Grammarly Review – Features, Pros, Cons and My Verdict

Grammarly review 2019

In this article, we will review Grammarly — The Grammar checker and proofreading tool. We will look at its features, its pros and cons, its plagiarism checker, and finally, I’ll give you my verdict.

Whether investing in a Grammarly premium even worth it?

I’ve been using Grammarly for over a year, and now I believe I’m in a great position to review Grammarly. I would also like to specify that Grammarly was not my first and only choice. 

There several proofreading tools out there, and I’ve used almost all the popular ones.

People like me, who are not from a country that has English as their native language, tend to struggle with English grammar and proper punctuation. 

It’s nothing to be ashamed of; because though we are not an expert in the English language, we know enough to make sense to a listener or a reader.

We should always be proud of our mother tongue and keep learning English as it’s the language that is most understood around the world.

If you aspire to become a successful blogger or a writer, a good command over the English language is highly recommended.

One of the best ways to improve one’s English and communication is by writing whatever comes to one’s mind. By writing, we can pinpoint our mistakes when it comes to English grammar or punctuation and improves on them by focusing on the troubling parts.

If you are a native writer, proofreading tools are equally essential for you too. I have no doubt you are a great writer, but people make mistakes; even the top writers commit silly mistakes while writing.

To err is human, right? To identify these errors in our writing tools like Grammarly come in handy.

I’ve decided to review Grammarly because it’s considered one of the best freemium automated tools that help in proofreading our writing.

We will deeply understand what features do Grammarly premium gives, and are they worth spending your precious money in this review.

Grammarly Review: Grammar Checker

Grammarly can help you in writing better content while you’re writing an article on your website, captions, or description on social media, academic papers, an essay, or an email.

By using Grammarly, you can make sure you don’t commit any silly mistakes and present your idea in a crisp, clear, and flawless way.

Grammarly proofreads your content in real-time and underlines mistakes while you are typing so you can re-look the mistakes there self. You can also check for errors after you’re finished writing.

There are various features on Grammarly; We will go through some important ones below:

Review: Features of Grammarly

1. Grammar checker

I’ve done multiple tests to check its effectiveness and comparing it with other grammar checking tools. 

After many tests, I’ve come to the conclusion that Grammarly is the best grammar checker out there.

I’m using it for more than a year, and I feel that Grammarly can find punctuation errors almost instantly.

Punctuation errors are the most common form of mistake most writers do. When a writer is in his writing flow, he often misses commas and full stops here and there. When you use Grammarly, the part where punctuation is missing gets underlined.

Unlike other grammar checkers, Grammarly works on an AI system. It means not only Grammarly follows general English grammar rules but also takes the context of the sentence into account while checking for errors.

This means when you write ‘You’re ‘instead of ‘You’re,’ it will tell you that even though the spelling is right, but the use of the word in this context is wrong.

Grammarly is more than punctuation and spell checker. It also lets you know if your content has any mistakes on structural problems or misused words, as well as typos.

2. Instant Review and Feedback

When you submit your document on Grammarly its reviews, the content thoroughly and gives you remarks on errors.

To use this feature, you have to enable a consultation so that it can give you remarks.

You can then go through your content and underlined mistakes and change those mistakes appropriately. In case you don’t understand and remark, there will be a 2-3 description as to what is wrong with the word or sentence.

This description helps non-native English users to learn English properly because they can keep in mind the mistake they made and avoid the same in the future. These explanations are also a great way to improve grammar for native users as well.

However, you can check for the mistakes in real-time too. But I prefer writing 2-3 paragraphs and then copy-paste it in Grammarly, and only after I’ve reviewed my complete article, I publish it.

3. Customization

This is a great feature when you are trying to write for a specific purpose and for particular people. This feature enhances your content to suit your target audience.

You can choose the intent of your content, which can be to inform, describe, or story-telling.

Then you can choose the level of understanding of your audience- General, knowledgeable, or expert.

After that, what type of writing style are you going for? Is it formal or informal, and what kind of emotion are to trying to convey strong or mild.

You just have to select the settings, and Grammarly will suggest the appropriate way to write the content in that setting. 

Suppose you have to email your boss to inform him about something, then you must select the intent to inform. 

The reader, which is your boss, is, in this case, is, of course, knowledgeable; the writing must be formal and emotion mild.

You also have an option to choose the dialect of the English language like British, American, Canadian, or Australian English.

4. Flexible Integration

Though the application is mainly web-based, it provides seamless integration with various web browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Safari.

On the web application, you can upload your text or copy and paste it on its editor for a check.

Another version of Grammarly comes with an add-in for Microsoft Office, which is quite handy if you draft your content in MS Word.

Grammarly has also come up with an app called Grammarly keyboard, which is available for both Android and iOS. 

This app analyzes your texts and checks for errors like typos and punctuation. So, you don’t have to care about being embarrassed about social media because of your poor English.

It helps in creating flawless tweets, emails, captions, text messages, and much more.

Review: Pros and Cons of Grammarly


Pros:

1. Basic grammar and spell check is free forever

2. Vocabulary enhancement suggestions are also available while typing.

3. Premium version includes plagiarism checker, so you don’t have to pay for another tool to check plagiarism of your content and in your content.

