cat home as a new pet can be an exciting and a rewarding experience. However, it’s important to be prepared for the responsibility that come’s with caring for a cat.
Grammarly’s version: Getting a new cat can be a thrilling and rewarding experience, but it’s important to be prepared for the responsibility that comes with it.
Grammarly integrations
- Email clients: Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail
- Apps: Google Docs, Word, Teams, Slack, PowerPoint
- Social platforms: LinkedIn, X
- Browsers: Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox
- Devices: iOS, Android, Mac
Grammarly pricing
- Free version: Limited to 100 AI prompts
- Premium: $12 USD monthly, billed annually
- Business: $15 USD monthly per member
- Trial offers: 7-day free trial for paid plans
Hemingway Editor: Clarity is key
Hemingway Editor assigns a grade-level score to your copy so you can make it accessible for your target audience. It recommends aiming for a 9th-grade reading level for general readability, although higher levels may be acceptable for academic or highly technical audiences.
A word of caution: Hemingway is a style checker. Since it doesn’t catch common grammar and spelling mistakes, be sure to proofread in another tool.
Key features of Hemingway
- Calculates a grade-level readability score for your copy
- Highlights unnecessary words, jargon, and hard-to-read sentences
- Uses color-coding to prioritize issues
- Includes formatting options, such as headers, bullets, italics, bold, and links
- Exports final copy to text, PDF, and Word
- Converts copy to HTML for publishing on the web
- Saves editing suggestions as a PDF so you can share them with colleagues
- Rewrites sentences instantly using AI (Hemingway Editor Plus only)
Accuracy and helpfulness
Hemingway is included in our list for its grade-level reading scores, which are useful for making complex copy more accessible. It’s not a grammar checker, however, so mistakes such as “they’re” versus “their” slip by. We also found Hemingway’s AI tool isn’t as powerful as other platforms. It simplified one of our long sentences into several short ones. This brings the grade level score down, but the result isn’t particularly engaging:
Our snippet: Provide plenty of hiding places, toys, and a cozy bed and don’t forget to cat-proof your home by removing hazardous object’s and securing your windows and door.
Hemingway’s version: Provide plenty of hiding places, toys, and a cozy bed. Don’t forget to cat-proof your home. Remove hazardous objects and secure your windows and doors.
Hemingway integrations
- macOS
- Windows
- WordPress
- Medium
Hemingway pricing
- Online version is free
- Hemingway Editor (desktop): $19.99 USD one-time purchase
- Hemingway Editor Plus (AI): Starting at $10 USD monthly
ProWritingAid: For the detail-oriented editor
ProWritingAid is a solid grammar tool. It deftly handles grammar, style, and clarity, and it helps you achieve the right tone for your audience. We also like how the platform helps improve your writing skills by explaining the rationale behind recommended changes, complete with links to resource articles.
Key features of ProWritingAid
- Checks for spelling, grammar, and common style issues, such as passive voice
- Customizes suggestions based on document type: academic, business, casual, creative
- Provides in-depth analysis of elements such as transitions, overused words, and pacing
- Tracks readability, sentence length, and variety based on averages for the genre
- Paraphrases content according to your specifications (i.e., shorten, expand, or make the tone more formal)
- Provides advanced AI “sparks” to improve word choice, remove repetitions, edit transitions, and add analogies
Accuracy and helpfulness
We purposely overloaded our test paragraph with the word “cat” to see if any of the platforms would notice the monotony. ProWritingAid was one of the only tools to call us out on it, suggesting alternatives such as “feline,” “kitten,” and “kitty” for variety. The tool’s AI rewrites were also solid, turning a cluttered sentence into something more succinct. Here’s an example:
Our snippet: Provide plenty of hiding places, toys, and a cozy bed and don’t forget to cat-proof your home by removing hazardous object’s and securing your windows and door.
ProWritingAid’s version: Make sure to provide hiding spots, toys, and a comfy bed for your cat. Also, cat-proof your home by removing dangerous items and securing windows and doors.
ProWritingAid integrations
- Microsoft Word for Windows
- Windows apps
- Mac apps
- Google Docs
- Safari
- Chrome
- Edge
- Firefox
- Scrivener
- OpenOffice
ProWritingAid pricing
- Free version is limited to 500 words, 10 rephrases, and three AI Sparks per day
- Premium: $10 USD monthly, billed yearly
- Premium Pro: $12 USD monthly, billed yearly
- Guarantee: No free trial but a 14-day money-back guarantee is available
QuillBot: Rewriting with intelligence
QuillBot reliably finds spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes while finessing content to boost reader engagement. With support for multiple languages, it is well-suited for those working in international audiences. These features are wrapped up in a clean, easy-to-use interface.