4. Easy browser extensions

5. It points more 250 contextual and grammatical mistakes

6. Fast, impressive and friendly customer care support

7. Free Grammarly keyboard app

8. The premium plan is quite affordable if you understand its utility.


Cons:

1. No automated tool can give 100% accurate results, but looking

at its competitors, Grammarly is relatively accurate.

2. It’s an online tool; when you are offline, the tool is disabled.

3. If you are a creative writer and write things like poems or songs, your suggestions will ruin the flow.

4. it won’t work on a few websites.


Grammarly Review: Plagiarism Checker

I’ve used over 6-7 top plagiarism tools like Copyscrape, plagscan, copyleaks, plagiarizechecker, plagiarismdetector.net, etc. and through the experience, I can say Grammarly plagiarism tool is on a par with these tools.

Grammarly detects all kinds’ plagiarism through billions of webpages as well as ProQuest’s academic databases.

Therefore, its utility is not limited to only search engine optimization purposes only. It can be used to check plagiarism in academic papers too.

In a free version, you can check whether or not your document is plagiarized. But to know the sources, you must upgrade your account to the premium version.

Another great thing about the plagiarism tool is that unlike other similar tools, it has pretty high daily and monthly limits.

In one day, a user can check 100 documents with not over a 50,000-word count; in a month, a user can check 300 documents with 1.5 million word counts. In other words, a user can check three novels’ worth of content for plagiarism in Grammarly.

The good thing is by paying for the premium version, you’ll get the benefit of two essential tools in one tool, the plagiarism checker and the grammar checker. This is a pretty sweet deal!

Ways to Use Grammarly

As you may already know, Grammarly is a freemium tool, which means it offers both free and premium services. If you don’t want to pay for the premium version, you can sign up for a free account.

#1 Grammarly Browser Extension

The next step is to install the web browser extension for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Safari.

To download Grammarly on Google Chrome, click on more tools > extensions > visit chrome web store > search for ‘Grammarly for Chrome’> Add to chrome.

Grammarly Google Chrome extension

After the installation, Grammarly will scan your text and highlight the errors by underlining the text. It will also show the number of mistakes in the text in the bottom right of the editor.

#2 Grammarly Website

You can proofread your document and check for plagiarism directly from the Grammarly website from your Windows or Mac computer.

You can upload the document of copy-paste the text directly to the desktop website, and it will instantly check for issues in your content.

#3 Grammarly Mobile App

Using the extension is very handy when you or online through your PC or laptop. But what if you want to type on your smartphone?

For this, you have to install the Grammarly keyboard app, which is available in both the Google app store as well as in the iOS store.

It can be handy while you are typing a text message, a social media post, or a caption or sending emails from your mobile.

#4 Add-In for MS Office

If you compose your content on the MS office, then the Add-In for Word and Outlook will be very useful to you.

To install the Add-in, log in to your Grammarly dashboard and click on Download Add-in.

Grammarly Free vs. Grammarly Premium: How much does it cost?

Here, a chart that differentiates free from the premium version of Grammarly.

Review: Grammarly premium features

If you are new to Grammarly, just try the free version for few weeks, and if you then feel that Premium version will help you create better content for blogs, reports, emails, etc. then you should go for it.

Grammarly premium vs grammarly free

As far as pricing is concern looking at its utility for professional content creators and writers, I feel it’s very affordable and cost-effective.

Grammarly pricing

Bottom Line: My verdict

There are various other grammar checkers out there with additional features and that cost less than Grammarly such as WhiteSmoke, ProWritingAid, Ginger, Hemingway editor, etc.

Even though I still believe a Grammarly premium is the best online grammar checker. For that fact, its interface is straightforward, easy to use, and more accurate. It also comes with a good plagiarism checker, which is a bonus.

I still believe no proofreading tool can replace a professional human editor, but it does excellent work for the purpose they created it. Grammarly is a must-have tool for all professional writers who are continually creating long-form content.

If you find this Grammarly review helpful, please do share it with your friends. Below I’m answering some frequently asked questions about Grammarly. Thanks for reading, Ciao!

Frequently asked questions

What’s the best way to use Grammarly?

There is no best way to use Grammarly, you can copy-paste your content on the Grammarly editor, you can also upload the whole document. Another way to use is to spot-check your grammar in real-time.

How to create a Grammarly account?

Go to Grammarly Sign-up page > Fill in the required information > you’ll receive a confirmation email > Validate your account, and you are good to go.

How to send technical support requests?

All technical support requests should be sent to https://support.grammarly.com.

What are the free products that Grammarly offers?

Grammarly offers free online text editor, plagiarism checker, browser extensions and mobile keyboard app.

How much does Grammarly premium cost?

Grammarly Premium monthly subscription costs $29.95 per month, quarterly $19.98 per month, billed as one payment of $59.95 and annual subscription costs $11.66 per month, billed as one payment of $139.95.

how much does Grammarly premium costs? plans and pricing

How Grammarly works?

Grammarly is an AI-powered tool that detects grammar, punctuations and spelling errors. It also points out structural issues and incorrect contextual words while you type and help you create flawless content.

What is the Grammarly keyboard?

Grammarly keyboard is a mobile app that helps users to write error-free social posts, emails, text messages and documents. It checks spelling, punctuation, grammatical mistakes, and capitalization errors.

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