QuillBot features
- Checks copy for correctness
- Recommends improved wording
- Customizes recommendations according to creative, academic, and custom audiences
- Supports German, French, and Spanish
- Translates text to more than 45 languages
- Offers AI-powered features for writing assistance
- Checks for plagiarism
Accuracy and helpfulness
QuillBot performed impressively in our test. It caught subtle issues other tools didn’t, such as the lack of parallelism in the phrase “windows and door.” Even more intriguing — when asked to rewrite the copy, it not only created compelling text but also added new information to flesh out the topic. Note the mention of cat nutrition in the rewrite below.
Our snippet: And then there’s the most important gift you can give your cat: affection. With patience and love, soon you will forge a strong bond with your pet, enriching both of your live’s for years to come.
QuillBot’s version: Remember to also provide a balanced diet and fresh water for your cat, as nutrition plays a key role in their overall health and well-being. Additionally, spend quality time playing and interacting with your cat to ensure they are mentally stimulated and happy.
QuillBot integrations
- Google Chrome
- Google Docs
- macOS
- Microsoft Edge
- Microsoft Office
- Microsoft Word
QuillBot pricing
- Free version available
- Premium: $8.33 to $19.95 USD per month, depending on billing cycle
- No free trial but offers a 100% money-back guarantee after 3 days
Scribens: The Free Grammar Wizard
Scribens is a straightforward grammar checker. Simply paste in your copy, click the highlighted areas, and accept or ignore the tool’s suggestions. You can check up to 8,000 characters of text at a time, which is generous for a free platform. Like Hemingway, Scribens provides readability scores for your text to help you adjust the comprehension level appropriate for your audience.
Scribens features
- Checks for spelling, grammar, and basic style issues
- Supports English and French text
- Includes Flesch Reading Ease and Gunning Fog Index to gauge text complexity
- Calculates statistics, such as average words per sentence and average syllables per word
- Estimates reading and speaking times for your content
- Includes a customizable dictionary that allows users to add unique or specialized terms
Accuracy and helpfulness
Scribens performs effectively for a free tool. It flags repetitive words to add variety to your writing and suggests alternatives for common words to make your content more impactful.
The grammar checker missed a couple of errors in our test, including sentence fragments and misuse of “they’re” versus “their.” While we prefer other tools for style feedback, Scribens is useful for tracking reading levels and statistics related to word and sentence length.
Scribens integrations
- Office programs: Microsoft Word, Google Docs, OpenOffice, and LibreOffice
- Messaging: Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook, Yahoo, Orange
- Websites: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, WordPress, forms, blogs, and forums
- Mobile devices: Android smartphone and tablet, iPhone, iPad
Scribens pricing
- Free version is limited to 125 words in the paraphrasing tool
- Premium: 4.16 € to 9.90 € monthly, depending on billing cycle (approximately $4.50 to $10.75 USD)
Customization and Flexibility in Grammar Tools
While some grammar rules are set in stone, your writing style and word choice should be adjusted to fit your audience. For example, the phrase “core competency” is appropriate for a white paper targeted to HR executives, but the simpler “key skill” resonates more with job seekers.
It can be challenging to achieve the right tone for different readers and maintain it consistently throughout a document. Thankfully, AI-enabled grammar tools can cut down on the time it takes to fine-tune your content. They’ve processed huge amounts of text to find patterns and variations and can quickly come up with words and phrasing that make sense for a particular scenario. This helps you connect with audiences more effectively, leading to better engagement and understanding of your content.
Tailoring tools to your writing style
We have to give kudos to ProWritingAid for its ability to tailor suggestions to specific audiences. The platform lets you select a writing style for various content types: general, academic, business, technical, creative, casual, web, and script. Each style has certain rules and targets that influence the recommendations you receive. For example, passive voice is more acceptable in academic writing, whereas web content benefits from shorter sentences. If the preset rules don’t meet your needs, simply customize your own to achieve the results you need.
Integrating Grammar Tools Into Your Writing Process
As grammar tools become more powerful, they significantly change our approach to writing. In the past, we’d run a spell check at the end of the writing process to find mistakes. Now, AI grammar tools provide valuable writing support from the time you open a new document to the moment you hit publish. They can kick-start your writing, fix mistakes, remove jargon, and help you achieve the right voice.
With these benefits in mind, many companies are rethinking how to use grammar checkers to enhance the content production process. By incorporating AI grammar tools into our workflow, we can produce higher-quality content in less time. This shift in approach has led to increased efficiency and improved overall writing outcomes for many organizations.
Streamlining your workflow with grammar tools
Here’s how you can incorporate grammar tools into your writing process.
- Install your grammar checker. Many tools can be integrated right into your desktop environment to provide real-time feedback. This saves you from copying and pasting between your word-processing program and the grammar platform.
- Set up your style guides. Customize style guides to align with your writing preferences. You can set up rules for brand and product names, language, and terminology to get things right the first time and simplify the editing process.
- Leverage AI writing suggestions. Stuck on a headline or phrasing? Trying to wrangle an awkward sentence? Make use of AI to get past your writer’s block and accelerate your output.
- Review suggestions. Make judgment calls about whether the recommendations improve your copy. Grammar checkers aren’t always correct, but when they are, try to learn from your mistakes and boost your writing proficiency.
- Revise copy. Fix spelling, typos, grammar, and style inconsistencies. Adjust for tone and voice. Invite feedback from colleagues and editors to ensure your content is accurate and clear.
- Finalize content. Make adjustments to your copy to ensure it’s polished, error-free, and provides value to readers.
Collaboration and sharing: Grammar tools in team projects
Content production is typically collaborative with writers, editors, and subject matter experts contributing before sign-off. Programs such as Google Docs enable shared access, but with so many people involved, it’s easy for inconsistencies to slip in. Use grammar tools throughout the writing process to ensure your content is uniform and cohesive.
For instance, Zapier implemented Grammarly to create a company-wide style guide. This ensured branded terms and names of partner apps were used correctly throughout their communications. Previously, writers and editors spent a significant amount of time tracking down the right language and fixing errors. By utilizing a grammar tool, Zapier ensured proper language usage at the writing stage, streamlining editing and maintaining a cohesive style. This ultimately saved time and improved content quality.
Grammar Tools and the Future of Writing
As artificial intelligence evolves, the best grammar tools are becoming inseparable from the writing process. We’re already seeing these platforms folded into our daily work environments, sparking and condensing ideas and enhancing readability. With ongoing developments in machine learning, AI-enabled tools will likely get better at analyzing language nuances, personalizing content, and refining suggestions for specific audiences.
What does that mean for those of us crafting content? Well, “old-school writing” isn’t going away, according to author Rishad Tobaccowala. He predicts, “AI will replace many writers — the hack writers. It will not replace writers … who focus on communing and connecting with human minds and emotions.”
Tobaccowala emphasizes that AI helps writers produce better content. “The best writers today use AI as an input to power, expand, and challenge themselves in ways that improve their writing and expand their thinking. AI expands the palette and opens new horizons,” he said.
This aligns with how we approach AI at Crowd Content. Modern grammar checkers and AI content creation tools are just that — tools — not replacements for your own creativity and expertise. As discussed in a recent episode of the Crowd Content podcast (20:52), purely AI content is based on what’s already been published. It doesn’t inspire engagement and conversions. To have an impact on your audience, make sure what you’re publishing is helpful to readers, weave in interesting opinions and insights, and satisfy your audience’s needs.
Real-World Success Stories: Grammar Tools in Action
We’ve compiled some examples to show you how marketers, writers, and professionals are leveraging the capabilities of these powerful platforms. Check out the stories below to explore the potential of AI grammar tools in enriching content production.
Case studies: Transforming writing with grammar tools
Zoom experienced an unprecedented demand on its services a few years ago when businesses turned to work-from-home models. Its teams struggled to keep up with communications on a global basis. The company turned to Grammarly’s business platform to ensure consistent use of terminology, brand voice, and messaging. Zoom estimates this saved 7,000 hours of staff time, speeding up staff onboarding and removing bottlenecks in reviewing content. Grammarly’s real-time writing assistance also boosted the confidence of individual team members in their communication skills.
Grammarly also provides a striking example of how its business tool helps writers achieve the right tone. HackerOne, a platform that enables hackers to work alongside brands to identify security vulnerabilities, has two distinct audiences. By using custom style guides and a tone detector, HackerOne was able to better communicate in a professional tone with enterprise clients and, more informally, with the hacker community. As a result, communications improved by 68% across pillars such as clarity, engagement, and correctness.
From skeptic to advocate: A user experience example
Anja Wedberg, Senior Content Editor at NOA Ignite, felt confident in her writing skills until plugging an article into Hemingway Editor. “I had overall positive feedback about this article,” she explained on the company’s blog. When Hemingway almost completely marked up the piece, she took a closer look and reworked it for readability. She brought it from a grade 12 reading level to grade 8.
She shared on the company’s blog, “What the average writer thinks is easy to read is not the same as what the average reader finds easy to read. At the end of the day, the main question is: Do we want to make sure that our texts can be understood by most people? If the answer to that is yes, we had better listen to Hemingway.”
Master Your Content With the Right Tools and Expertise
Modern-day grammar checkers work alongside you as you write, eliminating mistakes and capturing the right tone for your audience. They also lean on artificial intelligence to energize the writing process and help you better express your thoughts. The results? Smooth, polished prose and less time tussling with content.
While AI tools can improve your copy, it still needs substance to engage readers and drive conversions. Remember to infuse your writing with real-life opinions and expertise. By combining the efficiency of AI tools with your unique perspective, you can create more meaningful content that resonates with your audience. Discover how the right grammar tools, combined with Crowd Content’s professional content creation services, can elevate your writing.
